Stripped Bounty by Dorothy F Shaw

I haven’t had the pleasure of reading anything by this author previously and as such I wasn’t sure how my reading style and her writing style were going to match up but I shouldn’t have worried because not wishing to be disparaging, this was a solid read that once I got into it I really enjoyed.

Rosie is making ends meet, doing not necessarily what she wants to do but what she has too, following the death of her husband. Life married to a drug runner has hardly been a bed of roses but now he has gone, all her money and options have disappeared with him, starting again meansupping sticks, moving on and starting from the bottom, so with few skills to bring to the job market, Rosie is stripping at Deuce’s Strip Club.

In some ways I liked Rosie, I liked that she was made of tougher stuff than most, she might not have elected a career as a stripper but now she was here, she made the most of what she had and the tips were good! The club might not have been the best in the business but it certainly wasn’t the worst and Rosie was able to begin to get her fight back.

But will the spectre of her husband’s past come back to drag her down or will she finally make it on her own?

Well if guts alone were anything to go by this girl was unstoppable! But that wouldn’t make for a very interesting book though would it!

Security at the club was Badgers domain, he was the guy that made sure that the punters didn’t get a little too familiar! Bounty Hunter come minder Badger got on well with the girls in the club but he did it in his own way, his gruff demeanour sometimes took a bit of getting used to and it was behind that rough exterior that he was able to hide away. His cool, harsh attitude was something he used to his advantage when it came to Rosie because just by being himself he could keep her at arms-length – she didn’t know that under his mean and moody exterior he was hiding the fact that he was more interested in her than he really wanted to be!

Oh this was going to be good!!

The danced around each other, Rosie convinced that he didn’t like her and resenting the fact that she had no idea why and Badger sighing deeply that he was able to keep his emotions under control because it wasn’t easy, he wanted more from her, his dominant tendency’s knew she was perfect for him but crossing that line was a step he really didn’t want to take…that is until like the proverbial bad penny her past is back and Badger is left with no choice, if he wants her he has to act and act now!

Keeping her safe meant admitting that there was something going on between the two of them, acting upon it opened the floodgates and acknowledging their attraction meant accepting a new dynamic that Rosie had never been party to before.

I think the author handled the makeup of their relationship well, the tentative steps that Badger undertook with Rosie as they formed a relationship that meant setting new boundaries. I was pleased that the author was able to present the scenes between the two of them in a way that while they were descriptive they were not salacious, taking into account the fact that this was Rosie’s first foray into the role of a submissive, I think anything more gratuitous would have nullified the intensity of their connection.

Could Rosie fulfil the role of submissive?  

Was what they had enough to last?

Would they survive the past that was looking for no more than its perceived dues and would leave no stone unturned to get what it wanted?

I enjoyed the read, I liked the tone that the author took and the depth that she felt able to give to characters that on the surface I didn’t think stood a cat in h*ll’s chance, I liked Badger he was a strong man not only physically and mentally but also emotionally. He cared deeply for Rosie and when push came to shove, he was willing to do whatever it took to keep her safe…top man!