Tuesday 24 December 2013

Blog Tour - Shuttered Affections by Rene Folsom

Title: Shuttered Affections
Author: Rene Folsom
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publication Date: October 15, 2013



After escaping to a college town, Juliana Petersen was determined to put her troubled past behind her and make the most of life. She was satisfied with her current situation, or so she thought. It wasn’t until the day her new photography professor stole her parking spot that she realized there was such thing as lust at first sight. Now, she must struggle with the decision to break the rules and fall in love, or step back and let the chance of a lifetime pass her by—all while her past relationships come back to haunt her.

How many men will it take to break Julia’s hold on reality?

Warning: This novel contains sexual situations and is meant for adult readers ages 18 and up.


Rene Folsom, author of paranormal romance and erotica, lives in Florida with her husband and three kids. She has officially diagnosed herself with creative ADD and, if it weren't for her day job as a web programmer, she would have a million and one writing projects going at once. In addition to web design, she is also a graphic artist who loves to create custom book cover designs for indie authors. She is definitely an artist at heart and would love nothing more than to be elbow deep in clay during her waking hours.Rene believes that all fiction is based on some form of reality—otherwise we would never have the inspiration or knowledge to dream up the realistic situations we portray with our words. She is proud to say that her personal experiences have been inspirational, though perhaps not always identical to that of her fictional characters. Where reality and fantasy diverge, however, must remain her little secret…


















Review
My rating = 3.75 stars
*ARC provided by the author in exchange for my honest review
This is the first book in the Cornerstone series and although it touches on a kind of taboo subject of teacher/student relationship it isn’t really a forbidden storyline as the main characters are only a few years apart in age.

Juliana Petersen has run away from her past with an abusive ex and is now happily condo sharing with her best friend and attending college to study arts and photography. However on a day she was running late and not being able to find a parking spot she finally gets lucky only to have the spot pinched by an annoyingly attractive man with an enigmatic smile. It was lust at first sight! When she finds out who he is she will be in for a shock.

Aidan Stone is the new photography teacher who is brought in late to cover the course due to the previous teacher having to retire on ill health. Hence he has no teacher parking spot allocated which leads to him needing to get a spot in the student’s lot to the utter annoyance of the breathtakingly beautiful blonde he beat to the post. He was then taken aback when his late to class student arrives and it is the beauty from the car park!

The story there after takes on a ‘will they won’t they’ dance with a few twists and turns thrown in which leads the reader on a journey of surprises and suspense.

I do like the writing style of this author and this is my first forage into Ms Folsom’s work. However I did feel there was a certain something missing that would have added an element of engrossment for me. I found myself at times getting side tracked by everyday life whereas when I am totally involved in a read usually nothing can pull me away from my kindle.

I liked the character of Aidan although I wouldn’t class him as an alpha male he was still an attractive enticement. One point though I found so irritating was his overuse of ‘Angel’ or ‘Angel, mine’ which constantly reminded me of a certain paranormal read from way back.

I can’t say I felt anything for Julia as I like my female leads to be strong or at least show an inclining of some kick-assery but she needed more backbone. I know this is the first book so I can only hope she goes on to win me over.

The author left the reader with a real conundrum at the end but I must admit it left a spark of ‘now we’re on it!’ for me. Lucky for me I have the next book as an ARC so I can jump straight in to find out. This is a good thing as it means all will not need to wait a lifetime for the next instalment. I know we all hate cliffies!

Overall an enjoyable read which has left me wanting to discover more in the Aidan and Julia (and….nope my lips are sealed!) story. 





No comments:

Post a Comment