Customer Reviews

Guity Pleasures

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I love Guilty Pleasures. I have read this before of course, but needed to replace my well read copy with another one.
Polly Crow is being stalked and she is afraid for not only for her life, but the lives of her family as well. The last thing she wants is to get involved with anyone. That doesn't stop her from being attracted to former Navy SEAL Nasty Ferrito.

Nasty Ferrito never expected to fall for anyone, let alone famous children television host Polly Crow. He wants to
protect her and her son Bobby, but she is just as determined
to not let someone else become involved in her problems.

How can you not like these characters? The hero/heroine are favorites of mine and nobody writes as vile villains as Stella does. They are mean and gross, and you can't wait for them to
get what is coming to them.

I know you will love this book as much as I do. I totally recommend GUILTY PLEASURES.

I wasn't going to write a review until I read the reader from Chicago's review. Give me a break! You obviously were looking for a book in the non-fiction section and accidentally bought this one. Read it for what it is: fiction. I enjoyed the book immensely as I did Sheer Pleasures where Nasty was first introduced. I am also hoping that Ms. Cameron is considering writing a story with Fabiola and a strong male character like Roman and Nasty. As for Polly being naive, I believe she was acting the way she did because she put her feelings for others ahead of herself. I loved the off-beat characters, and I picked up the instant attraction between Polly and Nasty. Dynamite! I have read this book about 10 times and plan on reading it again and again. Keep up the good work, Ms. Cameron!

I generally like Stella Cameron, but I would not recommend this book to anyone. Yes, it is that bad. How it got past an editorial review is amazing to me. There gaps in the story as big as the Pacific Ocean. The setting of a national children's television show for these misfits is in poor taste. Too many villians, too many plot twists, too many characters to develop, too much weird sex, just too much of everything except a good story. And the conclusion was a total letdown. If a drug lord sent the bad guys, why wouldn't he send some more? It took great effort for me to suspend logic and complete this book. Reading a romantic thriller should be fun and exciting, not a chore. I would have had more fun cleaning out the refrigerator.

This is Stella Cameron's continuation of a character in "Sheer Pleasures". Nasty is a ex-Seal who has finally found someone he cares about. That someone is Polly Crow, a kid's TV star ( she came from "True Bliss") who has a young boy to raise. Their romance is complicated by a bunch of "characters", some who are trying to get her out of the way for various reasons. Mystery and romance again. Some of the people around Polly sound bizarre but we're talking Seattle with some of the 60's left over culture. The romance is still very much there and great. All in all a fun book, if you don't take it too seriously and just enjoy it.

Give me a break. Was "A reader from New Jersey" helpful in her review? NO. Yes, reader from New Jersey, it's very possible you shouldn't be writing a review if you haven't finished reading the book.

This was the first book I read by Stella. I loved it. The characters were believable, the plot moved along just fine, and the suspense/mystery kept me on the edge of my seat.

Polly (the heroine) was a character I could relate to. She isn't wishy-washy, and she certainly isn't stupid. She has a life she has to protect, and as a mother, she will do anything to protect that life.

Nasty is a well-rounded hero. He's not overly brutish, and he's passionate. He has what we would call *feelings.* I wasn't aware it's an unwritten law that if a hero has feelings, he's considered soft and mushy. I suppose it depends on one's own perspective, but I wouldn't want to read a novel where the hero has so many hard angles to his personality, I wouldn't be able to get close to him and (gasp!) relate to him.

Stella's writing is always fresh. She has a wonderful way of using description to its fullest. One of my favorite scenes in the book is at the beginning when Polly is standing at the marina docks, the wind whipping her skirt around. It was such a well-written image, that every time I visit the marina by my home, it comes to mind. Not many writers can do that.

There's no depth to Polly and Nasty's love? Gee, I seemed to have no problem understanding what was going on between them. There was tension in the story - they didn't love each other on "first sight." Where would the conflict between them be? Really, is it so unbelievable for the hero to fall in love with the heroine at the beginning, but have to work through the problems that come with a new relationship? The last time I looked, that seemed to be pretty much the norm.

One last thing: it amazes me how people can write reviews for books they haven't read. It's truly a waste of time.

