I’m currently self isolating/social distancing so, naturally, I’ve decided to read a hotshotting romance book front to back.
I bought this book, of my own volition, for $5 (no shipping!) on Amazon a few weeks ago. It was kind of a joke (on myself? Idk) but mostly an act of curiosity, and now, on day two of self isolation, I am already bored enough to dig in.
The book is called Hot Seduction which does not give you any clarifying details about the contents of the book beyond that there’s probably a lot of over-written sex scenes. Fair enough. A small subtitle reads Hotshot Heroes. Let me paint you a picture: a shirtless man stares seductively over his shoulder, holding a chainsaw. Three things of note here: first, the saw looks to have a 20-inch bar and isn’t full-wrap, which is perhaps the most insulting part of this whole scene. Second, NO SHEATH? Homeboy is playing with the devil here. I give him three steps before he gets a chainsaw tooth to the neck. Third, this saw does not have one spec of dirt or ash or sawdust or oil on it. They didn’t even try to make this thing look used. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been on a shelf at Lowe’s an hour before this photo shoot. Also, this man does not have a shirt on. This is par for the “cover of a romance novel” course, I guess. What he DOES have on is other, less useful PPE: Forest-Service-issued leather gloves (I can tell those shitty leather gloves from a mile away), as well as a huge bucket helmet. This is the most unrealistic part of the getup, mostly because it’s black, and everyone knows that nothing brings you closer to the actual gates of hell itself than wearing a black helmet, in the sun, right next to a fire for 16 hours a day. He’s also got some poorly-applied ash makeup on his torso and chest but not, interestingly, on his face, and this is reason enough that he should put his shirt back on.
I just found out this book is part of an entire firefighting series which is more exciting than it should be for me.
So, after looking at the cover of this book every day for the last two weeks, I’m finally house-ridden enough to think, hey, better start working on that romance novel I bought as a joke to no one in particular. Maybe the joke’s on me? Most likely….
Without further adieu…
CHAPTER ONE:
This book is based in Michigan, turns out, and is about the “Huron Hotshots.” I feel I am uniquely qualified to say that a hotshot crew based in Michigan (which is where I grew up) would be wildly underutilized and probably pointless. Moving on.
Here we meet Cody, the “womanizer” of the crew, who everyone thinks sleeps around but really he’s just like, misunderstood? IDK. Here’s a sentence that was written:
“I never just sleep in some woman’s bed,” Cody quipped cockily.
Aside from the fact that quipped cockily is actually an amazing combination of words, here we find Cody in a clear state of denial over his womanizing ways, cockily quipping his way through a conversation with his superintendent about his sexual deviancy, which is obviously very appropriate.
The root of these questions is that Cody has been sleeping at the “firehouse” a lot, because his cabin burned down in a recent wildfire (HOW THEMATIC). His crew is trying to convince him to move out of the firehouse. Like, he must have some lady to sleep with? I mean, he’s a hotshot, shouldn’t the ladies just be swarming? Clearly choosing partners based solely on their career and not at all on the content of their character is a great way to move through life, right? WHERE DA LADIES AT?
We are now introduced to Serena Beaumont, who I have a sneaking suspicion is going to get laid at some point in the next ~40 pages. She’s concerned about her family’s farmhouse being sold if she can’t fill the eight rooms in it. And I’ll be damned, here’s a hot local hotshot on her doorstep, asking for a room. Her heart races with excitement! Certainly she would never fall for someone like Cody—her friends told her he gets around! He gets bored easily! He moves on quickly! What a scumbag! But would you look at that “blonde hair, green eyes and muscular build?” No, look away Serena! Avert your eyes! You’re better than this!
CHAPTERS 2-5:
This section had me quite…engaged?…which is embarrassing to say the least. I wouldn’t call Hot Seduction an outright page turner, but the author does a great job of making me wonder when Serena and Cody are finally just gonna get it on already. Is it when Cody slips and falls in the shower, knocking himself out cold until he comes to with Serena shaking his naked body back to consciousness? I mean, concussions are sexy (*me putting my EMT hat on*: no they’re not)—maybe it will be when he returns from getting a CT scan in the ER a few hours later? Perhaps she’ll hold off like all of her readers know she should, because she’s a strong independent woman who don’t need no sweaty, womanizing, clumsy-ass hotshot in her life. COME ON SERENA, DON’T DO THIS GIRL.
A little more about Serena: it’s made very clear that Serena is hot af but that she is just a down-home girl who loves her quaint little eight-bedroom farmhouse in the country and doesn’t want to leave the made-up town of Northern Lakes, Michigan—which I should add, could easily pass as my hometown. The similarities are uncanny: for one, I can name upwards of six philandering Codys (or some variation—Kyle, Derek etc) who went to my high school.
