long while back Kate Hardy wrote a blog post referencing Mr, Whippy. I had no idea what a Mr, Whippy was, but then, with some education I soon was dreaming about creamy ice cream by the sea.
When Liz told me she was writing a book with an ice cream van, I thought how typically Liz.
Liz does such a brilliant job of adding a touch of whimsy to her books, and a heroine in charge of an ice cream van named Rosie sounded just perfect.
I'll confess I had moments of confusion at the beginning of the book there is a rather lot of characters, a missing great uncle, and a family secret.
But once I got into it, and especially once we figure out Uncle Basil's part of the story, it all clicks together,
Sean is sexy and far more stable and dependable than he perhaps thinks he is, He's also capable of more emotionally than he believes himself to be, Elle is perenially optimistic, but she's also tired, . . tired of holding the family together for the past several years, At some point she was bound to break and there's a scene with her sisters that I loved.
For once Elle valued herself and what she'd given and given up for her family and all she wants is a little help.
There are some lovely scenes with Sean he's really quite swoonworthy but I have to admit my favourite scene is with Sean and Elle's sisters, Sorrel and Geli and the dog Mabel.
It's a turning point for Sean, and it's the kind of scene that really, in a very short space, says so very much about the characters.
I really hope Liz writes both Sorrel's story AND Geli's they're fab characters all on their own, each very individual and deserving of a HEA.
Whimsical and romantic yep, that just about sums it up, And I loved the ending Rosie
at a wedding and the story of the chocolate flake, and then Sean's "birthday" at the very end.
. .
I just feel bad that we didn't get to see the chocolate sauce, .
This was a good book and more,stars. More for passing the time and nothing more interesting to read, I liked the characters and the story line, This is a more emotional book, There were plenty of emotions too, The ending was really good though, This was a little slow for me but I enjoyed reading it, It's not a pageturner, more for relaxing or for something to read, There was sweetness, some anger, and some good oldfashioned nostalgia, Enjoy Gently paced, sweet romance that ticked all the boxes: great characters, intriguing and original storyline, evocative descriptions.
Lovely read. I love Liz Fieldings books and this was no exception, I did struggle in a few places however with this one, The first three pages were very descriptive and at times the narrative became choppy and hard to follow but it had a guarenteed to make me cry and then be happy ending.
What made me read this book Rosie's snippets on IceCream,
Forget the typical romance plot just read this book because of the snippets on IceCream,
For example, "if your ice cream melts it means you are eating it too slow," or something like that.
I don't love the romance genre, but this book has personality and humor that I thought was great.
It's the most charming voice in romance that I've read, This was solidly cruising along to four and then a weird almost assault happened that the hero handled badly and in fairness, the heroine calls him on this and he acknowledges it himself immediately, and it just lost some of its luster.
But as a prequel to Anything But Vanilla, I liked it a lot, I assume a third book is coming at some point, and I'm pretty curious to see if it can break the three star curse.
DNF I loved this book, Had me hooked from the first page, How many of us have not been caught out, not looking their best, when they open their door to a handsome stranger I know I have, lol! This is a sweet romance, full of sexual tension they never get past kissing!
I really found myself rooting for the H/H and I loved, loved, loved the humour.
A def feel good romance with a lovely, light feel to it and well rounded, believable characters,
This is the first Liz Fielding I read and I will def read more : I've become a big fan of Liz Fielding's writing over the past year, and she never disappoints.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Liz has a way of making her two characters sizzle on the page with sexual and sensual tension.
There are great amounts of flirting in this book! Who doesn't love flirting
Being a Riva, I did wonder how far the 'sex' would go.
This again is very much a Liz Fielding style book it's more a Cherish/Romance rather than a modern/heat, but if you like Liz's style, you'll love this book.
. . in fact this could be her hottest one I've read so far,
Where the book lacks 'sex', it still has its sizzle, It does not disappoint. There was so much tension, these two characters needed the ice cream to cool down and so did I!
I loved both characters with their flaws, and how Liz got them together with a wonderful, unique third character Rosie the vintage ice cream van.
