Review: Wallbanger

Wallbanger
Alice Clayton
Contemporary Romance
Omnific Publishing/November 27, 2012

Caroline Reynolds has a fantastic new apartment in San Francisco, a KitchenAid mixer, and no O (and we’re not talking Oprah here, folks). She has a flourishing design career, an office overlooking the bay, a killer zucchini bread recipe, and no O. She has Clive (the best cat ever), great friends, a great rack, and no O. Adding insult to O-less, since her move, she has an oversexed neighbor with the loudest late-night wallbanging she’s ever heard. Each moan, spank, and–was that a meow?–punctuates the fact that not only is she losing sleep, she still has, yep, you guessed it, no O.

Enter Simon Parker. (No, really, Simon, please enter.) When the wallbanging threatens to literally bounce her out of bed, Caroline, clad in sexual frustration and a pink baby-doll nightie, confronts her heard-but-never-seen neighbor. Their late-night hallway encounter has, well, mixed results. Ahem. With walls this thin, the tension’s gonna be thick…

In her third novel, Alice Clayton returns to dish her trademark mix of silly and steamy. Banter, barbs, and strutting pussycats, plus the sexiest apple pie ever made, are dunked in a hot tub and set against the gorgeous San Francisco skyline in this hot and hilarious tale of exasperation at first sight.

Oh, I had such a good time with this book!  It was sexy, highly amusing and left me feeling a little guilty for enjoying it so much!  Sounds like a great date night with my husband!  lol  Instead, I got to know Caroline and Simon as they got to know each other.  Their romance got off to a rocky start with the wallbanging.  Then a truce with a tentative friendship as the result.  I tend to think the best romances start with friendship.

Caroline is slowing being driven crazy by her wallbanging, long lasting next door neighbor.  She's turning into a peep-hole peeping tom, trying to catch a glimpse of the one she dubs "the manwhore".   Caroline is intelligent, funny and a little obsessive but I found her obsessions endearing.  Especially the one focused on Simon!

Simon doesn't know what to make of his crazy neighbor.  Her first impression leaves him thinking she's kind of cute in a "lunatic-escaped-from-the-asylum" way and being neighbors, he can't help but run into her.  As it turns out, they have more in common than they could have guessed.

Sometimes a romance has the hero and heroine jumping into bed rather quickly, and it works.  Sometimes they take their time and that's what happened with Caroline and Simon and it made the ending so much more believable and honest.

If you're looking for a smart, humorous and entertaining romance, give Wallbanger a go.

Rating: A