Craving Candy

Lucas Squires was just 18 years old when he paid the price of trying to protect his mother from his abusive father’s rage. That attempt won him a prison sentence for assault and 5 years accommodation in a cell. It was long ago and he learned a skill while serving his time.

He has since achieved financial success as owner of Coffee Breaks but fear of being like his father keeps him away from settling down and exposing any woman to danger.

With some arm-twisting on behalf of his former employee, the up and coming Katie Benjamin, he has collaborated on a cookbook using dessert and pastry recipes from his well known local coffee shop and her illustrations.

It has taken six years for Candy Logan to climb up to the position of publicist at TK Publishing. Her first solo project is a book by an artist acquaintance who is showcasing her work alongside of recipes by one Lucas Squires. Determined to make her part in this endeavor a success she has been vigilantly trying to contact him for promotion of the tome.

In exasperation, she attends the opening of Coffee Breaks at its new location intent upon meeting the elusive man. Expecting to find a suitably portly man in keeping with the luscious recipes, Candy is caught off guard and finds much less and much more than she was expecting.

This is the fourth book in the Awakening Desires series. Some readers will remember Lucas from the previous installment Katie's Art of Seduction. He was such a stalwart friend and intriguing character in the book that one is thrilled that he was given his own story.

The hero’s tough background and physical strength make his playfulness and tenderness with Candy that much more beautiful. Indeed, he is shown to be loyal, protective and compassionate. But it is also precisely for this reason that we find it a bit difficult to understand why he feels that he would follow in his father’s footsteps.

Candy has also made something of herself from a difficult childhood with an unreliable father who was in and out of the prison system and a mother who kept believing his lies of repentance and change. Living this type of experience as an adult is the last thing she would want and who could blame her for her opinion?

There was strangely a lack of validation for Candy’s feelings of hurt and betrayal in her relationships with those around her. Part of this sensation is simply due to Ms Walters ability to write such a kind levelheaded and well adjusted character that we simply tend to side with her view of things. It is then difficult to change our stance easily.

Hero and heroine are wonderful together for the camaraderie and obvious affection that come through clearly in their relationship. It is of course difficult to imagine any woman being able to hold out against a sexy hunk wooing with delicious specially baked treats and long sessions of hot lovemaking.

The chemistry between Lucas and his publicist was as fiery as anyone could wish. She was able to get a rise from him without effort or intention while he was able to help her explore the joys of dessert…both in partaking and in being.

So pick this book up to satisfy all of your senses and fulfill your craving.

January 2007