I imagine Serena as the majorly glowed-up version of the horse girl in high school; it’s been made very clear that she has brown hair down to her butt, and she’s always distracting herself with work and bank stuff and law stuff and papers. Nerdy right? Total horse girl business. To be clear, I am not dissing horse girls—I’m just jealous because they always did better than me on tests and also horses stress me out.
Anyways, Serena wants to have a big familyyyy just like her grandma and mom did, and fill this big ole farmhouse with babieessss. She hasn’t been able to find a suitable man in this tiny town that I can only assume has a small meth problem, so she’s been distracting herself with trying to find a way to not have to sell the farmhouse. She’s turned it into a boarding house and only has a few tenants, but she’s going to need to beef up her business model here real quick cause the bank’s a-coming.
Queue our man Cody.
Cody, turns out, is actually misunderstood. He grew up in foster care, and is apparently not as self-obsessed as most readers (ahem, me) would assume. He’s been taking care of another foster kid, who’s living with Serena, which is how he knew to come knocking on her door when he became, effectively, homeless.
It’s a hot day when he shows up, and at some point he witnesses an ice cube slide into Serena’s boobs. I can’t recall the exact circumstances under which that ice cube ended up in Serena’s boobs, but suffice it to say it might have been a bit of a literary stretch. Long story short: we hear a lot about this ice cube for the next ~4 pages, and then Cody knocks himself out in a bathtub.
CHAPTER 6-7:
Alright we’re cruising now, people. This book is basically the size of a really big iPhone, and it’s pretty motivating to be able to flip a page every 30 seconds. I’m on page 75 now, which means I’ve finished 1/3 of this book in, like, 30 minutes.
Chapter six started getting a little plot heavy, with a lot of Serena himming-and-hawing about how Cody is too much of a womanizer and she’s just fixing to get her heart broken messing around with this turd. While this deepening plot gives me the false sense of hope that Serena’s gonna ditch his ass, my reading comprehension skills suggest otherwise. They’re gonna have to bang at some point.
Also, I should be honest—I’m skimming at this point. I don’t have time for this (note: I totally have time for this) and I just want to get to the parts I can make fun of. I’m sick of hearing about how selfless Cody is and how smart and humble and independent Serena is. I came here for the sex scenes! Come on!
Oh oh, here’s some fun dialogue:
“You do like living dangerously, don’t you,” Serena said.
“That’s the truth.” Cody put himself into danger all the time—driving fast, fighting fires, hitting on other guys’ women…
Okay, that’s…something. Now on to what has to be my favorite dialogue in the entire book thus far:
(Something about how Cody is trying to pin falling in the shower on someone sabotaging him by lining the tub with petroleum jelly (??????)…)
“Couldn’t you just be clumsy?” Serena asked.
“I’m not,” he said (ever the conversationalist). And he suspected she knew it. He couldn’t have survived his job —WIELDING CHAINSAWS AND OTHER HEAVY EQUIPMENT—if he was. If he was clumsy, he would have lost a limb or his head by now.
Okay lets talk about “wielding chainsaws and other heavy equipment.” I can’t for the life of me figure out what “other heavy equipment” means in this context. Is he single-handedly wielding one bulldozer in each hand? Maybe a couple 2-stroke pumps? Helicopters? I don’t know. And how on earth would he lose a head in all of this? Based on the context of the quote, I suspect he meant literally losing his head, not figuratively, which makes me wonder 1.) how close is this guy getting to helicopter rotors? And 2.) how bad is this guy at wielding chainsaws?
Okay I’ll move on from pedanticism now since I’m sensing you guys probably want to know whether this conversation leads to some Hot Seduction or not.
Spoiler: It doesn’t. Buckle up kids, cause we’ve got more PLOT DEVELOPMENT.
Turns out there’s a dude named Gordon who works down at the bank and he’s, like, totally Serena’s type, and he gave her his card at some point to “talk about financing the boardinghouse,” which is, apparently and unbeknownst to me, Northern Michigan code for “going to the local Friday Night Fish Fry and seeing where the night takes us.” She understandably misinterpreted, so when she called him for actual bank stuff, ole Gordy was PSYCHED and immediately wanted to know if she was seeing someone—Serena did not see this coming, and quickly veered the conversation back on track. But then she started thinking…he is her type, and he does have a good job and he isn’t a scumbag but then again he probably wouldn’t excite her like Cody had. Poor Gordy….
That’s all you get for now! Trust me, I’m as disappointed as you are. Stay tuned for more plot development and maybe, if we’re lucky, some actual action. This is only day two of self isolation for most people, so remember to ration your quarantine snacks and I’ll make sure to ration my erotica content.
Also, on a serious note: be safe, stay healthy, look out for each other, and stay the hell home if you can.