Review: Intimate by Kate Douglas

Intimate by Kate Douglas
Purchase link: Amazon

My rating: 

Heat rating:   

From bestselling author Kate Douglas comes the first book in a sensational new series set in California wine country-a place where love is always intoxicating. . .

HER BEAUTY IS POWERFUL.
They call her Kaz. She's a gorgeous model with a good head for business-until now, at least. Kaz has just been fired from her latest photo shoot for having the wrong tattoo in the wrong place at the wrong time. But a chance encounter with photographer Jake Lowell could make everything right again...if Kaz is willing to accept his proposition. What does she have to lose?

HIS DESIRE IS DANGEROUS.
Jake has been searching for the perfect model to pose for a body-jewelry shoot-one that will leave no room for modesty. Is Kaz, who is nothing if not professional, ready to bare it all for a man she is not sure she can trust? It's an offer that's too good to refuse...and as Kaz finds herself growing more comfortable with Jake, the attraction between them reaches arousing new heights. But while the artist and his subject learn more about each other in the intimacy of wine country, evil lurks in the shadows-and soon it becomes clear that someone else has designs on them...

Kate Douglas has written a sexy, edgy, erotic story with a hint of suspense thrown in.

There is an instant attraction between Jake and Kaz and much of the story is focused on Jake and Kaz desiring, wanting, and discovering each other. There's a strong sexual element to the story with a thread of suspense running through it as Jake is being stalked by an unknown person, probably because of a past which Jake has kept hidden from everyone in his present.

The story itself is beautifully written, and the imagery of the jewelery and Kaz's tattoo which are a focal point of the story are stunningly described. I felt like I could see and touch those pieces of jewelery as they are described in the book.

I didn't feel like I was getting to know Jake and Kaz much as people, rather more as sexual beings, since so much of the story is tied into their desire for each other and how they satisfy each other (it is an erotic romance after all!).

The other focus of the story is the photo shoots and those were spectacularly described. There was so much detail in the descriptions, I felt I could see each setting and each photo shoot. I felt like I was there watching them happen.

With the suspense in the story, I suspect it has something to do with Jake's past and an accident he was involved in. I don't know exactly what it was about or how it ended since I skimmed most of the book after about the halfway point ... it being hard work and all.

This is a very weird book for me to rate because it is very well written but it didn't grab me, so even though I have not finished it (I will explain why), it is still 2 stars because even though the book was well written, it did not engage me enough to want to keep going.

As to the reason, I did not finish it, I felt it was a struggle to read. I kept picking it up, reading a few pages and putting it back down. I kept getting distracted by other shiny stuff and the story was not holding my attention. The style of the writing itself too was a struggle for me. It felt like hard work, reading this book. It was a tough slog and after a week of battling with it, with great reluctance, I finally gave up. Perhaps it was the pacing of the story. It is not a fast moving story.

Please do not think this is a bad book, it's not. I think it's me. I think the sexiness and edginess of this story will be captivating for others who may not have the same reading tastes as I do.

View all my reviews


About the author

Some people just seem to know they are meant to write, but it can still take a while to figure out exactly what their career will entail. Kate Douglas started out writing radio copy for a country western radio station in 1972, wrote and illustrated an educational cartoon strip for the American Mosquito Control Association for a number of years, was a newspaper reporter for a small town weekly where she covered everything from high school sports to drug busts, and then, in the mid-1980s, decided to write her first romance.

Many submissions and rejections followed.

In 1998, she published with a small ebook publisher before anyone knew what an ebook was, but it wasn't until 2005, a full twenty years after finishing that first romance, that she signed with a New York publisher.

In January 2006, Kensington Publishing launched their Aphrodisia imprint of erotic romance with Kate's Wolf Tales, a sexy paranormal series about a lost race of shapeshifters. Kate has continued on as the imprint's lead author, with twenty-one novels and novellas in the full Wolf Tales series. She also has a series with Kensington's Zebra imprint, DemonSlayers, and has just completed her latest Aphrodisia series, Dream Catchers, which opened with the NightShift anthology and her novella, Dream Catcher, followed by the novels Dream Bound and Dream Unchained.

Her next series, Spirit Wild, debuts April 30, 2013 with Dark Wolf. This is a spin-off series that takes place in the Chanku world readers first met in Wolf Tales. Characters are the grown children of the first Chanku.

Kate and her husband of over forty years have two adult children and six grandchildren. They live in the small town of Healdsburg, California, in the heart of the beautiful Sonoma County wine country.

Author Links:  Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads


Find Deanna around SOCIAL MEDIA: