Naked Heart [Paperback]

Jennifer Fulton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2008

Can two women who trust no one take a risk and trust each other?

Ex-CIA agent Penn Harte normally makes a living selling her unusual skills to the highest bidder, but lately she's been doing a favor for her best friend Lila and overseeing Lila's businesses-running an upscale fetish club and making erotic movies. Penn has the dirty job of looking after Lila's new stars, identical twin Dommes, Chloe and Colette. They're such a distraction, she almost declines her next real job but the guy writing the checks makes an offer she can't refuse. It's money for nothing. All she has to do is get some serious dirt on the CEO of a biotech. research company, so she can be blackmailed. Unity Vaughan is a cautious, lonely lesbian, the perfect subject for seduction and entrapment. Penn figures she'll have her on film in a compromising position within days.

Born on the wrong side of the tracks, raised by a single mother, Unity Vaughan has fought for everything she's ever achieved. Now, having just made a breakthrough discovery that has frightening ramifications for biological warfare, she knows she is a target and is determined to get ahead of the game. She needs an expert to watch her back and spy on her enemies, which is how she finds herself in a bizarre nightclub trying to hire a person who comes highly recommended. But Penn Harte is not the washed-up spy Unity was expecting. She's 5'9" of lethally attractive woman with a flogger in one hand, a camera in the other, and a pair of corseted twins fondling her body.

Power, passion, sex, and danger drive a high-stakes plot in this compelling erotic romance.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (March 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602820112
• ISBN-13: 978-1602820111
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Missing one or two heartbeats, May 22, 2009

By 

Geoff (Connecticut snob, temporarily on loan to South Carolina) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Naked Heart (Paperback)

Disclaimer: Icky opinionated male! (But I loved the two Meghan O'Brien books I read, and liked Lynn Galli's a lot too!) For some reason this review is writing itself in bullet points. Sorry.

~The plot is -reasonably- well laid out in other reviews and the synopsis, so I won't bore you with that. The writing itself is top-notch, and very pleasing to read. There's a tiny smattering of techobable that would have left me behind if it was used more, and one or two moments of political soapboxing that I didn't care about one way or the other, but it didn't hurt the book any.

~I will agree that the BDSM is very incidental (too incidental, in my pervy `lil opinion), and is used only as a back-drop. (Although the scene where dangerous twins attempt to seduce one of the main characters into letting them "play" with her was very hawt!)

~The `Spy' aspects of the book are less "Jane Bond" action and adventure, and more icky/sleazy corporate digging and morals-compromising work, that I felt sadly sympathetic for the character `Penn' for having to stoop to.

~The "HLS" is nice, and certainly tastefully written, but I feel it a bit hurried. I'm not looking for badly written "Letters to Penthouse" stuff here, but there seemed to me to be a certain lack of foreplay. There's -lots- of teasing and waiting impatiently (which is -good-), but that leads to being too hurried when the bedroom door closes.

~As Elena (from Spain) points out there are four interesting secondary characters introduced, Nariko, Lila, and the dangerous twins Chloe and Colette, who I also feel were promising, but in the end I feel they were underused.

Now, my main reason for 3-stars: There is a moment where the book breaks down for me. The anger and reconciliation is -way- too hurried, and lacks a great deal of detail. I'm greedy. I want my soap opera. I was happily wallowing in all the emotions -right- there with both characters, and then the anger is over too quick, and the efforts and struggle to make amends and repair the damaged relationship are almost non existent!

The author works her magic for 200+ pages to lead up to the moment of truth, and could have (should have) gone another 100+ pages to deliver our "happy ending". It felt as if someone at her publisher's said "ok, you have 25 pages left to wrap it up!" It just felt... rushed. I just felt the characters deserved a chance to work things out properly. (That's what I get for getting emotionally invested in the story!)

A good book, but about 75 pages light at the end.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprising depth within a thriller, July 19, 2008

By 

Elena (Spain) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Naked Heart (Paperback)

There are a couple of reasons for my rating this book 5: One is the way it sucked me right in, there aren't too many books that have me up and reading to reach the end until all hours of the night, and this one managed just fine. The story is James Bond-esche in quite an implausible way, but at the same time it has a chilling ring of truth to it. It is dynamic, and incredibly well paced, it doesn't rush but it never stops moving.

The second reason is the fabulous, and completely surprising, inner depth of both main characters, Unity and Penn. The way they look within themselves and to each other and they way they analyze their feelings and their reasons, creates characters full of life, complex and rich, and very plausible even though the whole setting is, in Unity's own words, like an espionage novel. I simply wasn't expecting such well-defined characters in this type of erotically charged, action packed book..

In my opinion, there are a couple of "lose ends" (for lack of a better word): Nariko's and Penn's complicated relationship, which seems to be left somewhat open and forgotten, and the fact that I'm not altogether certain of the plot value of Chloe and Colette. Generally, that would make me rate the book a 4, but I can't bring myself to save starts with this one, I was totally blown away by these two fantastically drafted characters.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another great read from this author, May 21, 2008

By 

CC (Michigan) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Naked Heart (Paperback)

I have always enjoyed the Fulton books, and this one is no exception. The author brings together an intriguing plot of corporate back-ally dealings, secrecy, personal revenge, and two solid characters that get through it all. As the reviewer before mine noted there is a back-drop of BDSM but I disagree with shying away from this book because of that, there is no big graphic descriptions of actual BDSM activity, more of a 'tease' type description and only on a very few pages (believe me I have read more descriptive ones in other 'tame' books and the love scenes describe between the two characters outside of the BDSM club are actually more graphic then what goes on in the club...in a good way) but the back-drop does give a good contrast between the lives of the two main characters and their interaction with sub-characters - I kind of wished the author had drawn out Unity's mother more, she seemed like a hoot. I would recommend this if you enjoy other Fulton books, it has a nice pace to the plot build up and wraps up nicely in the end....can't wait for her next one!