Customer Reviews

Her Best Friend's Lover

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Love at first sight. That is what Lauren experiences the first time she sees Dale Stoner, and has been living with those feelings ever since. After years of loving Dale, Lauren knows something has to change. It hurts too much to even be around him anymore when all she can do is wish he felt the same way. She tries to lose herself in her art, creating visions of sad beauty that echo what's in her heart.

But Dale is not in love with her. Instead he sees her as only his best friend, his rock. The one constant in his ever-changing world of women. No one will ever take the place of the one who owns his heart. It will never be his to give to another anyway. However rather than live a celibate life like his friend Lauren, he chooses to drown his sorrows in temporary encounters where there are no strings attached and no one gets hurt.

With both experiencing the pain of unrequited love, eventually something was bound to happen. A bittersweet reminder from Dale's past leads to a night of passion, only Dale is too drunk to remember who he made love to. Now he's haunted by erotic dreams of a sexy mystery woman who fulfills his every fantasy, and he can't stop thinking about her, wanting to be with her. If that wasn't making him crazy enough, now he's constantly struck by sexy images of his best friend Lauren, and to make matters worse, he's beoming irrationally jealous of this mystery man she's so desperately in love with, whoever he might be. Lauren's not talking.

"Her Best Friend's Lover" will touch a chord with anyone who's ever been intensely in love with someone who didn't feel the same way. It will break your heart and make you smile, and ultimately have you believe that sometimes love does grace us with its presence when we need it the most. It's moving, sexy, and erotic. Definitely a keeper.

is a mesmerising page-turner. It is no accident that she is now a fast rising star in the romantica genre.

Lauren and Dale are neighbours and the best of friends, only Lauren wants to be much more than that. For five years, she has lived with the painful knowledge that she is in love with someone who can never love her back and watched as Dale ran through a succession of women. Then one night of mind-blowing sex changes everything. Both Lauren and Dale must overcome insecurities and shadows from the past before they can be happy together.

The plot device may not be new but Shiloh Walker's unique voice and strong characterisation gives the story an exquisite poignancy. Lauren and Dale are sensitively drawn with layers that are slowly revealed as the story progresses. Their journey to happiness is by turns heartwarming and heartwrenching.

While the sex scenes are incinerating, they never come across as indulgent. Infused with tender emotions, they reflect how Lauren and Dale's relationship have evolved. This is a story that will linger in your heart long after you have closed the covers on the book.

Lauren has lusted after her neighbor and best friend Dale, for five years. The moment she saw him she fell in love with him. Dale however, has never thought of Lauren as more than a best friend and continues to think he's in love with a woman from his past. Dale tends to date a lot of women to ease the pain of not being able to have the one he truly loves. Lauren wishes Dale would fall in love with her, but being abandoned by everyone in her life keeps her from getting her hopes up. One night she finds Dale drunk and the two of them end up having sex. In the morning though, Dale remembers nothing and Lauren decides to keep her mouth shut. One big problem comes up; she gets pregnant and has to decide if she's going to remind Dale of the night they shared.

The book started out pretty good, but after a while things became confusing. Lauren was in love with Dale, but at times she pushed him away. And some of it did have to do with her past, but she was finally getting what she wanted from him and yet she acted like she didn't want anything to do with him. Because of her past and just how independent she was, it was understandable she'd be leery of Dale's feelings, but it seemed like he told her the same thing over and over and she didn't believe him yet she wanted him to love her. Dale was an okay character, but at times he was confusing also. While having sex sometimes Lauren would tell him no and he'd keeping going. She wasn't trying to hard to shove him away and he probably would have stopped if she had, but even her saying no in a firm way should have caused him to leave her alone. It was kind of a weird pull between the two of them. And how after the baby was born Dale didn't think it was his, I don't know. The doctor even thought the baby looked like him. I did feel bad for him that he'd missed out on knowing it was really his baby all along and felt bad for Lauren that she was scared to tell him, but she still should have sooner.

There were some typo's and at times quotation marks were missing so it was hard to tell when something was being said until the quotes came at the end. Every so often other viewpoints besides Lauren and Dale's were added in for a quick second and then never brought back into the story. It slowed the story down and made things more complicated. There was plenty of sex in the book, but the descriptions were kind of the same. Towards the end things got a little silly and repetitive, but overall the book was okay.

Lauren Spencer is a beautiful artist living next door to the man of her dreams. Dale Stoner is crazy about Lauren, too, but as his best buddy, the woman to whom he confides all his secrets and romantic woes. Dale goes through a series of relationships hoping to replace Nikki, the girl who got away and married another man years earlier. Each day is a fresh pain for the quiet, reserved Lauren as she watches Dale take up w/ one Nikki clone after another, but she has resigned herself to the fact that Dale will never have deeper feelings for her.

After Lauren and Dale fight over a blind date gone bad, she goes to Dale's house with an apology gift of home-baked cookies. She is met by an inebriated Dale, who is drowning his sorrows over some recent news about Nikki. Things get out of hand and the two have a torrid sexual encounter. The only problem is, Dale has little memory of the incident, and has no idea Lauren was his partner. Convinced that he will never love her, Lauren is determined to never tell Dale the truth, even when she learns that their night of passion has lasting consequences.

Ms. Walker has penned a good romantic tale, with well-drawn characters and a developed plot. Dale can be a little dim at times, and his fixation on Nikki is a little tedious, but he has his moments and comes through in the end. Lauren is a bit of an icicle on the outside, but this is a survival mechanism she developed as a child. Underneath her reserve, she is a warm friend and a passionate lover. Readers will want Dale and Lauren to overcome their obstacles and find happiness with one another.

