Aug 11 2006
REVIEW: Yule Be Mine by Charlene Teglia
Charlene,
I love this book! I love Luke and I love Jordan and I love how they interact. I love their families and I really, really love Luke’s bathroom. I want that bathroom, damn it. But WTF? I went to your website and Fictionwise looking to snag a cover download and the book isn’t being sold now. This sucks. This so totally sucks. I want people to read this book. Now. I’m so glad I bought it before whatever happened to it, happened to it.
Usually contemporary fake fiance(e) books make me cringe. But I hit the fake fiance(e) jackpot with my past two books. I actually believe in them now. How’s that for good writing? From Jordan’s initial personal ad for a man to help her battle her four older brothers’ attempts to set her up over the fall holidays to Luke’s response due to a similar need to dodge his family’s same idea, this book snagged me. Jordan is outrageous without going overboard while Luke’s reactions are stuffed shirt while being realistic. This is screwball comedy at its best.
The sexual tension and situation set ups are fantastic.
She managed to heave, shove and cajole him onto the bed. Luke immediately slumped over, leaving her free to undress him without interference. Jordan quickly removed his shoes, socks and tie and then wrestled him upright to get him out of the jacket and vest before tackling the buttons on his shirt. She’d managed to tug the shirt free and was preparing to slide it off when he started to struggle and slap at her hands.
“Cut it out, Jordan,” he muttered. “Stop undressing me.”
“You can’t sleep like that, Luke, be reasonable.” She got his shirt free and searched for the fastening at the waistband of his pants.
“Jordan. Jordan, God, don’t,” he groaned and grabbed at her hands to still them.
“Luke, I have to take your pants off,” she stated firmly. “If you won’t let me, then do it yourself.”
“No.” He opened his eyes to stare bleakly at her. “I know what you’re trying to do. You want to attack me and have your way with me.”
Well, she did, but not just then. Although he was awfully cute, defending his honor against her imagined lusty advances.
“Why not?” she asked sweetly, running her fingers under the waistband in a teasing gesture.
He frowned at her. “I am not that kind of man.”
“That’s too bad,” Jordan sighed. Then she proceeded to undo his pants and tug them down.
“I mean it, Jordan,” he ground out, fighting for possession of the pants. “Keep your hands to yourself. You aren’t getting my body.”
She won the fight easily and hung his pants over a convenient chair with the rest of his suit. “But Luke, it’s such a great body,” she informed him. It was. All of it. Even in his present muddled state, he was devastating.
“Well, you can’t have it.” His hands went protectively to his jockeys as if he thought she meant to take those next. “Not without marrying me.”
She bit back a smile and just to be contrary took his underwear while he protested and struggled. “But Luke, I will marry you,” Jordan promised as she removed his last piece of clothing.
“You’re lying.” He glared at her ferociously. “You’ll say anything to get your way. You don’t mean it.”
“Yes, I do.” Jordan smiled at him and kissed away his frown. “Now be good and get into bed.”
“No. I’m not getting into bed with you again. You’ll take off the few clothes you ever bother to put on in the first place and I won’t be able to defend myself.” Luke glared some more and pushed her hands away.
Jordan smiled even wider and unzipped her dress. His eyes bulged gratifyingly as the dress fell to the floor and she stepped out of it, wearing nothing but panties and shoes. Then she got rid of those, too, figuring she was properly dressed for the occasion wearing nothing but a smile.
Luke groaned and closed his eyes. “Go away,” he demanded.
“No.”
“Please, Jordan.”
“That’s what you’ll be saying,” she murmured throatily. “Please, Jordan, more.” She climbed onto the bed and wrestled him under the covers. He was heavy and very uncooperative, but she managed eventually.
“You’re naked,” he accused, giving her a wounded look. “Why are you always naked?”
She smiled sweetly at him. “It makes it easier to ravish helpless men.”
He clamped his hands onto her arms in a vise-like grip at that remark. “You’d better not ravish any other helpless men,” he declared threateningly. “It’s bad enough that you flaunt your body at me the way you do. No other men, Jordan, do you understand? I won’t put up with it.”
“Yes, Luke, I understand. But then who am I going to ravish?” Jordan inquired in sweetly reasonable tones. “You won’t let me ravish you.”
