Review by: Jo Ann J. Fitzgerald
Dated: 2014
My Secret Fantasies
By Joanne Rock
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age category: Adult
Release Date: December 17, 2013
My Review of "My Secret Fantasies" by Joanne Rock. Reviewed: July 2014
Joanne Rock takes you into Miranda’s life and conscience of
someone who has lived her life feeling as she comes in second and how no one
actually loves herself. The story begins with Miranda involving readers her
personal and inside experiences and struggles. The author transports Miranda to
a level where every reader can identify themselves with her and you feel she is
a friend you want in your life.
Miranda is the younger
of two children of farmers. However, throughout her life, she’s felt like the
outsider at home. After a confrontation, she leaves for a career in LA. Once
there, she finds she enjoys working in a tearoom rather than the career she
chose. She started to take care of herself and move on with her life and had
decided to do one more call out the career in LA – a reality show – which she
wins but now has to deal with how others and the press see her. It’s gotten to
a point where she just wants to run a tearoom and see if writing is for her and
in order to do this she decides to go to the country where people won’t be
expecting her to be.
Damien has a tiny shack which he wants to sell. However, it’s
got to be to the right business so it compliments his breeding of racing stock
and farm. Being the son of a Hollywood producer, he wants to stay away from
anything Hollywood and a friend and supporter has let him buy his farm to do
so. He works on the farm almost day and night to make it the biggest and best
around.
The main influences with both of the main characters are
family and the media. With Damien, his father and mother had always basically
ignored him while the media exploited him and “he was finished with the movie
business and he was done with his high-profile parents”. Similarity, Miranda
was always overshadowed by her older sister and has “been the afterthought
daughter my [her] whole life”. And, like Damien, finally one day she had enough
and walked away from her family. With the media, her family and so called friends
used her to try and make themselves newsworthy by telling the media about her
past. Neither family ever realized they were forcing their children to walk
away from them.
Besides Miranda’s family, the other main influence in her
life is her ex, Rick. Rick is a person who believes life should be about him
and no one else. After they break up, Rick thinks he can have Miranda’s sister,
by marriage, and yet still be with Miranda by backing her into corners to start
things or to make comments to her about their past, it really takes a toll on
Miranda’s self-esteem and self-confidence. Also, her sister blamed Miranda for these
times and “blamed me for trying to seduce him, and warned me I’d better stay
away from her man”. However, now that the sister’s marriage was over, Rick was
on his way to see her according to his message.
Everything comes together towards the end when Rick does
catch up with Miranda and she realizes time has not been good to Rick and how
he’s changed since she left home. Looking at Rick, she realizes just how much
she’s changed and how reliant and strong she now is. She also realizes how
much Damien has helped her with some of the struggles she was still having.
Moreover she’s obtained some skills which help her with “not finishing last”
and “score one for the good girls”. I know myself growing up, if you were
labelled a “good girl” or doing things by the books, you were thought to either
have come last or at least lagging in something. This goes to show, that
sometimes girls who do good, do come in first or at least towards the top.
Damien realizes he needs her and when he is talking to his
brother, he knows he needs her more than what could happen to his business, and his brother encourages him to go after Miranda. However, when he finally meets up with Miranda, he assures her his needing
her far outweighs his fear of the media limelight.
I can see many people today having the same problems with
being in many of the reality TV shows, and all the media attention that goes
along with them. However, the media attention will die down it just takes
months before it does and hopefully people’s relationships are strong enough to
outlast the spotlight these relationship toxic programs.
I do recommend this book as you can see both main characters
go through soul searching and realize you can do anything as long as you love
yourself and respect yourself and others. I did not know about these being part of a miniseries, but its a great book to read by itself. However, communication is the key in
any relationship, but if you don’t have this then the relationship will or
could die like with this couple’s relationships with their parents. Please read the about the book below.
Blurb:
Joanne Rock’s MY SECRET FANTASIES is her second “Forbidden Fantasies” release for Harlequin’s Blaze miniseries. MY DOUBLE LIFE (Harlequin Blaze 5/13), her first, is a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award nominee. Both books are told from a first-person heroine perspective, while the hero’s point of view remains in the more traditional third person. We fall in love with the hero right along with the heroine! The heroes of the two books are brothers, but the stories read well as stand-alones.
