« Thirteen Movies on my Netflix Queue
The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt »

Dirty Shame by Selah March

Grade: A-

[Ed. Note: Is it Dean Winchester on the cover or am I just crazy?]

Authors are either getting better at gauging what I like, or I’ve just gotten a good crop of submissions in the last few weeks. At any rate, Dirty Shame rocked. I know the conventions say not to write about people in famous professions like rock stars, actors, etc, but this story worked for me. Among other gifts, Ms. March has knack for smart banter in dialogue.

Josephine (Joey) Fiorello is a short brunette in a world of tall, leggy Barbie types. She wants to make a living as an actress, but there isn’t enough “character” work to keep her from starving and she doesn’t qualify as a leading lady. Because she doesn’t fancy being homeless, she interviews for a job as a personal assistant.

As it turns out, Dare Daniels is the one who needs help. Mostly, the guy needs saving from himself because he can’t keep his dick in his pants and he’s a heavy drinker to boot. His last personal assistant is considering legal action against him. He is, of course, an actor. In my head, he’s Jensen Ackles; I think the guy on the cover even looks a bit like him. [Ed. Note: Jinx!]

Anyway, he doesn’t think another female personal assistant is a good idea, even though his manager seems to believe that Joey is so far from Dare’s usual type that she’ll be safe from his roaming hands and his rampant prick. Their first meeting is hilarious for various reasons, and they’re dry humping each other before the end of the “interview”, which I thought was a pretty good way to find out if Joey is qualified to pick up his dry cleaning. No, seriously. What…?

Dare comes complete with a wry, self-deprecating sense of humor and a secret tortured past. He’s a hunk of burning love straight out of the Kansas cornfields, doing the best he can beneath the burdens of fame. When they returned to his hometown, I was floored by his dark secret. Ms. March doesn’t fuck around when it comes to giving a man some neuroses. Forget a cold and distant mother or being raised in foster homes. This is some grim, dire shit; we’re talking about country boy needing a porter to carry all his baggage. Since I’m all over the emo-angst, I loved it.

A minor quibble, why, oh why, does his name have to be Dare for real? When I first started reading this, I assumed it was some Hollywood thing he assumed for acting, a stage name dealie. But nope, he was christened Dare. He could’ve been Daryl or Darren, but nooooooo. This is why she got an “A-” and not a straight ole “A.” If I get my hands on a book where the hero is named “Hawk” or “Hunter”, I may give it an “F”, just on principle. *Note to authors* The following names have been placed on moratorium. You are not allowed to use the following names for your heroes until further notice: Hunter, Hawk, Devlin, Nick, and Lucien. You get extra credit if you pick a stupid, dorky name like Eugene or Murgatroyd and make the guy hot anyway.

Moving on. Joey has her own issues and has a personal quirk that should have made her come across as straight up crazy. This idiosyncrasy work because of the setting, I think. I won’t say what it is because that would be quite a spoiler, and serves as a subplot in and of itself.

Ms. March knows how to write the sex scenes, ya’ll. The up-n-down is smokin’ hot and dirty. Both Dare and Joey get off on doing it in public places, and this kink is twice as risky because Dare is so famous that his bare butt will wind up on the Enquirer cover if anyone has a camera handy.

The actual conflict is intertwined throughout the story subtly, so the villain doesn’t pop out of nowhere but doesn’t wander around with a big red sign that reads, “Yo, I am crazy-EVIL” either. About the only complaint I have is that the story takes place over a short time, but Ms. March doesn’t have her protagonists declaring undying devotion after forty-five minutes. I’m left believing these two will fuck like freaky bunnies out in the open for as long as they both want to. Maybe that’s for life, maybe it’s six months. Who knows? It doesn’t matter either — I’m fine with “happily for now” endings. I’m sick to death of soulmates any old way.

In conclusion, this is a fine read, and I’ll be buying up Selah March’s backlist because I really dig her writing style and her sense of humor, but it looks like she has novellas out right now. Curse you, short fiction! Write full length novels, you hear me, Ms. March? 80K and up. Thank you.

Please buy this delicious book here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 7:05 am and is filed under Books, Grade: A, Romance: Contempo, Reviews by Annie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

20 Responses to “Dirty Shame by Selah March”

  1. Selah March
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 7:17 am
    1

    Okay, no fair making me cry before noon on a Thursday.

    Damn. Thank you, Annie. Thank you SO much for loving my novella. You’ve made my month.

    And I’m working on writing longer work, I promise. Soon as I sell one, you get first crack at reviewing. :) And yes, the cover model DOES look an awful lot like Jensen, doesn’t he? Le sigh…

  2. Don
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 7:18 am
    2

    Having had the extreme pleasure of reading Ms. March’s work for some time, I can whole-heartedly agree with you, Annie. I’ve been badgering her for some time to write full-length fiction, and I can only hope that if she keeps hearing it from varied sources, she’ll make the jump.

    I highly recommend her back catalog - and the stuff yet to come, pardon the pun, is just amazing. My own personal favorite is Moondance, by the way.

  3. Eva Gale
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 7:29 am
    3

    Yabba dabba doo!