This is by far the worst book I have ever read in my life. About a third of the way into the book, I almost threw it away. I forced myself to keep reading so I could judge it fairly. After reading every line, I can honestly urge every self-respecting woman out there to avoid buying it. Let's start with the absurd names: Nasty, Venus, Fabiola, Dusty, Roman, Phoenix, Belinda, Festus. Unfortunately, the names were the most believable parts to these characters. No-one had any solid, believable feelings or reactions. They were all incredibly two dimensional and were obviously fictitious. Every page was a constant reminder that I was reading fiction and that people like this do not exist in real life (except perhaps for some of the slime Jerry Springer manages to dig up). The main characters Polly and Nasty have absolutely nothing in common except sexual attraction, which we all know is the best way to build a lasting relationship. Nasty is incredibly grounded! and methodical, while Polly is the most colossally stupid woman that has ever been invented. The story begins with Polly getting threatening phone calls, but she refuses to call the police and continues to walk home alone at night. Then, after Nasty leaves her condo one night, her intercom buzzes. A fuzzy voice she can barely make out says it's Nasty and he forgot his keys. She hits the button to let him in and starts looking for keys. Has this woman never seen a movie? Of course, she is attacked at knifepoint in her own home and Nasty has to come to save her. I thought this would finally be enough to convince her that her life was in danger. But no, when Nasty tells her to stay with his friend Dusty (also a former SEAL) so she will be safe, she sneaks out at night with the idea that Nasty shouldn't put himself in danger by being out alone. She thinks she is going to protect a former Navy SEAL who can defend himself better than she can? Of course this leads to anoth! er attempt on her life, but she still spends the rest of th! e book putting herself in danger, all the while thinking that she's going to save Nasty. The plot has a thousand holes in it, including two tremendously stupid mistakes made by former Navy SEALs Nasty and Dusty. Nasty and Dusty discuss the attempts on Polly's life and decide that there is a professional, trained killer at work. They both reach the conclusion that the killer is really after Nasty and is simply using Polly as a pawn. Shortly after, Polly's sister Fabiola offers to take Polly's seven year old son Bobby to the movies to "take his mind off" of all the trouble. Dusty agrees because he thinks the killer is after Nasty, not Bobby or Polly. Let me ask you this. What better way to use Polly as a pawn to get to Nasty than to use her son? Not surprisingly, Bobby goes to the bathroom at the theatre and winds up missing. The second stupid mistake made by a trained SEAL is when Nasty takes Polly and Bobby to his friend Rose's house. He leaves a tr! ail for the killer to draw him out, then considers the fact that it may not have been wise to put his good friend Rose in danger. This is a thought that occurred to me the instant he decided to go to Rose's house, yet it did not occur to him? It is also hard to believe the problems in the book involving children. Polly's Place is a sicky sweet children's show reminiscent of Lamb Chop. However, before and after filming, the people on the set (namely, Jack, Mary, Art, and Jennifer) swear at each other and crudely describe sexual acts IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN. As if any small town would allow these people to get away with that. Bobby is also kidnapped by his biological father and the police do nothing even though the man has no legal visitation rights and is a drug addict. Real people in this country are arrested all of the time for taking their biological children without permission, but this book implies that such an act is not kidnapping if it involves a biological ! parent. Above all else, this book's greatest offense i! s the fact that all of the women in it are stupid, weak, or mentally ill. There's Polly, who has already been shown to be lacking even the basest form of intelligence, Belinda, the spacey, married, lesbian stalker and murderer, Jennifer, the slutty, psychotic murderer, Venus, the flighty, babbling, belly dancing bimbo who can't tell a story straight, Rose, the recluse living in fantasy land because she can't cope with reality, and Mary, the paranoid, possessive bitch who is angered by her lover's infidelity even though she is cheating on him too. This author clearly hates women. So much so that I wonder if Stella Cameron is a female pseudonym used to hide the fact that the author is in reality a male chauvinist. I cannot imagine any female author with an ounce of self-respect writing such a book. I know that I will never read another Stella Cameron book and I urge you to do the same.

Every woman has a past, but beloved tv personality Polly Crow has one she must concel at all costs.

Every man has his breaking point, but ex-Navy SEAL Nasty Ferritois about to discover how far he will go to protect what he believes in.

Every pleasure has its price-and every desire its dangerous side...

When they meet, they ignite enough sparks to set Washington State on fire. When they fall in love, nothing...not Polly, Nasty, or a town harboring a guilty secret of its own...can ever be the same. When the shadowy menace stalking Polly moves closer to home, it will take one woman's trust and one man's courage to fight a smoldering evil before it explodes, destroying a love stronger and truer than anything either has ever known...

I love books and generally have trouble parting with them. That being said, I had no trouble parting with this one and throwing it out of my sight.

This was my first Stella Cameron, and may very well be my last.

I could not warm to "Nasty", nor could I warm to our herione, Polly. Somehow, I had trouble wrapping my mind around the mere idea of the plotline, let alone that which I actually ended up reading. The back cover is a better read than the book itself, which is sad. When I read "NAVY Seal", I was thrilled due to the fact that I have a weakness for those tough, brooding men. But make him shallow and make the herione a wishy-washy nitwit? Total turn off. And it's a shame, because Nasty (despite his name, which I'll admit was an obstacle for me {one which I over came by calling him something else entirely}) had the potential to be one of those absolutely delicious romantic heroes.

The flow of the story is inconsistent, the majority of sex scenes were strange and violent and between secondary characters (and really, just weird) and I honestly couldn't wait for it to end. End in the, "Finally! It's over!" kind of way. Ever watch a horror movie for the sole purpose of mocking it and the girl who does everything wrong and after being saved for the 20th time she and viewers are all put out of their misery (when she dies)? That's what Polly is like. Only, she never dies. And the twists the plot tries to take leave you thinking "wtf just happened?". And then you wait until the end, hoping to have it all tied up - a neat little denouement. Only the end comes, and you're still left scratching your head and wondering why you just wasted your time.

As a fan of Stella Cameron for quite sometime now I can't believe she turned out something like this. A major disappointment! To tell you the truth I don't beleive she even wrote this one. I'm stunned! Guilty Pleasures was not the sexy and intriguing romance story I have grown to expect from this writer. I'm bummed! Hopefully, the next book will be better. I hope so, anyway!

Usually if I don't care for a book the last thing I would ever do is come to a site like this and write a bad review. But this book was so bad it made me angry. The characters in this book set my teeth on edge. Of the two main characters, Nasty was the more believable. Shallow, but believable. But Polly who was so naive and stupid that I stopped reading about half way through and threw the book in the trash. I hate it when an author has to make the herione do incredibly stupid things so that the hero can run around rescuing her. Grrrrrrrrrrrr