Customer Reviews

Skin Deep

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I have purchased ML's books for years for the simple reason that she is one of the best in the business when it comes to writing great sex scenes, but this story like so many of her others have a trend that makes me take pause.

I appreciate ML's commitment to bring sultry IR stories for black women, but how many black women readers are getting the feeling from all reading these novels that white women, blond women specifically, are always portrayed as the most beautiful and ideal women, while black women are portrayed as just the opposite? This is insanity coming from a black woman author! How many Plain Jane white blond women has she described in her stories? They're ALL overwhelmingly beautiful, so beautiful that it's crazy for any of these white male leads to want a black woman. Jake Volmer, like so many other white male characters in ML's stories, are initially repulsed by the black women protagonists. But for some reason, against their will, they find themselves "drawn" to them, even though they find white women far more inherently beautiful than black women. WTF!

I think ML has been sipping too much of the white supremacy Kool-Aid for my taste. Please, please create novels where the black women are NOT ugly while all the white blond women ARE beautiful. It's a soul crushing message to black women, who already have enough garbage thrown their way, and plus this message is a downright LIE!

Jake Volmer has a type of woman that he likes,prefers actually.Petite,fair-skinned,long,red hair and gorgeous.Someone he can pick up and carry to bed. Well,Jake is about to have his preconceived notions about beauty and attractivness tossed right out the window when Gabrielle Williams opens her apartment door to him as they prepare to go out on a blind date arranged by his sister-in-law,Lea,who is also HIS ex-girlfriend,who has her own agenda for setting this date up.

Jake is caught in the middle,Lea is the kind of woman he's attracted to,and Gabrielle or "Bree" as she likes to be called,is tall,dark-skinned and full-figured,so,not his type.Or isn't she? You will enjoy reading how a man can change for the better,not just in perceptions but in heart.

Love comes in all shapes,sizes and colors, and when it comes to Jake and Bree it takes everything they have to fight for and accept this crazy thing called love!

Sexy? Yes. Erotic? Yes. Good storyline? Yes!!

I loved this story! Jake's trifling sister-in-law sets him up on a blind date with a co-worker hoping that it would make him come back into her bed. She picks Bree a woman that she thinks that he will not be attracted to. Lea is married to Jake's brother Ed because he has more money but Jake is better in bed. Jake finds out that beauty is only skin deep and falls hard for Bree. Of course, this doesn't set well with Lea so she finds s way to break then up by telling Bree and his brother a bunch of lies. Her lies catch up with her and she is the one who loses.

An up and coming engineer, Jake Volmer has just about everything a man could want, except the woman of his dreams. Too bad Lea is married to his brother.

Because long distance relationships rarely work out Gabrielle Williams or Bree as everyone calls her, had said `good-bye' to her old boyfriend months ago when he transferred to California. By her own admission Bree is missing the ex and feeling kind of lonely these days.

Jake agrees to go on a blind date and can't help but wonder what Lea is thinking when he meets Bree. Dating a black woman is fine but his ex and current sister-in-law knows he's attracted to women like her, tiny and fragile not tall and plump. Bree is equally appalled because she instantly realizes Jake isn't into her the minute they meet.

The strange thing is that Jake wants to see Bree again. He can't explain why but he can't stop thinking about Bree and he won't take no for an answer. Meanwhile, Bree can't figure out why the gorgeous white guy wants to see the big, plain Jane, black girl once more and Lea is doing what she can to sabotage any further dating between them. People are so complicated at times it can make your head spin!

Talented author Marilyn Lee delves into the human psyche and relationships in Skin Deep, an honest look at blind dates, opposite attractions and true love. The responses between the characters felt real but unfortunately, I just couldn't believe that Bree would agree to see Jake again especially after the picnic. I also felt that Jake was starting to act like a stalker rather than a legitimate lover and Bree seems too smart to put up with that. Skin Deep lays bare some truths in dating but doesn't necessarily give readers a reason to want the jerk to get the girl even with a really good ending.

Lisa
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

PLOT: When his sister-in-law sets him up on a date with a plain woman, Jake knows she's up to something. He used to date her until she dumped him for his richer brother. What surprises Jake is that he finds himself attracted to Bree though she's not his type.

PROS: There's great sexual chemistry between the hero and the heroine. I loved the back and forth of the story being told in first person point of view by him and by her. The flow of the story is fast and kept me entertained.

CONS: Jake was a cad to start off. His behavior at the start of the novel is deplorable, but I still liked him at the end.

5 STARS: I truly enjoyed Skin Deep. It's sexy and as hard to turn away from as a soap. Jake and Bree grow together. He becomes a better man for this strong, mature and understanding heroine.

This is a quick read. The plus size black female has a inner beauty her blind date cannot resist. He is the all american white boy that loves skinny white girls. It is a nice to see he finds out beauty is only skin deep.

If you can look past the way that he sees her at first you are in for a thrill! The sex is so hott I had to take a cold shower and the plot was AWESOME! So good so good so good. This book is worth every penny!

This book generated so many emotions in me. At times I laughed. I cried when things looked black for Bree and jake, and even cursed a few times.
It's a great story with graphic, adult language, but then it's an erotic romance. So if you enjoy erotic romance, I highly recommend Skin Deep.

I let all the comments with 5 stars mislead me. I kept thinking...well there are more good comments about this book then bad ones so why not just buy the book? I did. And it was a big mistake. It was so poorly written that I felt as if I had wrote it myself. All the characters were one dimensional and the the spelling errors pissed me off. YES, SPELLING ERRORS IN A PUBLISHED BOOK. The story line was fake and so overdone that I was cringing at some of the things Jake would say to Bree. Now I'm all about an interracial romance..especially when the guy falls for a plain jane but there was nothing really good about this book. When I was reading it I dropped it down numerous times in disbelief. There was no real plot, no likable characters, and it sounded too much like a 12 year old girl filled with weird fantasies wrote it.

Bree and Jake are very likeable in the beginning. Jake is set up on a blind date with Bree, and when she opens the door he realizes that she's not anyone he would look at twice on the street, or even once for that matter. Still, he goes along with it because he thinks his sister in law, Lea, is having a laugh at him and he wants to prove to her he's not shallow. His pursuit of Bree is very readable and it's fun because Bree sees him coming a mile away. The author explores their attraction to each other against their better judgement very well. And even Bree's repeated questions of 'why me?' and 'how long will you stay interested in me?' doesn't become too, too annoying. The issue with sex, however, does. Exactly how many times can you lead a man on and then play coy before it gets downright nauseating? I didn't mind the first few times, but when she met Jake at the door in a teddy and then bailed because he had a look of caring in his eye, I wanted to throw something. The man is almost naked and rearing to go and she's 'not ready to have sex with him yet'. I was seeing red and I'm not even a guy. A woman is, of course, allowed to change her mind but we'd been down this road before, plus he stated his intentions, she buzzed him in from the lobby and CHANGED into the teddy...and then she wanted him to hold her. At that point, I couldn't read any further. It's always nice when authors of IR can write female characters that aren't weak, needy and wishy washy. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of those times and 120 pages of neediness was all I could take.