Dangerously Broken

Bradley’s second Dangerous Romance erotic contemporary (after Dangerously Bound) blends soft kink with a romantic story. When Jamie seeks an evening’s excitement at the Bastille, a BDSM club in New Orleans, he hopes to find an escape from the many wounds he carries from his past. Instead he encounters Summer Grace Rae, the girl he has always wanted but swore he’d stay away from. Summer is eager to lose herself in the newfound pleasure of kinky play, and her long-cherished desire for Jamie only heightens her hunger. Bradley invokes sultry New Orleans as a slightly seedy, tourist-infested backdrop for the secret lives of the residents. She keeps the drama tightly focused on her protagonists’ deep emotions as they work through a predictable series of anxieties and reservations before finally taking their clothes off. Erotic scenes are carefully limited to bondage and a little impact play. The characters express a desire to explore less delicate practices, but the author never follows through, so the spice of risk is muted. But within Bradley’s scrupulously self-imposed limits, the passion sizzles. Agent: Roberta Brown, Brown Literary Agency. (Oct.)