He was like a cartoon with spirals for eyes in the limo, the tip of his tongue curled up to graze his teeth as he watched me.
Sarah T. Dubbs and Eliza McLane are the same person. I highly recommend books written under both names. The Eliza McLane novellas are high heat and centered around holidays. The Valentine’s Day novella, Perfect Match, is my favorite of the three. Snailed It is a companion to Birding With Benefits (which I haven’t reviewed, but really enjoyed), and was offered as a preorder incentive for Dubbs’s recent release, Honey Be Mine. Both novellas put fundamentally good people, who are very horny for each other, into close proximity.
Perfect Match: Rose attends a match making Valentine’s Day event to support her friend who is working for a new match making service, but she has no interest in romance. Tyler attends because he wants to find a romantic partner, but he feels insecure in his ability to attract and hold interest. The two are surprised to find they’re a “perfect match,” and if they spend a weekend together they can win some money.
Snailed It: Chris is John’s best friend, and Jared is John’s younger brother. They’ve always flirted, though a few years ago John asked them both not to go there with each other. To be fair to John, at that time, Jared was drinking a lot. In the present, Jared has been sober for a couple of years, and Chris needs a place to live while he teaches for a semester as a guest professor. Chris specializes in native (Arizona) snails and his enthusiasm is infectious. Jared is still trying to figure out how to be social without alcohol, and Chris wants to respect his best friend’s wishes.
I love that Dubbs, under both names, is taking ordinary people, with normal amounts of mess, and giving them achingly poetic love stories. The dual point of view lets us see how these characters feel like they are too messy, too boring, too much, and too little, and then the ways their love interest sees their creativity, kindness, generosity, and yes, the way they lust for each other. I’ve seen complaints that romance characters have become too nice and that makes them boring. I think Dubbs has made a good argument that the desire for enthusiastic consent doesn’t equal boring.
