Asking for Trouble, Kristina Lloyd

Contemporary Erotic Romance published in 2006 by Black Lace, Virgin.

It's first-person female, past tense. It's British. I've been underlining the Britishisms like, “Taking the piss,” which is short for, “Taking the piss out of someone,” which means putting them in their place by calling them on something or picking on them quite mercilessly. If you've never had the piss properly taken out of you, I highly recommend it.

The main character, Beth, leads an interesting life as a jack of all trades. In one scene, she is polishing up an article for a publication, but most of the Looking for Trouble is concerned with her lounge night, Body Language, having to do with steamy poetry reads and similar things. She's interesting and likable. She likes books, which puts her pretty high on my list. She's also adventurous, which leads to her thing with Ilya, a beautiful, nearly bald half-Bulgarian. He's just crawling with dangerous sexual electricity.

Stop reading, close your eyes, and say it...Ilya. Doesn't that feel good? Doesn't that just make you want to go out and find a sexy, baldish Bulgarian boy and do bad, naughty things?

It's pretty intense and dark in places, but I won't spoil your fun by telling you how – or where.

I didn't care for the lack of atmospheric descriptions. Although these books tend to be fast-paced, atmosphere can be added with just a sentence here or there, and I found that lacking. Fortunately, I have enough atmosphere in my brain for about fifty people. But I enjoyed Kristina Lloyd's turn of phrase and wanted to see what she would do with those images on paper.

I loved her description of Ilya's nose, which was “like a scimitar.” Personally, I have a raging fetish for strong noses, and so I was thrilled. I liked the seediness of Beth's fantasies. The story moved at a brisk pace and kept me interested with wicked little surprises. Wicked, I tell you.

Although there were things I would have done differently (there always are, I write in my head constantly – somebody please make the voices stop), I really enjoyed the book. In fact, I have another Kristina Lloyd tucked away just waiting until the right time...