Love At First Fright by Nadia El-Fassi

I have never truly done spooky reads in the month of October, but this year I wanted to start making that a new tradition for myself. If you frequent my blog you will see that I did get a bit sidetracked this month, but I finally got around to reading a book that was on theme for the month. I don’t know if this genre is a large one, or if it even exists, but I am going to say that this book falls in the cozy, spooky, romance category. 

Rosemary can see and interact with ghosts, the gift runs in her family. Not many people know, just those closest to her, and her ability doesn’t have much of an effect on her daily life. Rosemary has become a successful writer, one of her books was picked up by a production studio and is being made into a movie. She agrees to go to England at the request of the production company so they can pick her brain while filming, but she mostly goes because she believes that the lead role has been miscast and she wants to see if there is anything she can do to change the director’s mind. Ellis, a world famous movie star, has a resume full of starring roles in action flicks, and personal life to match. Rosemary doesn’t think that the tall, tan, and handsome Ellis will be able to convincingly play the thin and reserved male character from her story. Rosemary’s ability to see ghosts does come into play later in the book.

I was anticipating the spice to be spicier since a major plot point is Rosemary going on and on about how badly she wants a man to dominate her. Ellis is honestly a very respectful and playful dom, which I appreciated. But with the way Rosemary reminisced about her disappointing doms of the past I was expecting the intimate moments between them to go a little bit harder, a lot harder actually. It was mostly verbal domination, making her follow his orders, and not so much the hardcore physical domination that I feel like most people would associate with the word. In other words, I feel like I was a little bit misled. I expected fire and I got an electric blanket that was on the lowest setting. 

So the book ended up being a cozy ghost story with romance on the side. I would read it again, it was pleasant enough. But now that I know that it is a little bit vanilla in the spice department I will only reach for it when I am in the mood for something that is lower in intensity. I would say that this is a good book for someone who is curious about the romance genre, I would call it introductory level in regards to spice. 

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