Review: Deep Down by Elle Aycart

Series: The OGs #1
Genre: Erotic Romance
Publisher: Loose Id
Publication Date: 2/11/14
Format: ebook
Pages: 293
Source: Purchase
Rating: 2 stars

Mike Haddican is a proud small-town gym owner, a renowned karate instructor, and all-around good guy. He’s never needed much to be happy: his family, his friends, his girl. Especially his girl. But when Kyra left him seven years ago to chase her dreams, she all but destroyed him.

Contemporary dancer Kyra Brims made it big, but it cost her dearly. With her life and career in shambles, she doesn’t need a do-over, she needs a friggin’ miracle. Injured, broke, and out of options after going through hell, she’s come back to Alden, the town she swore she’d never return to and home of Mike Haddican, the man who ripped her soul to pieces, to lick her wounds and recover.

Forgetting and letting go proved impossible when they were worlds apart; now that they’re stuck together they don’t stand a chance, especially with Mike’s grandma and her partners in crime plotting, meddling and refusing to give up on them.

As the passion that never died burns out of control, so do old hurts and unresolved issues. Both have reasons to be angry and feel betrayed, but now that they’re older, are they wise enough to make things work?

I wasn't a fan of Deep Down, a fact that both surprises and makes me sad. I'm a big fan of Aycart's Bowen series, and have really talked it up to other readers. I almost didn't write this review for that reason, and also after being so annoyed, I was ready to move on. But I did take the time to read the entire story, so here I am throwing in my two cents. For what it's worth.

Deep Down didn't work for me because I did not like Mike at all. I don't remember a lot about him from the Bowen books, probably because I was blinded by the dirty deliciousness of James and Cole Bowen. And that's what confuses me. The Bowen brothers were dirty talkers who backed that mouth up with a lot of action. They were bossy and gruff and it work for me. So what happened here? Mike is also bossy and gruff, but guys, I found him to be a huge jerk. Actually, I could have overlooked the alphahole personality, if it hadn't been for the sex.

Here's the thing: Kyra and Mike broke up over seven years prior. Kyra got married and Mike got to underground fighting-of course- and laying pipe all over town because the best way to get over someone is to get under (or behind) someone else. It's okay though, he never let any of these women give him a BJ because that's the only meaning of true intimacy. Oh, and he never went down south on any of the sluts, I mean ladies, he went out with because they weren't Kyra. Of course, Kyra never truly wanted anyone but Mike, and besides her husband he's the only guy she's ever been with. Good thing too, or she would've been a whore, right? But her ass though, that is all Mike's. Even better are Mike's very exacting standards for sex. One, he will never, ever use a condom on Kyra. Even when she asks him to stop and put one on. Silly Kyra, you can't ask a man who's been sexing up other ladies for seven years to wear a condom. What are you, a prude? And two, there is no cleaning up after sex. Nope, you do not get the obligatory after-sex wash cloth because King Kong here wants to drift away to dreamland with his semi still planted in you and his hand cover your "sex" so he can feel your combined fluids drip out onto your thighs and the sheets. Nothing says romance like waking up to crusty junk.

Okay, so I'm going on a semi-rant here and it's exhausting. Bottom line, I didn't find the wicked goodness with heart that I've come to expect from Aycart. I got a dirty second chance romance that I just couldn't get behind.

Because I don't want to leave this on a completely negative note, I will point out a couple things I liked. Despite being epically irritated, I did get turned on by the sexy, especially when Mike kept his mouth shut. And the grandmas. Between their scheming and autocorrect fails, they did make me laugh.

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About the author
After a colorful array of jobs all over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel agent to sushi chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing only: aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what she wants to do when she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts of crazy stuff. While she is probably now thinking of a new profession, her head never stops churning new plots for her romances. She lives currently in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who knows, in no time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.

Elle loves to hear from readers!

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