This is a good, sexy read and I recommend it to other readers without hesitation. One drawback I am compelled to note, however, are the abrupt changes in perspective. The transitions were not handled smoothly and I frequently had to re-read sections trying to figure out who was "speaking", breaking the flow of the storytelling. There were also a number of typos throughout the book. These are things that should be taken care of by basic editing and proofreading. (Hint, hint, EC.) But, these relatively minor quibbles shouldn't put readers off an otherwise solid and heartwarming story.

**spoiler alert**

Lauren and Dale are best friends, they have sex while he's drunk, the next day he doesn't remember a thing and she's pregnant and she doesn't want to inflict her pregnancy on Dale.

I didn't like Lauren. It seemed she chose the hard way by not revealing her pregnancy, but if that's her decision, why did she accept Dale courtship and love and proposal without coming clean with him at once. This was just unbelievable, I thought it was incoherent given the premises. All the misunderstanding was annoying and I couldn't feel anything for her. Dale's problem with the former girlfriend is ridiculous and it's resolved in such a simple way that you can't help from wondering what all the fuss was about.

I like the "best friends turn lovers" plots, I like them a lot, but I couldn't get into this one.

This is one of the best erotic romances I've read in a long while. It's a simple premise. Lauren's in love with Dale. Dale's still in love with an old girlfriend. One night when he's drunk, the two of them sleep together. After that night, memories of Lauren haunt him, but he doesn't remember who she is. Both have their personal issues to work through and you're sure to enjoy the tale.
Simple premise or not, Her Best Friend's Lover is well written and hard to stop reading. The balance between romance and erotica makes for steamy sex scenes. Dale could be domineering--but in a good way. And Lauren was so sweet. They were easy to like. I highly recommend this one.

It was love at first sight when Lauren met neighbor Dale, but with the wandering eye of a playboy, Dale only looked at her as a buddy, as he still mourns the loss of his first love Nikki, who chose his friend over him. With an revolving door of women passing through his life, it's Lauren he turns to for commiserating. After a drunken night where the two fall into bed and have a torrid night of unbridled sex, he utters Nikki's name, effectively proving once and for all that he'll never love Lauren. Thankful in the morning when Dale has no memory of their night of passion, she discovers that their encounter ended with a party favor. When Dale steps up to provide support to her, his develops more than friendly feelings, but is haunted by dreams of a hot sexual encounter and a faceless woman he cannot forget. And Lauren is torn that she cannot keep his undivided attention, not realizing that the woman he is fantasizing about is her.

Walker's sensuous tale of best friends with benefits has what few erotic novels have - a well developed plot. Her characters are flawed but human, and the dialogue and situations they find themselves in are realistic. The only drawback is the poor editing - the scene would change from one location to the other (and often with different characters) without any notice. There were also sudden changes in perspective - do readers really need to know what a lady on the street thinks about the couple or how they remind her of her and her deceased husband? It just made this reader go "huh?" a couple times as I reread the paragraph. Despite these flaws, it is a still a highly recommended book for readers who are open to sexually explicit material.

I think most of us have experienced that feeling of being the best friend to a person we liked much more then a friend. This story is classic in that Shiloh Walker has found a way to put this into words to make a charming, sizzling tale that ends up being a real page turner. Two best friends fighting the pull toward one another. The thrill of newly discovered feelings versus the familure comfort of friendship. Love conquers all its said. Surrendering to such a conquest has never been sweeter.

" Her Best Friends Lover" by Shiloh Walker deals with Lauren Spencer and Dale Stoner,both are successful people in their mid-twenties and they happen to be best friends. Only Lauren is actually very much in love with Dale and has been since they met five years before the book takes place. Dale cares alot about Lauren, only he is still hung up on an woman who chose her jerk of an ex over him years ago so to dull that pain, he beds down pretty much any little thing that bats her eyes at him. As much as Lauren loves Dale, she refuses to let on to him that she wants him for anything more than a best friend because she refuses to be a substitute for any woman. One night though things get carried away between Lauren and Dale that results in life-changing events for everyone.

First off, I need to say the plot behind this book is AMAZING! I love that it's about two people who are best friends and who have a past. About 95% of the books I have read ( maybe a little bit more) deal with a man and woman who just meet and instantaneously become involved in not only a fantastic physical relationship but also immediately fall hopelessly in love with one another and while that's not always bad to read about,I've grown tired of it a bit and love reading about two people who actually know each other. I would LOVE to find other books in this genre or the romantic suspense type genre that have this kind of background for a couple. I will be doing some research on the lists here on Amazon later.
I guess I should also add that love/sex scenes...HOT but with some heart which I really liked.

The characters individually are pretty good too though if this book had been a bit longer, I would've liked to have seen Dale fleshed out a bit more. Lauren... not everyone is going to like her or the actions she takes but I really did and understood where she was coming from. Dale is a good guy and while I first found myself rolling my eyes at his womanizing ways and his complete ignorance of Lauren's feelings for him,you really grow to love him by the end.

Now for the bad parts... Typos...eeesh, isn't this what are editors are for? I also really disliked Ms. Walker jumping back and forth between point of views with no separation between them, sometimes I found myself having to reread a paragraph to get who was talking. The author would also every once in awhile throw in a random p.o.v. from a stranger and it just made her writing very amateur looking.

Overall a book definitely worth looking at but the author has some pretty glaring issues that I hope are corrected with her later books.

I originally read this as an ebook from Ellora's Cave. It made me buy every book Shiloh Walker has written. Her unique style, puts you into her character's mindset, makes you almost feel what they are feeling. This book really show's that, I won't go into details as all the other comments, but really wanted people to know, that this author is really good at making you feel what her characters feel, even when the odd heroine ticks you off, you can still put it down to the character being a unique person.