So I’m not mad I read this or anything, and I think for the right person, this book would be super enjoyable, but a couple of things just kept pulling me out.
But before I get into what I didn’t like, I just want to say how much I admire this book’s title. Rafe: A Buff Male Nanny is exactly what you would want it to be. He’s buff. He’s a male nanny. He’s also kind, good with kids, extremely good in bed, and loyal as hell. He’s basically the fantasy man (although wall to wall tattoos aren’t really my thing, I will confess; I prefer them more strategically placed). And he’s exactly what our heroine, Dr. Sloan Copeland (a former child prodigy, now cardio-thoracic surgeon) wants and needs. She needs someone to watch her six year old twin daughters, after her live-in nanny up and quits, leaving the kids unattended for four hours. And she wants to have sex (and more than that) with the hot new tattooed nanny her kids seem to love so much. Especially since she’s emotionally fragile after being married to a complete asshole for years.
My problems with this book are two: First, there isn’t really a plot. I’ve read and enjoyed books that didn’t have plots before, but there is virtually no conflict here. There’s no rising tension and thus no resolution. Our heroes are attracted to each other immediately, get together almost right away, and then just have to work out the details. There aren’t even really all that many emotional barriers, aside from Sloan’s self-confidence due to her lack of experience with men. I feel like this is a fine way to go about meeting a person and dating them in real life, but in my fiction I prefer a more of an arc.
And second, the bigger issue for me, I was really, really not into the sex scenes. I prefer my sex scenes in romance novels to be both explicit (which this was) and feature the characters being emotionally vulnerable with each other (which I didn’t really think they were during, but were afterwards and before). The sex scenes here were straight up porny. The thing that I really didn’t like, though, and it was a problem throughout the book was the use of the word “pussy.” I just do not like that word, at all. And vulgarity isn’t the issue! I’m all for vulgarity in the right context. I find that word inherently unsexy, and kind of gross. It reminds me of porn, and not the erotic kind, but the gross kind made by gross dudes that turn women into objects. I guess I wouldn’t have minded it here if it would have only been used a couple of times, but it’s used throughout the book, and is pretty much the only word used by any character to describe a vagina. Please, just give me some variety here if you are going to make me read that word!
Anyway, all that to say that the author’s version of sexy did not line up with mine, and it kind of deflated the nice fantasy balloon she otherwise had going.
I may try future books of hers if they come highly enough recommended, like this one did, but I’m not going to go and seek them out.