Title: TIGHTAuthor: Alessandra Torre
Genre: Erotic Romance (Standalone)
Cover Design: Judi Perkins
Photography Credit: Maksim Gorbunov
Release Date: Feb. 7th 2015
I was happy in my small town. In my life as a single thirty-two year old woman. I had a good job, wonderful friends, my independence.I also hadn’t got laid in three years. Hadn’t been on a date in two. Had stopped counting calories and putting on makeup… a while ago.
Then Brett Jacobs waltzed in. Caressed my thigh, dug rough fingers into my hair, lowered his soft mouth to my skin, took sexual control of my mind and stirred it all around with what he packed in his pants. He dumped my quiet life upside down and crawled into a place in my heart I thought was dead.
The issue is his secret. The issue is her. The issue is that I don’t even know she exists, and he thinks she’s dead. The issue is that everything is about to hit the fan and I can’t hold on to him tight enough.
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The word ‘tight’ has twenty-two definitions, but my favorite is Webster’s fifth- “A bond which cannot be broken.”
It breaks my heart a little to write this review, considering that I haven’t rated any of Alessandra’s books anything below a solid 4 stars. She’s an auto-buy author for me, and will continue to be. While this book didn’t quite work for me, I do still enjoy her writing style and story telling ability immensely. She’s a true talent and I really love her work. Unfortunately this book didn’t fully live up to my expectations. Perhaps I set them too high? Perhaps I’m overly picky? Maybe I’m just too analytical when I read and tend to pick apart details to try to make sense of it all in my head? It started off so strong, and then somewhere around the 30% mark it just began to lose me.
“Meaning?”“Meaning,” he growled, “that if I have you, you will not return to life as you know it. You will not flirt with men around the water cooler at work. You will bend for me, spread for me, allow me to have every inch of your surface, all while screaming my name and shuddering into my heart. That is what I mean.”
Riley Johnson is a 32 year old woman from a small Florida town on a weekend trip in the Bahamas for her friend’s bachelorette party. While walking back to her room, she meets a mysterious stranger that she’s immediately drawn to. He’s handsome, he’s polite, and he has a barely leashed sexuality that just calls to her starved libido.
But what initially starts out as one night of unimaginable passion, soon begins to develop into something much more when Brett relentlessly pursues Riley.
Brett Jacobs is mostly an enigma through the book. The reader is privy to his POVs every now and then, although I never found it to be quite enough to truly form a connection to. I suppose the part where it began to turn for me was their courtship. We went from a case of insta-lust to relationship in almost a blink of an eye. While it does take place over several months, it still felt very quick. Maybe because of the time jumps? For whatever reason I just couldn’t connect either of the characters and their motivation. Brett has lost someone years ago that has forever changed his life and purpose. He’s not looking for a one night stand, but he wasn’t exactly looking to give his heart again either.
So I couldn’t really connect that with his almost instant draw to Riley and the quick turnaround towards a relationship.
On a side note, there’s one thing you can never take away from Alessandra Torre, and it’s the woman’s ability to write one insanely erotic love scene. The chemistry between Riley and Brett is hot enough to burn the pages.
This would have been a very solid 4 stars for me if not for 2 major things (or at least I found them to be major)
I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll be as vague as possible and put any details in spoilers (though I won’t give any major spoilers away). This book is meant to be experienced blind, and just because it didn’t work for me, doesn’t mean most readers won’t absolutely love it. I am definitely in the minority with my opinion, so please don’t let it sway yours 😉
The plot twist
Here’s the thing; I had figured it out almost from the beginning (considering the dates given and the time frames between chapters). I had written it completely off because I thought it was too obvious. Maybe it was my own fault for building up different scenarios in my head that I was left underwhelmed when everything was revealed? It could very well be. But I felt like you have this answer right in front you and it’s shrouded in smoke in mirrors, which would usually work for me…yet it didn’t here. I was hoping for something mind-blowing, something completely unexpected, and that’s not at all what it was (at least not for me)
Riley’s actions
The one thing I have adored about Alessandra’s writing in the past are her heroines. She writes these amazingly unapologetic strong women that own their sexuality. They may be a little naive, they may be a little vulnerable, but they’re different from the mainstream and I loved them for it. Riley was certainly a change of pace from that. At first I found her to be incredibly endearing, but then her actions began to borderline enrage me.
Brett is obviously hiding something from Riley about who he is. This becomes quite obvious from the beginning. My problem was the way that she handled her suspicions. There was a part towards the very end where I wanted to throttle her; her actions were just TSTL.
This had all the elements of a 5 star read for me, unfortunately between Riley’s decision, the underwhelming plot twist, and the additional plot twist at the end that just completely came out of left field for me, this book fell short for me. I found large parts of the story to be a little dragging and I just kept waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately I never managed to click with the story or the characters.
I really wanted to love this book, and I’m more than positive that most readers will, so please don’t let my rating sway you. Give it a try and see for yourself. It may just blow you away 😉
This certainly will not sway my opinion of the author or skill at all, and she’ll continue being an auto-buy author for me. Unfortunately even some of my favorite authors have had a book that didn’t work me. So I’ll be writing this one off as a case of “it’s probably just me”.
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