Selling Scarlett
Weeks ago, I saw the cover reveal for Selling Scarlett and being somewhat enamored by it. So, when I spotted Ella James offering up review copies last week, I jumped on board with a need to know if what’s on the inside is just as yummy.
Now, in classic ‘me’ style, I hadn’t read the blurb, and so headed into this as blind as I often do, and had no idea what to expect—and found myself somewhat taken by surprise.
Obviously, I wasn’t surprised when I came across a saucy scene fairly early on—because I’d discussed it with the author enough to know they’d be in there—but I was surprised by how well written it was. And how heated it was. And how sexy and sassy it was—despite the fact we’re dealing with a virgin here. But the fact she’s a virgin doesn’t make the reader roll their eyes and think yeah, right. Because, let’s face it: just because a character still has her hymen intact, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t experimented in other ways, right? And that wasn’t the only sexy, saucy, sassy scene. Nope, they pretty much continued on right throughout the book.
Admittedly, during probably the last scene between the two MC’s before they did ‘it’, I was starting to think: can they do something else now please. But considering I’d gone fairly fair through the book by this point, and through quite a lot of heat, and so I consider that fairly good going. Because often I find it’s the repetitiveness of these kinds of scenes that turn me away from ‘saucy’ books because I start rolling my eyes and skimming. Well … I didn’t skim once in Selling Scarlett. So that should tell you something.
Though, maybe the reason I didn’t get bored with this one also has something to do with the plot. I went against my morals and read a couple of the reviews for this one prior to reading. I spotted a few that thought it moved too slow. I’m wondering if they refer to the plot, or to the nitty-gritty, because I didn’t find that at all. I really enjoyed the plot, really enjoyed the slowly unfolding mystery, and how intrigued I became by (not the who dunnit, because that was obvious early on) but the why and the how and the ‘how the flip will poor Hunter get out of this mess?’—so I had absolutely no problems with the plot, the pace, at all.
So, let’s move back to the characters again—because I feel the main duo were the driving force of this book for me. Whilst worrying like crap that Hunter was so freakishly wrong for Libby, I still yearningly wanted them to get together. I wanted him to see her as something other than sex. I wanted Libby to see past his demons and crappy attitude and be the one to help heal his broken soul. Whether or not I got what I wanted, I won’t say. You’ll have to find that out for yourself. On top of Libby and Hunter, though, was a full-bodied, well-rounded cast of side-characters. Admittedly, I couldn’t make my mind up about Hunter’s best friend for a while, and worried he might have been in on the whole unfolding shitfest, but I had those fears assuaged. The ‘baddies’ the reader is meant to hate made me hate them for sure—with a freakin’ vengeance. Not to mention Libby’s best friends … loved these two.
Which leads me to that little line right after I’d finished reading: Chasing Cross coming soon. << 
Dunno about you, but I’m looking forward to it.
Side note: due to receiving one of the first copies of this to hit the world, there were editing errors, as well as a believability issue that I thought may have been due to a simple error. Both of these have been pointed out to the author, and I imagine they will be fixed, and so I didn’t consider them worth mentioning them in my review for that reason.
