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The Driven Snowe (Blaze, 14)

The Driven Snowe (Blaze, 14)

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Highly recommended sensual romance
Review: Angela Snowe is a twenty-nine year old librarian, and, yes, she's a virgin. She also thinks she might have breast cancer. The scare wakes her to the fact that she's been missing out on life. So out she goes to find her "sure thing."

Enter Josh Montgomery, local corporate bigwig and the 'Casanova of Manzanita'. He generously agrees to help her with her little problem and soon he can't get enough! He convinces Angela to try a short-term affair with an option to renew after six months, thinking that's plenty of time to get her out of his head.

Josh is a little heavy handed and Angela's a tad too independent. How in the world are these crazy kids going to get together? Don't worry, it's a romance, so you know it will all come out in the end. Along the way though, be prepared for some nail-biting tension and some very steamy sex scenes. Angela tells Josh at one point that she may not have any experience, but she does read a lot. My guess is that she's been reading some of Cathy Yardley's unpublished work. I can't wait until I get to read it, too!

Yardley's writing style is very lively: the characters are well fleshed-out and engaging. However, there was a little too much emphasis on the main characters for me, even in a series book. Josh's best friend, Adam, provides great material for a follow-up book with his cavalier attitude and bleeding heart interior. Angela's friends and coworkers are fun characters who hint at their own tantalizing stories.

Josh never really explains his reasons for being wary of a relationship. Angela, on the other hand, has some compelling reasons to avoid a casual relationship. Her mother married her father after only a few days and he left them when Angela was a young child. Growing up, she had to watch her mother work herself to the bone to provide for them. Angela is absolutely determined to not let history repeat itself. Once she gets involved with Josh, she finds it difficult to keep her emotional distance and fears she is headed down the same road as her mother.

Interestingly, Josh and Angela are in positions of role reversal. Yardley makes a point of allowing the reader to visit Josh and Angela in their heads, providing wonderful insight into the characters' psyches. Josh is worried about making things romantic and perfect. For example, he cannot wait to take Angela home to meet his parents. Angela, on the other hand, just wants to get in his pants! On the night of their "first date", Angela shows up at Josh's house, ready to jump his bones. Instead, Josh hurries her out the door and into a play performance. Not exactly what Angela had envisioned!

THE DRIVEN SNOWE is full of moments like these, snapshots of a fully realized romantic journey along with some spectacular sex. I would not hesitate to recommend THE DRIVEN SNOWE to anyone looking for their own "sure thing!"

--Reviewed by Lisa Shininger for Escape to Romance Reviews

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great read by a great new writer!
Review: As a relatively new reader of romance novels, I typically stick with what I know- I usually buy books by Linda Howard, since I know for the most part that I won't be disappointed (especially since the few times I've deviated from her books, I've been disappointed so far). But Cathy Yardley is an exception. "The Driven Snowe," begins with a fairly far-fetched plot. Mousy librarian Angela Snowe is tired of being a virgin, so she meets up with playboy Josh Montgomery (whose reputation she learned about in high school). Surprise, surprise, Angela turns out to be a little sex kitten beneath the mousy appearance, and Josh is smitten.
But "The Driven Snowe" goes on to develop the characters much further. The obstacles keeping them from being together are realistic, and their lives are realistically complicated. Of course, this being a romance novel, they wind up together in the end, but the development of the book is not formulaic. I found myself rooting for them, even though I knew they would be together in the end.
If you enjoy your romance highly steamy, this is well worth the read!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fabulous! Best of Blaze
Review: Every Harlequin line has the challenge of living up to the primary focus of the line (suspense in Intrigue, humor in Duets, etc.) while still managing a well-developed romance and believable, well-rounded characters. The challenge of Blaze is to balance erotic sensuality with likeable characters and a plausible romance. "The Driven Snowe" by Cathy Yardley is one of the best Blaze offerings I've read.

The romance between Angela and Josh is incredibly well-developed and credible, and it evolves at a reasonable, adult pace. While I enjoy "everything's all happy in Love Land even though the characters have only known one another a week" romances, I really appreciated that Yardley gave Angela and Josh's relationship the time to mature.

