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Author: Alice Clayton
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Purchase: Amazon | B&N | TBD
Synopsis: 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.
Review:
“Be aware of the walls you build and what could be on the other side.”
Despite having a cover that could suggest a lot of things, Wallbanger wasn’t definitely all sex… and wall banging. Although Simon might have banged the wall several times prior to his and Caroline’s meeting.
While I was reading this book, I can’t help but laugh out loud. It was so enjoyable and I love the way the author wrote it. The characters were written with an amazing humour that I think it was perfect to only highlight Caroline, Simon and their friends.
The first time Caroline and Simon met face to face, it was so obvious that there was a spark. But the second time and those times where they spent time together and became friends had freakin fireworks. The way they could easily include innuendos in their conversation makes me wish that I have a friend could talk to about these stuff without putting malice in it. I was actually expecting them to combust in every encounter they have. They are definitely sex, just waiting to happen.
At some point, I find it really sweet that they didn’t jumped into bed immediately. When Simon said no to her, I was impressed, proud even, that a guy could hold on and wait for the right moment. I mean, come on, he has a reputation. I didn’t expect him to say no. But he did and he was a gentleman about it. Although he got a bit carried away at first, he was able to hear the voice of reason inside his mind.
“Were we in being ridiculous, waiting until the last night in Spain to consummate this 'thing'”
Unfortunately, the long wait was…well, long. And yes, it was still kinda sweet that they want to wait but come one, guys! You’ve been dancing around this for too long. I was like “Do it! Do it!” while reading it and when it finally happened, I was like “What the hell was that?!”
The nerves, the nerves! Oh Caroline’s nerves ruined the moment. I want to shake her so hard at that part, it was extremely disappointing. Good thing, Simon here was understanding and sweet has genuine concern and feelings for her. It was so frustrating to read how Caroline over-thinks everything including the jumping-off-the-cliff thing.
Another thing that bugged me was the POV shift when they were in the car on the way home from Tahoe. I understood the text messages part. It was even cute but the sudden change POV felt utterly wrong and out of place.
Good thing it turned out okay in the end. From that frustrating scene down to the last part, I think the only thing that made me continue was Simon. I enjoyed reading Caroline, but all that reference to O started to annoy me. Thank god for Simon.
“He was wooing me. And I was letting him woo. I wanted the woo. I deserved the woo.”
This book had its sweet moments that would make you grin like silly and it has also some downsides. But overall, this is a very enjoyable that would make you laugh out loud. It definitely made me wish Simon is a real person.
