Review – Running the Red Light – Kelsey Browning

22Jan

Running the Red LightAuthor: Kelsey BrowningSeries: #2 in the Texas Nights series (but can be read as a stand-alone)

Description:
After wearing a “Least Likely to Succeed” label all her life, Roxanne Eberly is hell-bent on making her Red Light Lingerie store successful. Although the residents of small-town Shelbyville, Texas, are a little…lingerie-resistant, she’ll win them over eventually. So when a former employer sues her, putting a major wrinkle in her careful plans, she reluctantly accepts help from hot-stuff Houston attorney Jamie Wright.

Jamie’s on track to become his firm’s youngest partner, but discovers an unwritten prerequisite—marriage. Turns out, the only woman he wants is Roxanne, but peddling thongs and sex toys isn’t a suitable career for the spouse of an up-and-coming attorney.

Jamie’s tangled up in Roxanne’s lawsuit, her life and her lingerie. But if they’re ever going to make it work, Roxanne’s big-city boy will have to decide what he values more: the career he always thought he wanted or the woman he never thought he’d fall for.

Review:
Kelsey Browning’s Running the Red Light was released right as I was craving a romance that didn’t feature any of the current trends (think 50 shades of grey…) – all I wanted was a nice, mostly angst free contemporary romance and she totally served it up. I’d like to thank Jamie Farrell (who wrote Southern Fried Blues that I LOVED) for promo’ing this book on her facebook (and telling me that it could be read as a stand-alone). If you are currently in a bit of a slump and need a new author to try, I highly recommend Kelsey Browning.

I loved the fact that the heroine owned an adult store, but that the story itself wasn’t an erotic romance – which it could haven’t easily been. Rather, I found that Ms Browning walked a nice line between sweet and sensual, without every actually crossing it. Add to that a smexy lawyer, who has been friends with the heroine for several years, so it wasn’t a “wham bam thank-you ma’am” romance as well (i’m personally not a fan of insta-love – I like my characters to have a bit of history).

The whole labeling the heroine as “least likely to succeed” was an interesting approach because I think it says something about our society and how people perceive those labels. In particular, I liked how even though she had been labelled that way, that Roxanne didn’t let it stop her from reaching her goals in life and didn’t have an woe is me type attitude. I also appreciated how Jamie (the H), didn’t patronize her either when her issues became apparent – that is a personal pet peeve of mine.

I know that I will be going back and reading the first book in the series (Personal Assets – which is about Roxanne’s friend Allie – who appears in this book) and can’t wait to see how the rest of the series turns out. Overall, I gave Running the Red Light 3.5 stars, but rounded up to 4 stars. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a cute contemporary romance with sexy lawyers and adult fun and games.