Return To Me - Shannon McKenna

I wanted a fast read to occupy me in the last days of November and so I grabbed this book. I haven't been to fond of McKenna's books I've read but this one ended up being better than the ones I tried before.

Seventeen years after bad boy Simon Riley sped out of town Ellen Kent has finally got her life together. She's very busy running her successful bed and breakfast in Oregon's LaRue River Valley. And she's engaged - to a man who doesn't exactly make her knees weak with lust, but so much the better. It's time for a quiet home with a family, dog hair on the sofa, all the trappings, even if she has to retool her emotional wiring to a much lower wattage to get it. After all, passion - of the pants at the ankles, lips in serious lock, hands roaming frantically on the way down the hall - well, it's just an unrealistic fantasy...like the man pulling up to her door on his motorcycle...

Simon swore he'd never come back to this backwater town where trouble followed at his heels. The only good thing about the place had been El Kent, who had been his friend despite his rep. Now, he's back to investigate his uncle's sudden death and face the demons of his past. But he hadn't counted on El's lush, sensual beauty, the innocent seductiveness of her every gesture. She has no business marrying that lacklustre clown of a fiance. What she needs is a serious wake-up call, the kind that starts at the mouth and leads down to complete abandonment and total ecstasy. He never expects his strategy to backfire and leave him so hungry for more...But Simon has done more than stir El's passions and his own. His very presence has brought danger into her life, and they will have to learn to trust each other if they want to survive...

I think things started a bit too fast between El and Simon and he starts chasing her even thinking he might not stay and that will hurt her. But once they were in a relationship I actually enjoyed it because while he is still rough she seems to became stronger, although a hard man Simon didn't seem as cavemen as McKenna's previous heroes. And there was a mystery regarding his uncle that I quite enjoyed even if I felt it could have been better explored, we knew who the bad guy was but it was interesting to find out the real story as the action progresses.

I had a bit of problem with El and Simon as characters because after a while it seemed they were taking a bit to long to solve their problems and when something happens near the end and Simon is accused by the cops the first thing he thinks of was running away and leaving El behind. That was what he had done all those years back and I was very annoyed that the same was going to happen all over again.

By this time I was more interested in the secondary couple's love story than El and Simon. Brad and specially Cora were really interesting people with a past story and lot to catch up with and make up to (specially Brad) and McKenna really creates some sizzling scenes between these 2. I wish she had given them more space.

Grade: B-