As You Wish Reviews: Taste Test by L.B. Dunbar | Spotlight Tour, Review & Giveaway

Taste Test
by L.B. Dunbar

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In a modern twist of fairy tales,

what if the beast is a woman instead of a man?

Ethan Scott

I was about to find out when a mysterious job led to the secluded home of a horror novelist. I’d lost everything: my scholarship, my education, and my way. In denial of my family inheritance, I took the unusual employment as a chance out of a hole, but I found myself buried in the unknown trauma of another situation much deeper.

Ella Vincentia

I had changed my name and my address to keep myself hidden, but my scars were more than physical. Living as a recluse in the woods, I was used to being alone, so I wasn’t happy when a certain someone was always in my space. Our first encounter was less than pleasant and tension continued at every attempt to tame me.

Secrets

I knew she was keeping secrets and I wanted to help, but she was cutting me down and cutting me off every time she opened her mouth. Our frustration with one another grew until a misunderstanding changed everything. How can I be the next guy after something so tragic? It was a challenge I wasn’t sure I was willing to take.

I looked directly at her. The blue cloak matched her angered eyes and for a moment I thought I saw something else in them. In her bent over position, she looked down at me and I shivered with excitement thinking she was reaching for me, until she leaned forward further and tried to tip the boat.

“Get out.”

“Are you…” I stopped. I was going to say crazy, insane, cuckoo.

“Say it,” she snapped.

“I wasn’t going to say it,” I lied.

“Yes, you were,” and she reached for the underside of the boat, but could only touch the side, pushing on it.

I still had a hold on the edge of the dock and I let the boat float away a little as if her push had an effect, before I pulled it back.

I knew I was taunting her more.

“I. Said. Get. Out,” and she reached forward again at the same time I pushed the boat away from the dock. Ella lost her momentum and lunged toward me with a look of shear panic. I caught her around the waist as I let go of the dock, but the force of her coming at me pushed us both to the right and we hit the icy cold lake. It was a short drop, and despite the shock of the water, I wrapped one hand around Ella’s head to protect her from hitting the shallow bottom. I slammed my shoulder into the pebbly lake bottom, landing on a rock as I twisted to buffer her fall. I struggled to hold Ella and free my legs that now balanced above me in the kayak.

Once me legs were free, I easily kicked the soft bottom of the lake and righted myself, still clutching Ella around the waist and head. The cold water had been a shock, but the cool air above the surface was additional pins and needles. I sucked in a breath, clenching Ella to me. I heard her gasp for air as she shoved me hard in the chest like she had the day before behind the couch.

“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled.

“Trying to protect you.”

“Well, I don’t need protecting.”

“You almost drowned us,” I returned her growing anger.

“Us? You almost drowned me. Holding me under the water,” she shouted back at me. She had pushed back from me but now stepped awkwardly closer again in the knee-deep water.

“And you ruined my cloak.” Ella looked down at the soggy material and pulled some of it up. The hood fell back when we’d returned to the surface, and her hair fell in heavy waves around her shoulders. The water glistened off it, making it a darker mixture of fall-leaf tones. I held in the moan trying to escape and clenched my hands into fists at my side. I wanted to shake her madly then kiss her passionately.

“You almost drowned me by thinking you could push me out of that boat.”

“Well, you weren’t getting out.”

“What are you? Two? Cut the spoiled bitch act.” Ella gasped in shock as I shook my head and ran both hands through my hair. I didn’t want to get mad at her.

“Funny. Yesterday you said I was beautiful. Today I’m a bitch,” she retorted.

I took two steps toward the dock in my water sodden clothes before I turned to face her again.

“You are beautiful,” I started loudly, angrily, “if you’d just keep your damn mouth shut,” I added in a whisper and finally pushed myself upward onto the dock. She continued to stare at me as I crouched on the wooden platform and offered her my hand.

“Come here,” I said in an unknowingly seductive voice.

“I don’t need your help,” she snapped back, resigned as she walked toward the dock, dragging the soaking wet, heavy material behind her. I stood.

“I get it. You don’t want my help. You don’t want my protection. You don’t want my food,” I spit. “What you need is a good spanking,”…

I was blown away by this gentle, emotional, and suspenseful book. First loves are difficult to maneuver. If you have never been in love before, you have no idea what you are in for. First of all, how can you tell the difference from a crush, lust or love? This being your first time, what do you compare it to? That moment when you realize you would give up everything for the object of your affection is the moment when you finally open you eyes and realize you are in love. Love is sacrifice that does not feel like a burden. You are willing to do whatever is necessary to bring a smile and happiness to the face of the one you love. Their happiness makes you happy, so how can it be a burden?

Ethan and Ella's story is complicated. This is not your typical boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after. Just like in real life, there are real choices and challenges to deal with. Attraction is not the one thing that draws them together. They are both at a crossroads where they are dealing with painful situations and must take charge of their lives in order to own and control their future.

This book is well written. You are swept away by the author's words and into Ethan's and Ella's reality. Empathy is not the only feeling I had for this couple. I felt like nurturing and protecting them as my own children. I also felt the anger toward the circumstances that brought both of them to their current status.

I recommend this book to those who are not only looking to read about a love affair, but also for those who seek to understand why we react the way we do to very human circumstances.

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About the Author

I’d like to say I was always a writer. I’d also like to say that I wrote every day of my life since a child. That I took the teaching advice I give my former students because writing every day improves your writing. I’d like to say I have my ten-thousand hours that makes me a proficient writer. But I can’t say any of those things. I did dream of writing the “Great American Novel” until one day a friend said: Why does it have to be great? Why can’t it just be good and tell a story?

As a teenager, I wrote your typical love-angst poetry that did occasionally win me an award and honor me with addressing my senior high school class at our Baccalaureate Mass. I didn’t keep a journal because I was too afraid my mom would find it in the mattress where I kept my copy of Judy Blume’s Forever that I wasn’t allowed to read as a twelve year old.

I can say that books have been my life. I’m a reader. I loved to read the day I discovered “The Three Bears” as a first grader, and ever since then, the written word has been my friend. Books were an escape for me. An adventure to the unknown. A love affair I’d never know. I could be lost for hours in a book.

So why writing now? I had a story to tell. It haunted me from the moment I decided if I just wrote it down it would go away. But it didn’t. Three years after writing the first draft, a sign (yes, I believe in them) told me to fix up that draft and work the process to have it published. That’s what I did. But one story let to another, and another, and another. Then a new idea came into my head and a new storyline was created.

I was accused (that’s the correct word) of having an overactive imagination as a child, as if that was a bad thing. I’ve also been accused of having the personality of a Jack Russell terrier, full of energy, unable to relax, and always one step ahead. What can I say other than I have stories to tell and I think you’ll like them. If you don’t, that’s okay. We all have our book boyfriends. We all have our favorites. Whatever you do, though, take time for yourself and read a book.