Even more, I appreciated that the barriers to their happiness were credible ones, based not on misunderstanding or jumping to conclusions or any of the myriad of reasons that we see in romance novels, but on real emotions and defense mechanisms.

The only weakness I see in "Snowe" is that the love scenes, while erotic, don't really do anything to separate "Snowe" out from the crowd. Unlike another reviewer, I didn't see Josh's fear of commitment and need to control the situation as requiring an explanation. To me, they were simply normal human reactions to falling in love.

I read and enjoyed Yardley's last offering, the Duets book "The Cinderella Solution," but "Snowe" is definitely a step up in Yardley's evolution as a writer. I am, quite frankly, staggered that this is her second published novel.

I truly recommend this to anyone looking for a well-developed romance. Enjoy!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Driven Snowe-Josh And Angela-SPOILERS
Review: favorite scene with angela-
talking with shelly in the powder room.

josh-
at adam's barbecue.

together-
the fight they have together when he proposes and she tells him she's going to italy alone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Much Better Than The Blurb On The Book Cover
Review: I ordered this book based upon the recommendation of the other Amazon readers, and I wasn't disappointed.

The book cover blurb seemed silly, but the author took what could have been a painfully dumb storyline and crafted it into a very likable book. The dialogue was sexy, humorous, and touching. The main characters were nicely developed and had depth to them, interacting well with the secondary characters. The erotic nature of their relationship was well done and graphic. Their growing love for each other was nicely presented, and importantly, made sense in the context of the story. Their ultimate comprehension of each other's motives and behavior was very believable based upon the way the story developed, rather than just being abruptly presented in order to tie up loose ends.

I will definitely put this author on my to-buy list.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: sexy fun :)
Review: I thought this book was fantastic. I was beginning to wonder if anyone could come up with a really fresh premise. And this author does. Reading the other reviews, I don't think there is much more to add...but as a reader rather than professional reviewer of romance and erotic romance, I just thought I'd add my .02. If you like to read sexy stories that don't hold back on the steam but also portray people with real issues surrounding sex, you'll love this book. BTW, if you like really sexy stories like the BLAZE books, you should also look for the Secrets novellas by Red Sage.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Read-- Funny, Heartwarming and Sexy!!!!
Review: The characters come to life from page one.

At the end you want to know what happened to them in the future and how they made it work.

Excellent book for a lazy Sunday afternoon and great escapism.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A new twist on romance! -- Very highly recommended
Review: They agree from the beginning that they will share a sexual arrangement, not a relationship. Yet sexy corporate tycoon Josh Montgomery finds himself in the town's library seeking an old yearbook, scanning for Angela's name when she leaves his bed without a word, a note, or a phone number. Accustomed to being pursued, Josh finds the reversal attractive, if unnerving. The crumbs she tosses about herself and her past only whet his appetite, leaving him hungering for more, despite his efforts to draw Angela out. He does, however, manage to extract a commitment to six months of mind altering, fantastic sex.

Librarian Angela Snowe is twenty-nine and a virgin when she propositions Josh. She only knew him by his sizzling reputation and glimpses from a distance. But his reputation promises exactly what she needs - a night of passion with no commitment. She'd read the books and knew what to expect from initiating a relationship based on sex. When he tracks her down, it takes some persuasion to convince Angela to work him in between her new classes and new busy social calendar. After all, she focused on personal growth, not starting a relationship. Worse, while he's providing charm and romance -- she really just wants him between the sheets.

Author Cathy Yardley gleefully switches traditional sex roles in THE DRIVEN SNOWE. While the sexy hero wonders how he became the woman in the relationship, Angela brightly breezes out the door maintaining the light hearted approach they agreed upon, leaving the reader in stitches. Josh is accustomed to being in control, and this relationship novice lifts that control right out of his hands. In addition, kudos for making a food processor romantic - this reviewer didn't think it could be done! Indeed, THE DRIVEN SNOW is one of those rare romances that is both fiery passionate and tenderly endearing. Smart dialogue and heated love scenes live up to high expectations in this Blaze release. Readers won't be able to put it down! Very highly recommended.


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