Review: Imaginary Lover – Tara Rose

Dom and IT department head Tom Raleigh has always considered cargo pilot Ivy Balloux his imaginary lover, until Tom’s sister steals Ivy’s fiancé. Convinced she’d rather eat glass than look at another Raleigh family member, Tom continues to keep his distance.

Dom and project manager Merrick Durante is so infatuated with Ivy that he has her flight days and times memorized. But the impending trial of Merrick’s brother for arson and murder has him keeping a low profile.

Ivy Balloux has worshipped Tom and Merrick from afar for years, but the convoluted history between their families has forced her to keep her distance. When the three finally get together, they work hard to overcome outside forces that would just as soon tear them apart.

When Tom’s sister plays a cruel joke on Tom and Merrick, they risk the curse on their families to leave the island and save Ivy from danger. Will they survive the curse?

Series: The Doms of Sybaris Cove #7
Release Date: December 15th 2014
Publisher: Siren-Bookstrand, Inc
Source: Manic Readers
Reviewer: Kenna
Rating:

Buy the book at:

Reviewer’s Thoughts

“Imaginary Lover” is the seventh book in the “Dom’s of Sybaris Cove” series, and I get more and more thrilled as we get deeper and deeper into the fates of the Raleigh and Durante families.  There are a lot of exciting things happening as we approach the end, and we are getting so close to finding out who cast the curse that prevents the men from leaving the island.  I hate that it will be ending, but I just know that there’s going to be big payoff to satisfy everyone.

In this installment, we meet Ivy, a cargo pilot who flies on and off the island, mostly to New Orleans.  She’s smart and beautiful, but she’s had a heartbreak is is unforgivable.  Tom is the head of IT at Phoebe’s Playthings, and Merrick works at his family’s construction company. Both men have secretly wanted Ivy since high school, but circumstances (most of them unpleasant) prevent them from letting her know.

The rest is a quickly moving story of action, intrigue, romance, and some really great sex 🙂  Ivy, Tom, and Merrick have awesome chemistry.  It begins individually with Ivy going on single dates with Tom and with Merrick.  When the three of them come together to form a triad, it’s a beautiful thing.  Their love is palpable, and you just find yourself rooting for them in the face of the adversity they’re surrounded by.  Of course, I mentioned the sex, and it’s off the charts hot.  Tom and Merrick are perfect Doms…Alpha but caring, and Ivy takes to submission like a fish to water.  This is a BDSM story, so there are spankings and toys and a feather that is wielded perfectly by Tom.  Sigh…

Since this is the seventh book in the series, there are a lot of characters that cross from one story to another.  There’s a lot of exposition, so if you try to read “Imaginary Lover” as a stand alone, you would have a slight idea of what’s going on, but I honestly have to recommend that you start at the beginning and work up to this one.  This way, you won’t feel the need to get out a pad and paper to follow all that goes on.  Tara Rose never, ever disappoints me.  Her writing style is smooth, well paced, and it just keeps improving with every book I read.  I confess to being a screaming fangirl and would buy a phone book if the cover said that she wrote it.  I kid you not.  If you’ve never read any of her stories, this is the perfect series to get you started.  You’ll fall in love with Sybaris Cove with its exotic locations, well fleshed out main and background characters, and mysterious happenings.  Pick them up and prepare yourself for a real treat.