Review: Playing Easy to Get

With two of my favorite authors involved, I knew I would enjoy the anthology Playing Easy to Get.

The first of three novellas was Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “Turn Up the Heat.” This offering is loosely tied in to her BAD Agency series, but only just-barely. The story focuses on Allison, an average woman from Georgia, who works in a dead end job and has no prospects for love.  She spent the last several years caring for a dying mother. She just just broke up with her two timing boyfriend. And her favorite escape is found in her steamy romance novels.

An old friend helps Allison win a contest designed to let a romance reader live out her fantasy on an island for a week. It’s there she meets Vince.  He’s on the run from the Mafia and hiding out among the actors. Sparks fly between them and things heat up quickly.  Of course, the bad guys are on Vince’s tail. But the island is also a training station for some members of the BAD Agency. So, in the end, familiar faces Joe & Tee help save the day. 

The second story was “Hunter’s Oath” by Jaid Black. I did not enjoy it.  Our leading lady, Sofia, has been kidnapped from Alaska and dragged to an underground Viking world to be auctioned off as a Viking’s bride. She is stripped nude, put on an auction block, and purchased.  And in the end, she falls for her new husband and comes to accept their way of life. I’m sorry. I just can’t get past the premise.

The final novella was “The Warlord Wants Forever,” the story that kicks off Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series. The book is worth it for this story alone. It features Niklolai Wroth, a vampire warlord, who meets his fated Bride, Myst the Valkyrie.  Myst is a prisoner in the castle Wroth has conquered. He hopes to use her to learn more about the creatures of the supernatural community, but he can’t resist his attraction to her. The feeling is mutual, but Myst’s Valkyrie sisters rescue her before they can consummate their relationship.  So Wroth spends five painful years searching for his missing Bride. When he finally finds her, he finds out he can control her by wielding the chain he pulls from around her waist.  Only, it’s not the power of the chain that makes Myst fall for her warlord.  It happens all on its own.  As with all IAD stories, this one is hot and super sexy. And we get to read the foundation for the main storylines in several books to come.

Alone, I’d give the Sherrilyn Kenyon story 4 stars, the Jaid Black story 2 stars, and the Kresley Cole story 5 stars.  An anthology worth the time and the money.