    Finally genius is realized…You should read what she’s writing now..Holy s%$#-smmokiin..

  4. Meljean
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 7:41 am
    4

    The cover: I had to do a quadruple take, too. Totally Ackles.

  5. Samantha
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 9:30 am
    5

    I soooo wanna read this now - and only half because that guy totally looks like Dean Winchester! Only not quite as pretty :D .

    God, I love having surprise, middle-of-the-days fangirl!squees.

  6. AnimeJune
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 9:57 am
    6

    No kidding - the guy totally looks like the dude from Supernatural - but is that a smidgeon of Adrian Pasdar I see in lips and lower jaw? Even hotter!

  7. Ann(ie)
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 10:26 am
    7

    It was really fun and well written. Adding her to my list of authors who are going places.

  8. DL
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
    8

    That IS Jensen Ackles on the cover. I smell a lawsuit coming…

  9. DL
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
    9

    Bam,

    http://www.bythunder.org/Thund.....tica3.html

    The cover artist is using real celebs and doing dodgy photo manips of them for cover art. Is this legal? Guy has balls, eh?

  10. SweetNSourGirl
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
    10

    Mmmmmm…Jensen Ackles. Sounds like a yummy read.

  11. Rowena
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
    11

    Yo, I’m buying this book right now…that totally looks like Jensen Ackles on the cover too, extra points on that one! This book sounds hella good, thanks for the review!

  12. Samantha
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
    12

    DL: The cover artist is using real celebs and doing dodgy photo manips of them for cover art. Is this legal? Guy has balls, eh?

    The infamous Gillian Anderson cover for My Lover, My Slayer is there. I didn’t see anything else definitive - but I didn’t really want to look through 15 pages of those.

    Weird. JAckles squeeage still going, though. Don’t know why - I just have it bad for him…for the past 9 years. :rollyeyes:

  13. Mrs G
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
    13

    I’m not having Internet connection and this is me from a cybercafe (checking my emails and all) so I’d better make this quick.

    Regarding dodgy use of copyrighted photos, Loose Id used to do that too - there’s a cover that’s a dead-on replicate of a publicity photo for the TV show Roswell in their backlist. There’s one from the TV show Dark Angel too.

    Don’t ask me how I know, but I do recognize some familiar torsos on most Amber Quill AmberHeat covers, only with hilariously mismatched heads Photoshopped on those bodies. Sometimes you actually can see that the skin tone of the head and the body don’t match, heh, or that the head is too small in proportion to the rest of the body. Judging from artist Mr Zaber’s body work, he must have a huge stash of near-naked hunk photos in his collection. I wonder if he’ll let me have a peek at them one of these days.

  14. Eva Gale
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
    14

    Hope your OK Mrs G-that the earthquake wasn’t by you.

  15. December Quinn
    Posted: Apr 26th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
    15

    Oooh, I have to read this! I love the angsty men.

  16. danette
    Posted: Apr 27th, 2007 at 12:52 am
    16

    Great review Annie and that guy has to be Jensen.Though, some say we have a twin out there in the world,you never know Jensen’s identical brother from another mother can be the guy on the cover.*g*

  17. Mrs G
    Posted: Apr 27th, 2007 at 1:07 am
    17

    I nearly bought this book until I saw its price - $6.00.

    I didn’t buy Bridget Midway’s book even though I wanted to due to Annie’s recommendation because of its price, $7.99.

    It seems to me that Ellora’s Cave, Loose Id, and Amber Quill are three of the priciest ebook publishers - at least among the ones that I frequent - and $6.00 is really pushing it for an extended novella when I could purchase a non-Superleader/Treasure Avon historical romance at the same price. I suspect EC and maybe Loose Id can raise its price to the wazoo since there will always be customers wanting their books but I wonder if Amber Quill have such devoted fanbase. Needless to say, I’m buying more and more from Samhain whose prices are always reasonable and the stories are also mostly my cup of tea.

    Of course, those NY publishers are even more crazy, pricing hardcovers and ebook versions of those hardcovers equally. No way am I paying $24.95 for an ebook version of a hardcover, I may as well buy the hardcover!

    Maybe it’s just me being old-fashioned because I view ebooks as cheaper to produce and with them being shorter than print books by right should be cheaper than a typical print book?

  18. Teddy Pig
    Posted: Apr 27th, 2007 at 7:38 am
    18

    “Ellora’s Cave, Loose Id, and Amber Quill”

    You go Mrs. G! Those three have been doing some serious miss steps in what they allow to be published under their name also.

    Garbage. Utter Garbage!

    And the editing or lack there of OMG smelly.

    Samhain is rocking in the real world.

  19. Ann(ie)
    Posted: Apr 27th, 2007 at 8:32 am
    19

    I tend to agree that many novellas are overpriced.

  20. Bridget Midway
    Posted: May 5th, 2007 at 7:11 am
    20

    LOVE MY WAY isn’t a novella. It’s a 100,000-word, nearly 300-page full-length novel. Giggles, did you get the impression that the book was a novella, or you felt for full-lenght that price was still too high?

    BridgeT

SexyComments by BorkWeb

Must Reads



  • Authors and Readers

  • Ebook Publishers

  • More Links