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.

Tagged as: Leigh Ellwood, Romantica