Reviewed by Andrea Williamson
Publisher: HQN
4.5 stars    

My curiosity always gets peaked when a historical romance author pens a contemporary romance.  Not because I wonder if they can write contemporary – after all, they live in contemporary times – but I wonder how their writing voice differs in the new genre and if I’ll like it as much.  Such was the case with Victoria Dahl’s new contemporary romance, TALK ME DOWN.  I thoroughly enjoy her historical voice and can now say that I am more than pleased with her contemporary voice!

After ten years, Molly Jennings is back in town.  It really wasn’t a tough decision to leave behind her nice Denver loft and active social life and return to small-town Tumble Creek, Colorado — having a crazy, stalker ex-boyfriend that wouldn’t leave her alone pretty much clinched it.  That and the fact that said crazy ex-boyfriend virtually killed her muse.  You see, Molly has a secret: she’s a bestselling author of erotic fiction. And since Molly can accomplish her job from anywhere, she moves into the house that her aunt left her when she died and tries to gain back some much needed inspiration.  She gets that and more in the form of Ben Lawson, her brother’s best friend and the long-time object of her fantasies.

Police chief Ben Lawson doesn’t care for scandal or gossip.  He has had enough of that in his past and lives his life to avoid it.  When Molly Jennings moves back and starts openly flirting with him, he certainly doesn’t encourage her attention.  Ben doesn’t date women who live in Tumble Creek because living in a small town causes too many complications if it doesn’t work out.  But Molly is relentless.  The more Ben tries to avoid her, the more he can’t seem to resist her.  And when someone starts threatening Molly, Ben figures there is no better way to protect her than to stay as close to her as possible.

TALK ME DOWN  is such a fun book!  Molly and Ben are vibrant, genuine characters that came to life on the pages.  Molly is outgoing and gregarious despite having grown up constantly compared to her perfect older brother.  Having dealt with vicious gossip as a teenager, Ben is very reserved and likes his privacy.  Needless to say, when these two get together, the sparks fly!  I laughed so much while Ben was trying to figure out exactly what Molly does for a living and kept guessing at who the villain was.  Add to that some notable secondary characters (one of which I hope gets her own book very soon) and you’ve got an exciting, fresh new talent in the genre.  TALK ME DOWN contains just the right amount of humor, suspense, romance and smoking hot love scenes!  Ms. Dahl hits a homerun in her contemporary debut and I can’t recommend this one enough!