Tempted by Trouble is a witty, sexy and fun read, with moments of effective emotion,
And as a friend Becky Black has commented, I am just LOVING the Riva book covers.
On a side note, I went to a wedding recently which had an ice cream van there and I thought of Liz and Tempted By Trouble as I ordered my ice cream.
Rating:out ofGREAT READ!
First line:
Life is like ice cream: you have to take it one lick at a time Rosies Diary
Memorable Scene:
Sean removing a ladybug from Elle's hair gt sweetness!
Elle Amery is a responsible young woman who puts others' needs and wellbeing before her own.
Shes determined not to follow in her mother's promiscuous footsteps, Shes also independent and sensible and selfsufficient,
Sean McElroy is an illegitimate son who bares the emotional scars of being unwanted, He sees himself as an outsider and though hes very direct and blunt, hes guarded when it comes to showing emotions.
Without any explicitness but with plenty of sizzle I was pulled into the chemistry between Elle and Sean.
The attraction between them was palpable throughout the book, They meet and are thrown together through unusual circumstances and the undeniable chemistry is what draws them towards each other constantly.
This built up the kind of sensual tension I love to read in my romance novels,
I really liked how the backstory and characterization was slowly given form by giving little tidbits at a time.
This made it very intriguing and kept me reading, just to find out what the deal was with Sean, Elle and their families.
And also after finishing the book I really had the feeling I knew Elle and Sean,
Though the story is very character driven, the plot of the icecream van and the mystery surrounding Elles greatuncle formed a very nice change to the emotional and romantic focus throughout the book.
Liz Fielding's writing is such a joy to read, Fluent, easy and clean it made me fly through this book, There's a subtle humorous undertone throughout the entire story, despite the emotional stuff going on, that makes you smile without even knowing you're doing it.
TEMPTED BY TROUBLE is a cute story that's filled with emotional depth and sizzling chemistry, Excellently written it held my attention from start to finish and every time I had to stop reading I didn't want to.
I really loved the quotes at the start of every chapter, They were funny and spoton, If you're an ice cream lover, you should read this book for these quotes alone, Even I, a nonlover of ice cream loved them!
Favorite Quotes:
“Who wants to know” she asked.
Her hormones might be ready to throw caution to the wind they were Amery hormones after all but while they might have escaped into the yard for a little exercise , she wasnt about to let them go walkies.
“Sean McElroy. ”
His voice matched the looks, Low, sexy, soft as Irish mist, And her hormones flung themselves at the gate like a halfgrown puppy in a letmeathim response as he offered his hand.
She should object, Tell him to keep his hands to himself, Except for that shed have to be able to get her lips, tongue and teeth in a row to form the words.
And then make her mouth say them,
Falling in love wasnt hard, Compared to not falling in love it was a piece of cake, That required concentration. Lose it for a moment and love slipped unnoticed under your defenses as sweetly, as effortlessly as an ice cream sliding down a parched throat on a summers day.
No drama or noise. Just a smile, a touch, a kiss was all it took to bring down even the most powerful fortifications, so that without warning you were falling, with nothing to grasp hold of.
Good book about a woman who finds a new purpose in her life and a man who learns that loving is better than hiding, all because of an ice cream truck named Rosie! I usually enjoy Liz Fielding's books, so adding this to my stack of Thanksgiving weekend reads was a no brainer.
While this book had the author's usual touches of whimsy, something about it fell flat for me, I couldn't really get into the characters and I honestly didn't care very much about their goingson, so this book just didn't click for me.
Elle Amery whose real name is Lovage, lives with her sisters Sorrel and Angelica, in their grandmother's home.
With their mother being deceased and their grandmother somewhat disconnected from reality, Elle bears most of the burden for making sure things don't go completely off the rails.
She works a deadend restaurant job and support her sisters as they get their education,
Elle's life seems fairly dreary, and then one day a pink ice cream truck appears, Apparently a greatuncle Elle never knew existed has decided that the family needs to take on the truck and bring ice cream joy to the world.
