Title: Slow Surrender
Author: Cecilia Tan
Publisher/Year: Grand Central Publishing 8/6/13
Length: 296 pages
Series: Struck by Lightning #1
Overview
He pushes her sexual boundaries . . .
From the moment waitress Karina meets him in a New York bar, she knows James is different. Daring. Dominating. Though he hides his true identity from her, the mysterious, wealthy businessman anticipates her every desire and fulfills her secret fantasies. Awakened by his touch, Karina discovers a wild side she hadn’t known existed and nothing is off limits.
She aches for more . . .
What begins as an erotic game soon escalates to a power play that blurs the line between pleasure and pain. Even as she capitulates to James’s sensual demands, Karina craves more. She wants his heart, his soul. She wants his love . . . and she’ll break all the rules to get it.
My Thoughts
WOW – i really enjoyed this story – that’s for sure. I think that Cecelia Tan hit a home run with this series debut for sure. We first meet Karina our female lead when she’s filling in for another waitress at her sister’s bar (at least her sister’s the manager at a bar) on the night of a final concert for Lord Lightining who is supposed to be this AMAZING pop culture icon that people are fanatical about and have no idea who he really is since he wears a mask. so on this night, Karina is in the bar working, tending to many of the Lord’s Ladies who are there for drinks after the final concert and she spies her thesis adviser walking in which is a huge problem since she cancelled her meeting with him with the excuse of being sick so that she could help her sister out.
This drives Karina upstairs where her life changes for ever. She intercepts a handsome well dressed man at the hostess stand and takes him to a table upstairs so she can hide. It’s this meeting with this stranger that turns her world upside down in a good way. Karina feels a chemistry with him from the beginning and he draws her into a ‘game’ of sorts to see what she’s willing to do outside of her norm, in the hopes of both pleasing him and herself.
Throughout this story, we’re given very little insight to who James is (since we’re not even sure what his name is) – we just know that he has this privacy that he keeps and an identity that he’s trying to keep hidden. We also know that Karina is taking all these new chances through the game of his because she feels emotions and stirrings that she’s never felt before.
We’re taking on quite a hot and steamy journey with these 2 and it’s really quite interesting to see the games that James plays with her and how far he’ll try to push her. the ending leaves us at quite a cliff hanger. I do have to say though that i had one thing sorted out from the very beginning, but it’s not really off-putting since i think that there’s definitely much more to the story aside from that item that makes you want to keep reading.
My questions for book 2
1) What’s going to happen to Karina and James?
2) Will we ever know the truth about James?
3) will Karina graduate? does it even matter anymore?
4) What’s the deal with Lucinda, and should we be concerned?
can’t wait for the next installment – that’s for sure!