Title: Lip Action
Author: Virna DePaul
Series: Kiss Talent Agency #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: Short novel
Available: Now
Marissa
Appearance is everything to my upper-crust mother, but when she insists I take back my pedigreed-but-cheating ex? I’d rather stab myself with a salad fork. So I blurt out I’m dating someone new. Someone like…that smoking-hot, vaguely familiar guy across the restaurant, who could be the next James Bond.
Turns out he’s the star of my favorite, cheesy, sci-fi soap opera. (Don’t judge me.) One minute I’m fantasizing about Borg and his green-hued abs. The next, Simon Dale is making me an offer my sex-starved body can’t refuse.
Simon
I’m up for a breakout movie role that’ll launch me off the B-list, but I don’t need a script to read the scene between Marissa and her mum. Even though I’m a London gutter rat who never rubbed elbows with a Royal, I easily slip into the role of Marissa’s doting boyfriend. Why? I need a favor in return— a steady girlfriend, just long enough to convince the producers I’ve changed my wild ways.
Trouble is, I’m going all Method on this relationship—and close to losing the one thing that could break me. My heart.
Source: Review copy provided via NetGalley
I was in the mood for something fun and a bit fluffy when I picked this up, knowing that this author is also well known for her steamy storylines. And that’s pretty much what I got. It’s easy and fun at times, sexy at others, but it also didn’t grab me quite as much as I’d hoped.
Part of that is the main characters. Marissa and Simon are both likeable enough, but also a bit boring. Marissa used to be a bad girl until a car accident, then she became so good she’s pretty much stifled her personality out of existence and is a doormat for her mother. Considering some of her thoughts regarding Simon, especially at first, her timid interactions with him didn’t seem to fit. I also wanted to shake her as she kept using him for her own purposes while saying she couldn’t help him. Has this woman no sense of fair play?!
Then there was Simon, a London street rat, who wasn’t particularly convincing as a Londoner. I’m not expecting him to have a full on Cockney accent (since he’s hiding his roots), but he just didn’t feel British to me – and calling himself a street rat didn’t help. He’s also one of those bad boys who isn’t actually all that bad, with a reputation started by a bitter, ambitious ex. So he’s a beautiful cliché with inadequacy issues, basically, which isn’t an entirely bad thing, but I was hoping for more.
The chemistry between them is pretty hot and the sex scenes were smouldering. Sadly, I didn’t find the rest nearly as interesting and my attention wandered a bit. This wasn’t helped by the 2D villains and flimsy conflict. A little more depth all round – for Marissa and Simon as well as family and exes – would have been great and maybe lifted this from an okay read to a really good one.
So overall this is okay. If you’re looking for something easy and undemanding with some hot sex and a bit of Hollywood glamour, then it certainly delivers that. If you like the blurb and don’t expect to be surprised, then you probably won’t be disappointed.
Lip Action is Out Now.
Visit Virna DePaul for more details.