Fantasy come to life...
All I wanted was to escape the media frenzy I left behind in L.A. and open a cute little shop on the Sonoma Coast. Simple, right? But Damien Fraser—the hunky property owner—isn’t exactly thrilled about my reality-TV-star status. Still, I’m pretty sure that all he needs is a little creative convincing...and I’ve learned I can be very creative.
I started writing a naughty novel, and with every sexy scene I write, things between me and Damien get really hot. Now the hero in my book is starting to look more and more like Damien, and I’m well on my way to becoming my brazen sexpot heroine. But when my real life and my fictional life collide, my fantasies just might cost me all of my dreams....
You can find My Secret Fantasies on Goodreads
You can buy My Secret Fantasies here:
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Kobo
Excerpt:
….So when the door of the oversized pickup opened with a squeak, I looked.
And saw the hottest guy ever emerge.
Now, maybe it was the heat that seemed to spotlight this hunky slab of muscle and manhood as he stood beside the open door of the truck. He glistened with sweat despite a temperature that probably only reached the mid sixties. He took the tail of a well-worn t-shirt and used it to mop his forehead.
In that moment, his abs were exposed to my dazed, spellbound eye. He was pin-up sexy. Lean and taut, he looked like he’d pulled about two million inverted push-ups to achieve so much delicious definition in that six-pack. Better yet, he was tanned bronze and I felt like I’d been given a VIP pass to the hottest show on earth.
What a gift in an otherwise hellacious day. My heroine Shaelynn couldn’t have done any better.
“Are you Miranda Cortland?”
I shook my head to clear it of fantasies that grew more explicit by the minute. The demi-god across the road did not just talk to me.
I realized I’d stopped to stare and felt just the slightest twinge of embarrassment to be caught in the act.
Giving him a lopsided smile, I told myself to get moving. Then realized he’d somehow known my name.
“Excuse me?” I had to shout since two cars barreled by in either direction.
“Are you Miranda?” he asked, his deep voice carrying easily over the distance. He slammed his door shut and jogged closer.
To me.
I blinked. Confused. Dry-mouthed.
Because now that I saw the guy’s face, he was a whole lot more than just hot abs. Streaked with sweat and a light coating of dust, he looked like a local laborer in his t-shirt and jeans. Although- knowing good clothes when I saw them from years of shopping vintage- I realized he wore very good clothes. Those boots and jeans were both out of my price range.
“Lady, are you okay?” He was now just a few feet away.
Hazel eyes narrowed in concern, he stood a good six inches taller than me. His dark hair was close cropped and matched the dark stubble sprinkled along his jaw. Wicked cheekbones made him look a bit Native American. A prominent blade of a nose and full lips only added to his appeal.
I remembered the words I’d written to describe the hero of my book. An arresting face. Strong. Handsome.
“I’m fine,” I said with a bit too much enthusiasm. What I meant to say, actually, is “you’re fine.” But he stared at me like I might have mental health issues, so I struggled to pull myself out of the sexy-man-induced delirium. He looked like the hero I’d dreamed up before I even laid eyes on this guy. “That is, I broke down a few miles back, but I don’t think I’m far from my destination.”
Belatedly, I realized I should have asked to borrow his cell phone. Or truck. Or his body. Then again, maybe I’d been spending too much time daydreaming up plot points for my sexy secret novel…
Joanne Rock fell in love with reading at a young age and stayed out of trouble- mostly- as a teen thanks to long stints at her local library where she routinely checked out as many books as a bicycle basket would carry. She still pronounces all the names of the Greek gods incorrectly because she learned them through reading- a small price to pay for the vast amount of knowledge she gained from books! She started writing when the voices in her head kept her awake at night, demanding she tell their stories. A successful romance author and former Golden Heart winner, she’s penned dozens of books for a variety of Harlequin series and has been nominated for the prestigious RITA award three times. Her work is reprinted around the globe and has been translated into twenty different languages. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s cheering on her three sons in sporting endeavors of every variety.About the Author:
You can find and contact Joanne here:
- Website
- Goodreads
- Tumblr
- Amazon author page
