My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Guys often approached her, but she was painfully shy and socially awkward. The last time a hot guy spoke to her, he asked if he could buy her a drink and she just looked at him, then blurted, “I put make-up on dead people.” Yes, Alesha was a beautician at a funeral parlour—a fact I kept advising her to save for at least the second date, but her awkwardness always beat out her common sense.

I, on the other hand, was short and a little on the round side. Growing up, my aunt used to assure me that I was like a caterpillar, eating my way through all the leaves until I spun my cocoon and emerged a beautiful butterfly. She lied. I’m still a chubby caterpillar.

Um… please tell me that’s a tube of tennis balls you’re carrying in your pants… I, uh… think a baby elephant is missing a trunk somewhere…

Why would I be afraid? I stand in a refrigerated room and put make-up on corpses for a living. This is the most excitement I’ve had in years.

We’d gone to see the ballet at the Opera House and ridden the ferry to the zoo. I’d thrown up over the side and she’d laughed it off, telling me the fish would be grateful for the extra treat. I’d cried harder because we’d been eating fish and chips. I didn’t want the fish to be cannibals.

My Review:

I am conflicted about how to evaluate this book. On one hand, it had a sweet and highly erotic love story with an interesting premise, and the writing was often humorous and witty enough to bring a smirk to my lips, but… I struggled with some of the storylines as well as the characters. Nate was an erotic, filthy talking, porn-star worthy lover with a huge sacred member that was ultimately and aptly named Goliath. Yet Nate and his peculiar family were unapologetic criminals with a complicated family dynamic. They were sexy, crass, spoke with prolific profanity, and had a callous disregard for their victims or working people in general. I had initially liked the feisty Holland until a night of earth-shattering sex seemed to have the pernicious effect of obliterating all rational sense, as she devolved into an addled moron.

After their night of porn-star worthy sex, Nate had drugged her and stripped her apartment bare of all her worldly possessions while she slept, even took her purse and ID, and stole her car. The best sex she had ever had turned out to be costly on every level. But honestly, who would give a man a second chance after that? Or, a third chance after he did it again? But she did and he did, and then they oddly ended up married. Holland loved her husband and wasn’t afraid of him, but she feared his family, and for good reason. Most women often feel as if their mother-in-law would like to kill them off or see them gone, but this steely mother-in-law was no small menace, she informed the hapless Holland, more than once, exactly how she would slit her throat – yikes. I think I would have made tracks well before but most certainly would have after that, Goliath or not!