Review: Nauti Boy - Lora Leigh

Too weak to resist young Kelly Salyers's attempts at seduction, Rowdy Mackay left home eight years ago.  Duty as a U.S. Marine put a safe distance between him and the temptation of the nubile Kentucky vixen.  Now Rowdy's back home and ready to engage in the kind of erotic games that have earned him and his two cousins a Nauti-boy reputation.

Once it was Kelly's dream, too, to feel the heat of the boy she desired.  But an attack from a stalker still on the prowl has left Kelly terrified of a man's touch.  Now as fear and desire converge, Rowdy fights to save her from the deadly threats of a stranger, to rid her of her demons and to satisfy a hunger more powerful than either can imagine.

Nauti Series:
Nauti Boy
Nauti Nights
Nauti Dreams
Nauti Intentions
Nauti Deceptions

Visit Lora Leigh's website for more information.

Review:
Rowdy has been crazy about his step-sister Kelly since she was 16 but as he was 22 at the time he didn't feel it would be right to take things any further until she was older.  To escape from her flirting he joined the marines where he has spent the last 8 years until deciding that Kelly is now old enough for him to claim her as his.  When he returns home he finds a very different Kelly from the one he remembers on his last visit a year ago.  Having been the victim of a vicious attempted rape and still being stalked by the perpetrator Kelly has become a shadow of her former self and is very nervous around men - even Rowdy.  With the help of his cousins Dawg and Natches Rowdy is determined to stop her stalker but he also wants to help Kelly regain her confidence and begin a relationship with her.

Having really enjoyed Lora Leigh's Wild Card I was looking forward to reading Nauti Boy but unfortunately I was disappointed and found this one just didn't work for me.  One of the main issues I had was how quickly Rowdy pushed Kelly into a relationship with him and how he immediately asked her to allow his cousins to join them in bed together.  Considering the nature of Kelly's attack and the fact that she was terrified of Rowdy when he first returned home it didn't make sense to me that she would get over her fear so quickly.  I also couldn't understand how she would feel comfortable with some of the sex scenes but I can't really go into more detail without giving spoilers.  I just felt that everything moved far too quickly which made it very unbelievable for me.

I did find I liked their relationship more towards the end of the book but I didn't feel emotionally invested in the characters.  The sex scenes were hot but I noticed several places where the same phrasing was used from Wild Card, perhaps I noticed this more because I read both books one after the other but it still irritated me.  I also found the showdown at the end with the stalker seemed a bit rushed and was over far too quickly and easily.  I had enjoyed the build up throughout the book but felt let down by the ending.  Overall I'm not too sure if I'll be reading the rest of the books in this series although I may pick up the next one if I see it in the library.  I will definitely be continuing with Lora's Elite Ops series though and am looking forward to trying her Seals and Breed series, both of which I've heard good things about.

Source: Library

Other Reviews:
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Review: Wild Card - Lora Leigh

A Fatal Escape

It was supposed to be simple.  All Navy SEAL Nathan Malone had to do was rescue three young girls from a Colombia drug cartel, then allow himself to be captured just long enough to draw out a government spy.  That was before his mission went disastrously wrong ... and before his wife, Bella, was told that Nathan was never coming home.

A Dangerous Desire...

Bella's mourned her husband's death for three long years.  But she has no idea he's alive.  Forced to assume a new identity, the man Nathan was is now dead.  If he can get back to his wife, can he keep the secret of who he really is ... even as desire threatens to consume them?  And as danger threatens to tear Bella from Nathan's arms once more?

Elite Ops Series:
Wild Card
Night Hawk (Free short story)
Maverick
Heat Seeker
Black Jack

Visit Lora Leigh's website for more information.

Review:
When Navy SEAL Nathan went on a mission he thought it was going to be easy and he'd be back with his wife Bella within a couple of weeks.  However, when the mission went wrong he ended up captured and tortured for 19 months.  By the time he was rescued Bella had already been told he was dead.  Both physically and mentally scarred from the torture he endured Nathan believes that Bella is better off without him and to protect her he takes on an assumed identity as Noah Blake and starts working for an elite team who carry out dangerous missions for the government.  6 years after he left on his last fateful mission as Nathan, Noah's team is called in to investigate a white supremacist group in his home town.  Noah believes he can go undercover even working in Bella's garage without her realising who he is and without having to act on his love for her. 

Bella has been grieving for years for the husband who was her soul mate so she is shocked to find herself drawn to the sexy stranger Noah.  It doesn't take her too long to discover who he actually is and she is hurt that he was alive for all this time and didn't come back to her.  Noah finds Bella is very different from the helpless young wife he left behind, in fact she is the perfect match for the man he has become.  The attraction between them is intense and they are unable to resist each other but with Bella waiting for Noah to tell her who he really is and Noah not wanting to tell her for the fear that she will reject him their relationship isn't going to be resolved easily.  Add to that the danger that Bella is in from the supremacist group and the couple are in for a bumpy ride.

Wild Card is the first book I've read by Lora Leigh and it won't be the last.  Although Wild Card is the first book in the Elite Ops series I have since found out that this series is a spin off from Lora's Seals series so Nathan's character had already been introduced in previous books.  I didn't feel like I'd missed anything by not reading the Seals series first but I enjoyed this book so much I'll definitely be reading that series in the future.

Nathan & Bella's relationship is intense and passionate (with plenty of really hot love scenes!) and I really found myself liking both of the main characters.  Bella has gone through hell grieving for her husband but she is a survivor and has come through it stronger than ever.  Now that Nathan (Noah) is back in her life she refuses to go back to being the "little woman" who waits around helplessly waiting for his instructions.  She wants to be an equal partner and she isn't prepared to settle for less.  Noah isn't the same man that Nathan was but she can still see the man she loved under the tough exterior and she still loves him just as much.  Although at times I wanted to shake Noah until he told her who he really was (particularly when he was getting jealous of his wife's memory of Nathan and the love he believes she still has for him) I could understand why he felt the way he did.  He had been changed deeply by the torture he had gone through at the hands of the drug lord who had captured him but it was his love for Bella that got him through.

I loved the intensity of their relationship and the fact that although they had both changed considerably from the people they were when they married they both remained true to each other and were still deeply in love.  The passion between them was smoking hot - believe me you're going to need plenty of cold showers reading this one!  I can't remember who suggested Lora Leigh to me but I will definitely be reading more of her books in the future and would recommend Wild Card to any fans of erotic romance.  I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the next book in this series and will definitely be reading the Seals series too.

Source: Library

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