Dare Me by Leigh Ellwood

Dare Me by Leigh Ell­wood is my first keeper of the year. It is pub­lished by Phaze, a epub that was the recently fea­tured at Dear Author . I decided on  Dare Me on a whim. I couldn’t put this book down once I had started read­ing it and while I would love for every­body to read this book, it won’t appeal to everybody.

Dare Me is a sequel of sorts to Truth or Dare. The pro­tag­o­nists of Truth or Dare—Ellie and Brady make their oblig­a­tory  appear­ance but they are only there to move the plot along. The story cen­ters around Cal Briscoe, a sec­ondary char­ac­ter from Truth or Dare. A fifty-year old bass gui­tar player who is still try­ing to live wild and free and is in the best shape of his life. We first meet Cal when he is “oth­er­wise engaged” to singer Trisha’s pri­vate parts. The shit hits the fan when Trisha’s hus­band shows up unex­pect­edly. Trisha imme­di­ately shoos Cal to the bal­cony that is sev­eral sto­ries high; damn near mak­ing escape near impossible.

How­ever, Cal gets an incen­tive to jump for it when the scant­ily clad, elderly neigh­bor down below spots him on the bal­cony. Pic­ture the lady with the sad­dle bag sun tan from There’s Some­thing About Mary.

“You, my friend were set-up,” the old woman replied.

“Your kid­ding.” Cal replied.

“She told me about it a few months ago, at a party I had here. She was drunk, and oy, the things she said.” The woman stuck the lighter between her lips and inhaled. “They have this role play­ing thing. She picks up some unsus­pect­ing horny jack­ass like your­self for some cof­fee and hair pie and Hubby ‘acci­den­tally’ arrives home unex­pected.” Fin­ger quotes accen­tu­ated the explanation.

“She gets the dope out on the bal­cony, she and Hubby fuck, then he ‘pre­tends’ to dis­cover the other guy and drags him back inside, where he pro­ceeds to ram his giant cock into the guy’s blow­hole as ‘punishment.’

Cal even­tu­ally jumps off the bal­cony to save his blow­hole. Even­tu­ally, Cal heads to his best friend’s house after an unevent­ful evening. It’s the last place he wants to be since he has a seri­ous crush on his best friend’s girl, Ellie. He later learns that they are to be mar­ried and this puts him in a funk and Ellie for­ever out of his reach. The happy cou­ple rec­om­mend that he take a break. Get out of New York. So, Ellie gives Cal the key to her cot­tage in Dare­ville, Virginia.

Enter Sue who has a estab­lished career as a pho­tog­ra­pher in Dare­ville. She is also house sit­ting for her friend Ellie at the cot­tage and tak­ing care of her cat, Typhoid. One day, her best friend, Lauren, comes to her for help. Lau­ren is try­ing to hook up with  a widow named Jake,  whom Lau­ren still con­sid­ers  “virile” whose in his six­ties. Clearly this is a set up for the next book in the Dare­ville series. Lauren decides to ask Sue to take racy pho­tos of her­self to get his atten­tion and Sue reluc­tantly agrees.

Cal gets to Dare­ville in the mid­dle of night and ends up sleep­ing with some­one whom he mis­takes for Ellie. Previous events lead up to that ‘moment’ to explain the mistake. The next morn­ing has all kinds of sur­prises in store for Sue and Cal as both have been “set up” by their friends and after two weeks of annoy­ing each other, they finally get to know each other and this is where the book really shines.

I thought the romance was some­what real­is­tic in that the reader gets to be emo­tion­ally involved in the story and root for the couple’s happy end­ing. We get to see why they both fall for each other. The romance was a refresh­ing read. And I found it believ­able when Cal has finally set aside his feel­ings for Ellie to friend­ship and finds that he wants to spend the rest of his life with Sue.

Sue has doubts about her life, her body. She isn’t com­fort­able with how she looks and has inse­cu­ri­ties but Cal helps her with those inse­cu­ri­ties. Cal sup­ports her career, gives her advice. A real nice guy. He’s never under­handed with her or try­ing to get her into bed. There’s no men­tal lust­ing going on here. Just two adults who are mak­ing the most of a sit­u­a­tion and devel­op­ing a ten­ta­tive friend­ship that turns into love.

Cal has his inse­cu­ri­ties too and Sue is there to com­fort him and inspire him. The music world think he’s a has-been washed up musi­cian and he’s still sen­si­tive about his fail­ure to make it big as a solo artist. He had suc­cess being apart of the band that Brady put together but he really wanted a solo career of his own. After spend­ing time with Sue, he finds him­self able to write music again. Also, as he real­izes that he is in love with Sue; how­ever he’s wor­ried about her not want­ing to leave Dare­ville with him know­ing how hard she’d worked to estab­lish her­self here. Cal and Sue share their “story”; Cal shares some of his wildest mem­o­ries about groupies, etc. They share a memorable, intimate moment that I enjoyed read­ing very much.

Then there are the love scenes which are hot. I loved read­ing this book and would read it again. As men­tioned before, this story won’t appeal to every­body espe­cially if you  are eas­ily offended by    some recre­ational drug use, three-somes and there’s a scene where Sue has an erotic dream about Lau­ren, the best friend who wanted racy pho­tos of her­self. That’s about it. 

At the heart of the story this is a romance. I strongly rec­om­mend this story to those who enjoy a really good love story. A mem­o­rable story. My grade: A-.

Must note that I am char­grined at the fact that Phaze has a link to Play­girl. Why any site would be want to be affil­i­ated with porn is beyond me.

For Fur­ther Reading

• REVIEW: Dan­ger­ous Lover by Lisa Marie Rice
• REVIEW: A Third Party by Chris Tanglen
• REVIEW: Scan­dalous Lovers by Robin Schone
• REVIEW: The Assign­ment by Evan­ge­line Anderson
• Sucks to Be You by Sahara Kelly
• REVIEW: Oppo­sites Attract by Bon­nie Dee
• REVIEW: Bone Deep by Bon­nie Dee
• REVIEW: The Fifth Favor by Shelby Reed
• A Fine Work of Art by Shelby Reed
• Let’s Pre­tend by Raine Weaver

Tagged as: Leigh Ellwood, Romantica