Title: Raw Heat
Series: Larson Brothers Book #3
Author: Cherrie Lynn
Genre: Romance, Erotica
Blurb: Youngest Larson brother Damien has the luck of the devil. Fast talking and faster thinking, he owns a successful nightclub in Houston and runs an illegal poker room upstairs. After a troubled childhood, now nothing is out of Damien’s reach—except his accountant, Emma Haskell.
Emma has always been drawn to Damien’s dark intensity and the gleam in his eyes that promises more than she can possibly handle. But when her brother’s gambling threatens to destroy her family, Damien makes her an offer she’d be crazy to accept—but can’t refuse: her brother’s debts will be forgiven, and Emma belongs to him for thirty days.
In Damien’s world, he shows his angelic bookkeeper what it’s like to live with the devil. But Emma brings out a side in Damien he thought didn’t exist. Will the flames of lust scorch them both, or will this beauty tame the beast and give him something to fight for?
Favorite excerpt: “I worked for days on that. Overtime, away from my dog. And it was all a setup? God!”
“This might very well be the first time I’ve ever seen you speechless.”
“Because of you! Because you are a terrible, awful, bad, awful person!”
“You said awful twice.”
“I meant it twice. You’re two times as awful as the most awful person.”
“But you passed, Emma.”
“Oh, f%#k you.”
Thoughts: We’ve all at least heard about Indecent Proposal in which a billionaire offers $1,000,000 to a young married couple for one night with the wife. Substitute a brother willing to offer up his sister in there and you have the basic scenario for this book. Emma’s brother is addicted to gambling and has lost a large portion of money in gambling debts. And Emma works for the baddest of the bad gamblers, Damien Larson, who agrees to settle the brother’s debts in return for 30 days with Emma. I was hoping for an excellent book, but part of me was expecting to just get an average book that didn’t really catch you up in the characters. Fortunately, I got the excellent book instead!
This is the first book I’ve read by the author, Cherrie Lynn. I was unfamiliar with the first two books in the series. Fortunately, this book is also easily read as a standalone title. The brothers, of course, have brief scenes in the book, but you don’t have that overwhelming sensation that you’ve missed something. I really enjoyed her style of writing and the realistic feel she brings to her characters. Emma was so innocent, but she also had a way of flat out saying what was on her mind that endeared her to you. She liked pushing Damien’s buttons and seeing his reactions. Overall, you just love her character. Damien was a bit more standoffish and had issues in his past that made him come off as an ass sometimes, but he was never so overwhelmingly so that you despised his character or that it ruined the book for you. Actually, by the end you were rooting for the guy! I felt like as a person he was standoffish, and that came off in the writing in that we – as readers – also had to struggle to get to know him as a person. Lynn had a unique way of writing and I felt that added an originality to her writing.
Raw Heat was an enjoyable read and I will be seeking out the other books in this series for sure!
Rate: A
