SWEET DREAMS by Kristen Ashley.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
The author has been writing since before 2002 and had many books on her hard drive but never published. All of a sudden this year she published more than 20, and she's in process of finishing more. There are several different series. They are not the churning out one book per year at a publisher's request. These are things she felt like writing about - over the years. For a list of her books see her website at kristenashley net.
REVIEWER'S OPINION:
I really enjoyed this book, but it needed a good editor. There were a couple times the sequencing was out of order. For example, something happens on day one. The next chapter is titled "a month later," then the author switches back to day two, before the month later. Something similar to that happened elsewhere, for example talking about Monday, then Friday, then back to Wednesday. But it didn't really bother me. I could work with it because I liked the content. The result felt like someone was talking about one thing and then said Oh yeah and then this other thing happened before that. Because her content was so good, I was willing to accept the illogical time jumps.
There were a number of grammar errors and wrong word usage. For example "consider" should have been "considering." "All" should have been "I'll."
It's a long book, at least twice as long as most novels. I'm glad that some publisher isn't telling her to chop it down to 350 pages. I liked what she wrote. I wouldn't want to chop any of it.
Tate is such a jerk with the way he gives orders. But then he melts my heart with important things, his actions which show love. I was back and forth between being upset and melting. Yet I adored the guy. For example at 6746 "Which one are you?" I whispered. "What?" he asked. "Are you the good guy, the sweet guy who takes care of me or are you this guy who's kind of a jerk?" His answer was instantaneous. "I'm both those guys, babe. Your job is to get used to it." There it was, another order. Not even an ultimatum. Just, "get used to it."
There are a couple of wonderful scenes with Tate confronting Lauren's ex-husband.
So many books are popular due to a feisty heroine with witty dialogue. This has none of that. The dialogue here feels real. The characters are showing emotions, feelings, worries, friendship, caring. Almost every situation in this book has normalcy about it. It makes other books sound like they are trying too hard to be entertaining. This book is subtle. Maybe a fitting phrase would be "less is more."
This book is strong on character development and relationship development. A strength is showing feelings and thoughts through dialogue. The author did not use the "overused device" of pondering. I enjoyed the lack of "pondering." The author did a wonderful job developing many secondary characters.
There are many sex scenes, but they aren't long and drawn out with a lot of explicit details. Instead, they are brief, and they show emotion, love, desire, and hotness. There is a lot of swearing. So if the F and S words bother you, be warned.
STORY BRIEF:
Lauren's husband cheated on her for five years then divorced her. She quit her job as an executive and drove aimlessly for several months looking for a place to be. She stopped at a bar in Carnal, Colorado, saw a "waitress wanted" sign and applied for the job. She took a room at the local hotel. Tate is one of the bar owners. He works part time as a bartender and part time chasing criminals as a bounty hunter. When Tate first sees Lauren, he is angry at his co-owner for hiring her and calls Lauren a "sorry-ass, old, fat, suburban bitch." Lauren overhears this. It haunts her. She won't forget or forgive. Lauren is 42. Tate is 44. The bar is a biker bar. The town has a lot of bikers.
Some of the other characters:
Betty and Ned own the hotel and treat Lauren more like family than customer.
Shambala and Sunny are two hippies who own the coffee shop and are high most of the time. They too become close friends with Lauren.
Tate and Wood were best friends growing up but things happened causing a split.
Neeta is Wood's sister. She is married to Blake, but she has been cheating on Blake for years with Tate. She is wild, selfish, and bad in many ways.
DATA:
Kindle count story length: 16,920 (1006 KB). Swearing language: strong, including religious swear words. Sexual language: strong. Number of sex scenes: about 18. Setting: current day mostly Colorado, with some Indiana. Copyright: 2011. Genre: contemporary romance.
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Popular Highlights in this book
“You want sweet dreams, lose the attitude and you might find I’ll give you reason to have them.”Highlighted by 301 Kindle readers- “Yeah, Ace, fucked you so hard you couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but sleep. Exhausted you.”Highlighted by 245 Kindle readers
- “Sheets are chick territory,” he said without delay. “You gotta use tools, that’s dick territory.”Highlighted by 212 Kindle readers
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Reviews with images
4.5-stars: 'Sweet Dreams' by Kristen Ashley
Sweet Dreams is the second book I’ve read by the lovely Kristen Ashley, and now I need to make time this year (2020) to read even more of her books. I’ve had Kristen Ashley’s books on my TBR for a while now, and I’m finally getting to them. Thank goodness for the Romanceopoly 2020 Challenge by @UTCBookBlog and @PeaceLoveBooksXO so that I can read some of her books.Here is the lowdown on the book without giving too much away. The female protagonist is Lauren Grahame, who is needing a new life after getting divorced by a man who cheated on her for five years with her so-called best friend. She ends up in a small town in Colorado called Carnal, where she ends up getting a waitress job at the local bar and living in a motel. She loves her life now away from suburbia and her cheating ex-husband. She never thought she would have feelings for her jerk of a Boss named Tatum Jackson. Tatum Jackson didn’t expect to fall in love either, especially with everything he has been dealing with for twenty-something years with a woman who uses him.Although, Lauren, aka Laurie and Tatum, aka Tate, don’t hit it off right away. They end up hating each other at first, even when trying to battle their feelings for each other. There’s also the issue of Tate being a jerk, and I should have hated him in the book. I did hate him at first. He’s an alpha-jerk who drove me crazy on how he treated Laurie, but he’s a badass biker who’s also a bounty hunter. I forgave him after a while on how he treated Laurie because he’s protective of her. He also has a loving, kind side that won me over. He helped take care of Laurie and flew her to her hometown to be with her family after her father had a heart attack. Seriously, the jerk of a man had a soft-side. He even won me over on how he handled Laurie’s ex-husband. Don’t also get me started with her ex-husband, Brad. Laurie’s ex-husband, Brad needed to be knocked down a few pegs, especially after he ends up telling Laurie he wants her back. Haha!!Kristen Ashley made me fall in love with Laurie and Tate’s story and how they end up together, but she had me interested in the suspense too. There’s a crazy murderer who only rapes/kills in May & December and only ends up killing certain types of women. Tate is hired to track down the killer, and this killer has hit close to Carnel, Colorado, with raping/killing one of the waitresses of the bar. It takes a while to find out who the killer is in the story, and I was shocked to find out who was behind it all. Kristen Ashley didn’t give any clues in the book on who it could be, and then the big reveal happens, and I was in shock.This book is over 600+ pages long, so I felt I knew the characters very well after reading this story. I love how Kristen makes me fall for ALL the characters, and now just the main characters. You feel like you know them after reading her books. There is a lot more drama that happens in the book, too, between a crazy woman named Neeta and more of Laurie’s ex-husband. There are also some very steamy scenes between Laurie and Tate. Those two are HOT together. Another plus about this book is that Kristen Ashley writes stories that have characters over the age of 40. I love reading books that have the characters older than 20 and 30. I’m getting close to that age and want to read more with heroes/heroines around that age now.I highly recommend this book by Kristen Ashley and also recommend The Gamble, which is the first book to the Colorado Mountain series. 2020 is the year I will read way more from Kristen Ashley.Story Rating: 4.5 starsSteaminess Rating: 4 starsStandalone or part of series: Part of series, but each book can be read as a standalone.Do I recommend this book? Yes.Will I read other books from the author? Yes.Tropes/Elements: Second Chance at Romance; Small Town Romance; Mystery/Suspense; Mature Characters (40+ in age)