And Sean McElroy, the deliverer of said truck, defintely gets Elle's heart going pitterpatter,
At times I thought this could be a cute story, but I have to admit that Elleasfamilydoormat got old with me pretty quickly.
The family dynamic seems to be that everyone can be as flighty as they want to be and Elle will just keep on picking up the pieces.
Oh, and there are some family secrets but no one wants to get too curious about those, I found it frustrating, and for much of the book, the romance is very understated and takes a backseat to the depressing comings and goings at Elle's house.
I'll still enjoy reading some of Liz Fielding's books, but I could have taken a pass on this one.
What I think is, I wish I could write like Liz Fielding! This is a great Mills amp Boon with a delightful idea centring around how wonderful it would be to find love and laughter through owning an old fashioned ice cream van you know the sort that used to make your mouth water when you were a schoolkid and you heard those chimes ringing out through the streets.
We used to have one turn up outside the back gates of our school every summer's day and reading Liz's book reminded me of sprinkles and raspberry sauce, chocolate flakes and chopped nuts and biscuit cones and hot, hot sun.
It's a beautifully constructed book where things just fall nicely into place although not without trials and tribulations along the way.
The heroine, Lovage comes from a family who are all named after herbs and all have very distinctive personalities.
There's the worrisome teenager Angelica, the dippy grandmother, the wayward Basil who gives Lovage the ice cream van and all the way through you are wondering why, and Lovage herself who is hard working and whose main aim in life is to keep her wayward family ticking along.
The hero Sean who has experienced rejection Big Time and has a more than difficult family means you can perfectly well see why the last thing he would want to do would be to become entangled with Lovage and her brood.
This is a confection of a read, as sweet and satisfying as vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce trickling down a cone.
The hero and heroine in this story are very much opposites, Sean McElroy has a large but fragmented family and isnt interested in adding anyone else to it, Lovage “Elle” Amery is family oriented and had stepped into the role of parent for her two younger halfsisters and carer for her grandmother.
So they should be totally incompatible, But Cupid doesnt match people up like a dating agency, so naturally these two people have to be together despite their very different outlook on life.
Theyre brought together by the sudden disappearance of an uncle Elle never knew she had, Sean delivers the uncles vintage ice cream van to her, along with a diary full of bookings for events to attend.
As if she wasnt busy enough
But Elle meets the challenge, endearing her to the reader with her determination.
Sean meanwhile keeps on helping out, even though hes done his part by delivering the van, because he just cant stay away.
He even goes driving off on a wild goose chase to try to find the vanished uncle,
Sean and Elle are both very likeable, I liked Sean in particular, and especially the way he cooled down after a stimulating phone conversation with Elle.
I like how he often calls her Lovage, a name shes always tried to avoid people even knowing about, but never to make fun of her.
He finds it all part of her allure, Elles caring for her family is shown not only in her care of her sisters and grandmother, but the fact shes worried about her missing uncle, even though shes never met him and is prepared to take on his ice cream van just because hes family.
Neither of them are perfect, Elle has a touch of the control freak combined with martyr about her, insisting on being the one to do everything for her sisters, to the point she realises shes maybe done too much for them, and isnt preparing them to be independent.
Sean makes a serious mistake in a pivotal scene, So the characters had that depth and layers that makes me sometimes impatient or annoyed with them, just like real people.
In the UK this is in the new Riva line and it seems like the sexual content of that line is pretty variable.
Ive read two others which had on page sex, This one on the other hand, doesnt, which was the case when Liz Fieldings books were in the Romance line.
But though theres no on page sex or indeed off page! it does have that characteristic sexual tension that I expect in a Liz Fielding book.
Maybe not quite as strongly as some other ones Ive read, theres a feel of a more gradual building of the romance after the initial strong attraction.
But theres definitely chemistry between the characters,
I have to put a word in about the cover too, I like the new Riva covers and this one is especially good, with the warm red contrasting with the acid yellow of the ice lolly and the models eyeshadow.
Its modern and saucy and just all around delicious, Very appropriate for the book in fact!,