Now, I’m a perv and I do loves some sexy time in books but I can just settle for one scene and even sexual tension and still think it’s the hottest shit ever. Overall though I found Birthday Girl to be a relax a day away type of read, its a sweet slow burn romance, with a touch of forbidden, moments of sweet and heart packed in with a engagement to keep you sucked into the story.

BIRTHDAY GIRL – Pen Douglas

One night, she told the bouncer at the bar where she worked that his son was hot, and three years later she was married. It takes an immensely talented author to pull off a story like this without making it torrid, pervy and cringe worthy.Now, at first I thought that this was the way she was supposed to be written based on the secrets she's keeping. Their books have been translated into nineteen languages and include The Fall Away Series, The Devil’s Night Series, and the stand-alones, Misconduct, Punk 57, Birthday Girl, Credence, and Tryst Six Venom. I got whiplash from going between scenes where he would first lust after her, to then reprimanding her! I know everything we’re doing is wrong, and I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to anyone, but right here—right now—I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Birthday Girl - Wikipedia Birthday Girl - Wikipedia

I feel asleep thinking about it and woke up giddy as fuck because I knew I was about to jump back in to it…and see Pike. It’s been 2 hours since I finished Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas and I don’t quite know what to do with myself. No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never been anything but themselves.

I read this very short Murakami story in a magazine some years ago and found it as an ebook from my local library, short enough for a reread.