Title: Talk Me Down Series: Tumble Creek #1
Author: Victoria Dahl
Published: December 25, 2008
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 347
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Molly Jennings has one naughty little secret: her job as a bestselling erotic fiction author. Until her inspiration runs dry—thanks to a creepy ex—and it's time to skip town and move back to tiny Tumble Creek, Colorado.
One look at former high school hunk chief of police Ben Lawson and Molly is back in business. The town gossip is buzzing at her door and, worse still, a stalker seems to be watching her every move. Thankfully, her very own lawman has taken to coming over, often. The only problem now is that Molly may have to let the cat out of the bag about her chosen profession, and straitlaced Ben will definitely not approve...
I found Talk Me Down to be a solid and enjoyable contemporary romance, if not one that was really anything special. I enjoyed both characters and their chemistry, and thought the plot—with its small dash of mystery—was well-conceived. I can certainly see myself reading another Victoria Dahl novel in the future.
So, the characters here are Molly and Ben. They grew up as kids together in the small town of Tumble Creek, Colorado, but haven’t seen each other for 10 years because Molly moved away to live in Denver. However, since she’s spent the past decade fantasizing about Ben and using him to fuel her bestselling erotica novels, she views moving back to Tumble Creek as a great opportunity to finally seduce Ben, her brother’s best friend who is now the town’s shy, reserved police chief. Ben, for his part, has also been half in love with Molly, but a fear of scandal after a traumatic family event holds him back.
I like both of these characters—I like Ben more, as Molly tended a little toward the dramatic and was very noncommunicative, like when she’s being stalked but doesn’t give Ben pertinent information he probably should have had, both as her boyfriend and as chief of police. So, that was frustrating. Ben, however, was really great. He’s shy and funny and thoughtful, and works hard to make things work with Molly even when she’s not helping him out too much.
Aside from the romance and its obvious complications, Talk Me Down also deals with a side-plot regarding someone who’s apparently stalking Molly. The culprit breaks into her home, pins threatening notes to her door, cuts the brake-line in her car, etc. The identity of the stalker is fairly obvious, but even so, I think that Dahl handled it well. This book doesn’t pretend to be a mystery/thriller, anyway, so it’s really fine.
All in all, this was a good book. It won’t reach favorite status, but it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening, and there’s evidence that Victoria Dahl has a lot of potential for improvement (this is one of her early novels). Talk Me Down was entertaining and fun and satisfying.
