Blog Tour Review: Satisfying the Curse – Kelly Gendron

Satisfying the Curse by Kelly Gendron
Series:
Release Date:  May 1, 2012
Publisher:  Red Sage Press
Source:  Sizzling PR
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Juliana Pratt is cursed. Her father’s warned her many times she’s destined to be a wanton just like her adulteress mother. It’s why he’s kept her in all-girls schools, hidden away from his elite society. However, when her father’s arrested for murder, he needs Juliana to come into the spotlight to portray the doting daughter. Juliana agrees to the interviews and talk shows, but before she goes on the two-week tour of lies about her father, and with him behind bars and unable to stop her, she must first take care of her starving curse.

And Juliana picks the perfect man to get the job done. She secures him to a bed, but fails terribly at finishing the task. Her thoroughly teased curse is left famished. Later, Juliana discovers that the man she’d chosen to fulfill her every fantasy is also the agent assigned to protect her for the next two weeks. Her curse becomes relentless and will stop at nothing until the delectable Agent T. Ryker has satisfied its hunger.

Agent T. Ryker prides himself on his discipline—that is, until his new assignment, Juliana Pratt, puts that renowned discipline to the ultimate test. Once he discovers that Juliana is the woman who drugged and handcuffed him to the bed in his hotel room, he also finds out her true identity. Ryker agrees to satisfy Juliana’s ravenous curse, but he has his own reasons for doing it, and it’s not just to give Juliana’s body what it craves… for there is something else Agent T. Ryker wants from Juliana Pratt.. 

Reviewer’s Thoughts:

Juliana Pratt is being protected by NESA while traveling for the next two weeks giving interviews related to her father’s murder trial before she testifies.  While there is no love loss between her and her father, she’s agreed to be his alibi in exchange for money.  She’ll do whatever it takes to rid herself of her father, including feeding the curse he has drilled into her is pure evil.  It’s on the prowl to break her curse that she meet Agent T. Ryker.  Except when they meet, she has him handcuffed to a bed, drugged and unaware that he’s the next NESA agent assigned to protect her. 

When I read the blurb on this, I was excited to see what kind of curse Juliana had on her that made her need sex.  Imagine my disappointment that it wasn’t a curse but plain old lust that afflicted our book smart, but socially naive heroine.  Daddy dearest did a number on Ana and she figured feeding her “curse” would be ultimate payback to the man who like to remind her that if she fed it she’d be a whore like her mother.  What was amazing is the fact that a college educated Physician’s Assistant wouldn’t have, at least in a bookish way, realized that what she felt for Agent Ryker wasn’t a curse but good old fashion attraction, lust and eventually love.  Seems while she was memorizing bones and muscles, she missed an important part of the anatomy lessons.

Ryker wasn’t the easiest character to warm up to, as he alternated between being a complete ass and a tender lover.  But, given what he endured during this childhood and the murder of his aunt one could almost understand his actions.  He was hard, gritty and very, very closed off.  He was good at keeping his protective shell around him most of the time, but it was nice to see it slip the few times that it did. 

While I like the story, I wish there was more of an emotional connection to the characters for me.  It would have established more of a bond for me and taken this from a good story to a great one.