Sweet Sinful Nights by Lauren Blakely - Rating 4 stars

Yes, I did judge this book by its cover. But can you blame me? What I was lucky enough to find was a good second chance romance, with plenty of steam and an intriguing secondary plot that lifts this simple contemporary romance slightly into the realm of romantic suspense.

On the surface, you have Shannon and Brent (a name I can't really get behind for a romantic hero...but that's probably just me), who were separated by youthful mistakes and find themselves meeting again ten years later.  Brent is ecstatic - all he wants to do is win Shannon back and prove to her that he's changed.  Shannon on the other hand hates Brent and needs a lot of convincing.  What follows is a lot of wooing by Brent - which is really sweet. We root for him to win Shannon back. But Blakely also brings us into Shannon's mindset and we then find ourselves straddling the fence once more. It's really well done. Then there is the interesting backstory - Shannon's father's murder - he was killed when she was a teenager and the case is seemingly closed. But what if there is more to the story? It makes a simple romance novel turn into something very interesting.

What I really liked was that Blakely doesn't play too heavily with the murder subplot. She puts just enough in to keep the reader interested, but you can tell she's going to spread the events throughout the four novels that make up the Sinful Nights series. It's a smart way to get readers to keep reading.  It's certainly worked on me - because now I want to see what happens.

If you like second chance romances with a healthy dose of steam, and interesting characters that thought they knew each other but soon learn there is more to each than meets the eye, than I recommend this book.  You'll enjoy it, and not just for the abs.