He frowned in confusion at that question, and she took advantage of his distraction to get him the rest of the way into bed and joined him before he could come up with another complaint about her presence.
Luke rolled over and without warning hauled her into his embrace. “You can ravish me,” he offered in a somewhat slurred declaration. “But you have to marry me and you can’t leave me in the morning.”
“Well, now, there’s an offer that would stun any woman,” Jordan murmured teasingly. “I accept. But I don’t think you’re up to any ravishing right now. Maybe you should just go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep and it’s all your fault,” he accused bitterly. “You lie there naked and taunt me all night long, telling me what you’re going to do to me, but then you never do.”
As I’ve said in other posts, we book pimps are a prickly lot and rarely hand out A grades but this one deserves it. Oh, and I see at your website that it will be available again but people have to wait until December. That bites. But it can be an early holiday present to themselves.;)
~Jayne
Related posts:
Aug 11, 2006 @ 06:34:24
OMG, an A?! Fear not, Scherazade Tales is out of business but Yule Be Mine is not dead, it’s re-releasing from Cerridwen Press Dec. 2 in ebook and eventually print. Thanks for the great review and rec. : D
Aug 11, 2006 @ 06:42:41
Ack, that’s Dec. 7 and I misspelled ST. I type a lot better when I’m not holding a wiggling baby who likes to help with the keyboard.
Aug 11, 2006 @ 07:15:36
LOL, I can never spell ST either. And I know about squirming bodies. My cat was loving up on me and expecting me to adore him just now. Forget mommy needing to type.
>^-v-^< Kitty needs lovin’ and that’s what’s important.
I think I originally bought Yule Be Mine from LTD before they went out of business. I just figured that somebody would have already started selling it again.
Aug 11, 2006 @ 11:43:39
aww this sounds cute! I want it!!
Aug 11, 2006 @ 13:01:04
Rule #1 for book pimping: making sure we can read it too.
Alas, at least we have a set date for future release. An A review will assuredly have me buying this. It’s not historical but a contemporary—hmmm. I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks for the review and some snippets to tease us with :-)
Aug 11, 2006 @ 13:28:40
OMG, yes! I have the patience of a gnat, and seeing that I FINALLY bought my very first ebook the other day (Leto’s book reviewed here and dirt cheap on SimonSays), now I am ready for more. Has Teglia written anything else — that’s available — that anyone would recommend as highly?
Aug 11, 2006 @ 14:01:14
hmmmmm
I want. Who was the publisher? Off to look in my tbr pile. If I don’t have if it you will have to listen to me whine until Dec.
just saying…
uh not that I would read it RIGHT now ::looks left and right for angie:: I have two current ebooks I am reading and would not put them aside for all the tea in china.
Really! I don’t just say that because angie scares me… much. *eg*
Aug 11, 2006 @ 14:01:18
Jayne reviewed The Gripping Beast but gave it a C.
Aug 11, 2006 @ 14:05:50
Not sure I should answer that, LOL, but I have a printable booklist on my site. By Dec. 06 I’ll have 10 titles available in print and/or ebook. I have another romantic comedy like this at Cerridwen, and most of the rest are at Ellora’s Cave. Love and Rockets, which won the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for best erotic novel is another romantic comedy, and all my titles have a lot of humor in them.
Aug 11, 2006 @ 14:08:14
Hmmm I have The Gripping Beast. I know I do! But where? I really need to get organized and shit. Or stick all ebooks on one gmail account. Hope I didn’t lose it in the great crash of ’06.
But first off to work… poor sybil.
Aug 12, 2006 @ 15:37:55
You should be scared, Sybil. Your name is on THE list until you pony up some reviews. Muahahahaha…
Nov 15, 2006 @ 13:17:40
Ooh, I hope I win this book in the great Thanksgiving Book Giveaway! I would love to read it but can’t find any mention of it anywhere books are sold. Keeping my fingers crossed . . . . .
Nov 16, 2006 @ 08:15:36
Susan, this book is only in ebook form right now. I just checked Charlene’s website and I think it might be released in paperback form later on but it is due out December 7th from Ceridwen Press.
There is a link to Charlene’s website in the first paragraph of the review.