I am an imperfect person, living in an imperfect world, who read an imperfect book that was...perfect! I lOVED this book. It had romance, mystery, suspense, humor, etc... A romance in a town called Carnal...how perfect is that? I loved all the characters but especially the hippies! This book is really long. It was so hard to find a stopping point, which made me glad I read it over a weekend. I would decide at 11 p.m. to quit reading then at 2 a.m. I would have to make myself stop! I woke up, ate breakfast, then read some more. I was sitting in my reading chair at 11 a.m. still in my PJ's. LOL. I don't know why the book wasn't edited more carefully or how it was published with errors, but it was. If you aren't a person who expects perfection it is truly a well thought out story and very enjoyable. ( )

This one started out kind of slow. But things ramped up and got better. Especially once Jonas came on the scene. Don't know why, but when I pictured Tate, I kept seeing Jason Momoa. ( )

[b:Sweet Dreams|11227040|Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain, #2)|Kristen Ashley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327912890s/11227040.jpg|16152935] by [a:Kristen Ashley|2958084|Kristen Ashley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1534959159p2/2958084.jpg]
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Mystery, Romance, Suspense
4 Stars

I am so addicted to Kristen Ashley books.
It's weird, because I'm more of a paranormal girl and most of her books are contemporary.

This story started with a bang and a lot of sass. I was instantly hooked.

The romance was steamy & very adult. It was not erotica. But, I can't say it was not erotic.
Cause, DANG, some of those scenes definitely had me waving the heat in my face and saying

"Lord have mercy".

That said, I will tell you, Ms. Ashley has a tendency to ramble in her books. What I mean by that is she tends to over describe the surroundings of virtually all her scenes.
In some places this works out well. Other times, not so much.
That is the only complaint I have about this story.

The suspense with the serial killer was well done and kept you wondering who it could be. I kept changing my mind as to who it was.

The world build, the main characters & all the supporting characters were well defined.
I easily connected with and could vividly picture them and the surroundings.

For me, the story flowed and kept me hooked.
Although, I will admit to skimming through some of her TMI details about mundane things.

I don't remember running into any typo/editing errors. ( )

Loved this book. I'd give it more than 5 stars if I could. It's one of those you just want to gush to everyone about. It's very different probably because it's so long. And because it's so long there is plenty of time to develop the relationship between the hero and the heroine. The book takes you from the moment that the heroine sees the hero going into a motel room with another woman all the way through their own horrible first meeting to their eventual marriage. Instead of just a few key scenes to highlight their growing relationship, their story plays out in slow motion. It is very real. Every step in a developing relationship where a woman would realistically wonder things like is this guy playing me? Or why isn't he letting me into all of his life. Or does he want me to move in or am I going to fast for him? Each episode shows them getting the bugs out of a relationship. Meanwhile there is also a rich cast of secondary characters and the whole interesting biker culture thing that I really enjoyed. Plus there is a serial killer on the loose in the town. This isn't a romantic suspense though although there are elements of that. It is firmly the story of the relationship between Lauren, a former upper middle class executive trying to find herself after her divorce from a cheating husband and Tate a totally alpha badass biker bounty hunter.

Their meeting is so far from stellar that you wonder how the author can redeem the hero. He's led a tumultuous life mixed up with the crazy hot woman with whom Lauren saw him at the motel. He has a really bad temper and a trash mouth. All that said, he is the best alpha male I can remember reading about. He's so naturally dominant that I can see where she'd agree with everything he ordered her to do. Just ordinary day to day do what I tell you stuff that would normally have my feminist bone jangling. But he never bosses her around arbitrarily and he goes out of his way for her time after time. It takes him sometime to believe he deserves her and they have a bunch of miscommunications to work through but the best part is they stuck together and talked things out. It was like you were seeing inside someone's real relationship.

As for the heroine, I really liked her. This book was written in first person from Lauren's POV and she was pretty humorous for the most part without it seeming like she was trying to hard. She didn't start out with a lot of faith in herself and it takes her a while to believe that this super hot biker guy really wants her but he eventually persuades her. She has left her suburban life behind and considers herself a biker babe in training. She's sassy and can be bitchy and flies off the handle and panics easily but she is never TSTL. She isn't one of those heroines that you just get tired of their sh** and just want them to straighten up. She never treats the hero badly aside from snapping at him or what have you which just made her seem more real. She was a lot sweeter than she realized about herself and was the perfect woman to bring calm and love to the alpha biker who hadn't necessarily led an easy life.

The hero and heroine were 44 and 42 and that seemed the perfect age for them. It was nice to read about older characters that didn't seem to have one foot in the grave which is pretty rare in romances. The sex scenes were pretty hot and earthy but no kink at all so ultimately very sweet and loving.

The only two things that I consider not quite as great are: the author continually used the word passed when she really meant past. NOT synonyms. Plus the cool staccato way that the hero talked was many times adopted by others in the book. It lessened the power of his speech patterns when everyone was dropping pronouns. So there was bit of lack of distinctive voices for each character. Gotta say that is so minor that I hesitated to even mention it.

I asked for a rec for a book with a ditsy heroine and an indulgent hero and I am so happy that this was recommended to me by Viv. I got this book on Lendle loan but I will be buying it and the other two books by this author.

What you wanted to do was sweet, but, babe, no offense, you don't know dick about dealin' with a man."
"okay." I whispered.
"It isn't that it's too soon, you're on the back of my bike, it ain't too soon. You can buy sheets. You cannot install blinds."
"Um..." I mumbled. "Can you explain the difference?"
"Sheets are chick territory," he said without delay, "you gotta use tools, that's dick territory."
"Oh," I whispered.
"Don't tread on dick territory," he advised.
"So, um...is a paintbrush a tool?" I asked cautiously.
"If you're paintin' the side of the house, yeah. If you're painting mud colored paint in a room, no."
"It's terracotta," I said softly.
"Whatever," he muttered, his mouth twitching.
"Or, the paint chip called it Mexican horizon. The blue is Dawn Sky."
"Definitely chick territory," Tate replied, losing the fight with his grin.

( )

I couldn't actually finish this book because of Tate's utter lack of respect, interest in her opinions or desires, and lack of communication skills. A caveman dressed up as a desirable bad boy. Way too rapey even minus the actual rape. ( )