Review: If You Dare by Jessica Lemmon
If You Dare
188 Pages
Release Date: 07/21/2015
Publisher: Entangled Publishing | Imprint: Lovestruck
Genre: Contemporary Romance | Series Romance
He’ll make her a bet she can’t refuse…
Lily McIntire is in the creepiest mansion in town. Alone. At night. Because she’s an idiot-and can’t ignore a dare from her cocky and infuriatingly hot co-worker, Marcus Black. But she’ll be damned if she’s going to give him the satisfaction of winning.
Marcus has had a thing for Lily for ages, and he has no intention of losing this bet. His plan? Scare her out of the house, and into his arms. Once there, scaring her turns into protecting her and soon after, into seducing her. And his plan is working…
Lily is having trouble relegating Marcus to the role of “asshat” as easily as before. He came to her rescue, and he’s actually funny. Charming. Sexy as sin on a stick. But Lily has a strict no-love-in-the-workplace rule, and even one night of the best sex ever won’t make her change her mind. So she’s calling everything off…
Surviving a night in the mansion might just be the easy part. Surviving Marcus’s increasingly convincing advances is going to take everything she has. Losing is not an option…
NOTE: This title was previously published November 2013 on Flaunt as a novella but has been significantly revised and lots of yummy new scenes added to give readers a full-length category romance full of humor and sizzle.
*ARC provided by Publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review *
If You Dare is a standalone contemporary romance by Jessica Lemmon. It may seem familiar because it was originally published in Entangled Publishing’s now defunct Flaunt line in November 2013 but has since been revised and expanded from its original version and republished with the Lovestruck imprint. I didn’t read the earlier version of this work so I can’t comment on what has changed or been added from its original incarnation. I can, however, tell you my thoughts and feelings on this version of the book.
My first impression of If You Dare is that it is extremely well-written, as are most books by Jessica Lemmon, and that the characters are easily likable and relatable. But not just that. Lily and Marcus are also dynamic, engaging, and so very charming.
From the start of the book, I was drawn to Lily’s character and into her story. She’s another one of those larger than life characters for me, one who instantly jumped right off the page. Which I absolutely loved about her because she felt very real and reading in her point of view felt both honest and natural.
At story onset, a competitive and determined Lily is out to prove she can survive a night alone—Friday the 13th, no less—in an abandoned, crumbling mansion that’s rumored to be haunted. If she stays the full night, she wins a trip to Hawaii that she’d lost out when her co-worker, Marcus, won one more design account than she did. If she doesn’t stay the whole night, she has to go to an upcoming awards dinner as Marcus’s date, which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t firmly against getting personally involved with co-workers.
But Marcus is much more than the charming, playboy co-worker Lily first cast him as, and the more time she spends with him, the harder it is for her to remember why she wanted to avoid spending time with him in the first place.
If you love stories about office romances with long-denied attraction, heroes who longs for more, and heroines who do their best to fight their feelings, If You Dare by Jessica Lemmon is a marvelous contemporary romance read. It’s fun, sexy, and entertaining, with several laugh out loud moments and an overall feeling of warmth, realism, and passion. Highly, highly recommend this read!
A former job-hopper, Jessica Lemmon resides in Ohio with her husband and rescue dog. She holds a degree in graphic design currently gathering dust in an impressive frame. When she’s not writing super-sexy heroes, she can be found cooking, drawing, drinking coffee (okay, wine), and eating potato chips. She firmly believes God gifts us with talents for a purpose, and with His help, you can create the life you want.
This sounds like my kind of read! Great review!