Review: Under His Spell by Kathy Lyons

Nicky Taylor is a driven executive. A total control freak. And magician Jimmy Ray has loved her forever. When he spots her in the audience, he realizes he finally has a chance to fulfill his own lifelong fantasy. With a little help from Dr. Mesmer, that is...

Who'd have guessed that a little hypnotism would unleash Nicky's wildly sexual nature? Or that Jimmy's powers of persuasion would encourage her to burn up the bedsheets with him that night...and the nights after. She's the perfect woman.

Unfortunately Jimmy's pretty sure Nicky's still under his spell. And he has to change that. Because he's quickly falling under hers...

Ok, so I started reading this book one night and it had been a crappy day for me so I was looking to unwind and de-stress. Well, the book starts out with this workaholic stess bag of a woman who almost gets in car accidents on a regular basis cuz she's checking e-mail and talking on her phone and thinking about the million and one things she has to do for work. She's so stressed that she regularly has panic attacks that are pretty bad. I could almost feel her stress and I just couldn't read anymore that night, because I wanted to unwind not get tied in knots of tension.

Well, I picked it up again and decided to give it one more go and see if it would work when I was in a different frame of mind. I'm so glad I did.

Nicky is kind of wound a bit tight, to put it mildly. She breezed through high school and thought she'd have the real world eating out of the palm of her hand. After graduating she hit real life and real life hit back. She had to struggle through college, made some really bad relationship choices, got mired in debt and worked her butt off to get a good job. Now that she has it, she fears daily that she's going to let her guard down for a minute and lose everything she's worked so hard to build for herself.

Enter Jim, or Jimmy as she likes to call him. Jim was the high school geek that loved Nicky from afar. He rescued her after a bad date and the two shared sundaes and secrets and the memory is precious to them both. Jim is now the genius that invented...something....and made millions. You know? That guy. Plus he's worked out a lot so he's waaaay hotter than he was in high school. Oh, and he's a magician on the side. Yeah, it could have been cheesetastic, but oh, Jimmy, I wanna take you home. Rawr!

Jim was so great. Both he and Nicky are a little hung up on the labels they received in high school and have a hard time seeing themselves for the people they've become. But that's ok, because they see each other pretty well and don't hesitate to point out each other's strong points. And the sex? WOW. I want my own hot nerd. Seriously, my birthday is coming up and I either want a hottie with nipple piercings or a hot, hot nerd. There is just something about a smart guy and the way they can be so....focused. And boy was he focused on doin' her every which way he could, but what was even hotter was that he wanted to give her everything she needed emotionally, sexually, and physically. And when he gets possessive? Yum. I kinda fell in love with Jim, so Nicky better watch herself. I'd steal him in a heartbeat. What can I say? I love alpha geeks.

The story was a little twisted in some ways and almost took me out of my comfort zone a few times, but yet I couldn't stop reading and that's just hot. It was actually a pretty intense story at times with the right amount of humor and tenderness to balance it out.

I give Under His Spell a B+ and really recommend it for a sexy and fulfilling read. But just a heads up, Jimmy's mine. Just sayin.

You can order as an e-book here

Or as a print book here

Muah!