Weekend Pick Me Up – Phenomenal X by Michelle A. Valentine

MEEEE-ow, girls and boys. I have never had an experience like Anna Cortez has when she meets wrestling phenom Xavier Cold on a plane but I have sat by the person who spilled his drink on her so I must be building up frequent flyer karma to earn my own dirty talking bad boy mile high experience. Perhaps I’m not flying with the right airlines, is there a Hard-on Airways? I’ve been booking through Orbitz and I think they only deal with the regular carriers. Xavier Cold must only fly on the premier and obscure ones where you can rather rudely proposition chicks to get on your salami shuttle to the nearest hotel upon arrival. I read this book when it first came out in April and I’m still trying to figure out if I’m turned on by his naughty talk or if on the surface he’s a douche canoe.

Anna Cortez hates her life because her family is controlling and they are trying to put her cookie flavor into a shape she doesn’t feel it fits. When she is faced with the fact that she just can’t pretend any longer to be a sugar cookie when she is a ginger snap, she hits the skies where she encounters Xavier Cold, known to everyone but her as wrestling star Phenomenal X. He takes an interest in her, he has a sweet tooth for all cookies but she has an ingredient that he especially craves, and he starts shopping everywhere to get more of cookie flavor. Anna however is not into casual cookie encounters and does not submit so easily to this cookie monster, Xavier just gets to friend zone her cookie goodness and look at her. It’s both an indulger’s and dieter’s hell.

I loved this book, it was sort of cliched, but awesome. Imagine every stereotype drama you could have in a book, toss it in there: good girl with controlling family, bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, family who aren’t family that saved the bad boy and made him want to be someone, success story, love at first sight, she’s special and different, he’s broken and I want to fix him, we can be a team and be stronger, you make me want to be a better person, I live for you and you alone, wank, wank, wank… But I wasn’t rolling my eyes because I was eating this stuff up like I haven’t eaten for years and it was a chocolate buffet. It might have all been the sorts of things that is done over and over again but it was damn well done here and I give Michelle A. Valentine two thumbs up from me and I will find some more thumbs to add to those.

I do have some issues with Xavier’s opening crassness but he probably did have hot and cold running kitty everywhere he went and coming on to women with overt and openly unimaginative dirty talk probably did it for people impressed by who he was and what they saw in his tights on tv. Still I thought he was a rectal location until he became more developed, then I sort of fell in love with him. Thank the lord of the flies that Anna had some sense of self control because if she had dove for the sheets after his cheeze-y come ons I probably would have been hoping that he had hit her with his motorcycle rather than given her a ride on it. But Michele wrote Anna as a smart and savvy character and I will look for some more thumbs on that account too.

This does end with a frustrating cliffhanger and I would like to perhaps attach nipple clamps on authors who are jumping on this sort of cliffhanger thing so maybe they can appreciate the pain and agony that we readers do when you give us an ending like this book has and also like the Here and Now series has Ms. Lexi Ryan. I actually think Lexi and Michelle should go bowling with one another and discuss how awesome it is to taunt their readers with what will come next. But relax, Michelle and Lexi, I will be buying the next books by both of you and yelling it from my blog and Facebook for others to do so as well when the following books come out so I must not have that much sand in my vagina.

I recommend you read Lexi Ryan’s Here and Now Series if you like this. Another great story would be Wrecked Series by Priscilla West.

Purchase Phenomenal X:

Amazon | B&N | Kobo

Michelle A. Valentine’s Web Tracks:

Michelle A. Valentine on All The Things Inbetween:

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