Sweet Dreams Mass Market Paperback – June 24, 2014

SWEET DREAMS by Kristen Ashley.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:The author has been writing since before 2002 and had many books on her hard drive but never published. All of a sudden this year she published more than 20, and she's in process of finishing more. There are several different series. They are not the churning out one book per year at a publisher's request. These are things she felt like writing about - over the years. For a list of her books see her website at kristenashley net.REVIEWER'S OPINION:I really enjoyed this book, but it needed a good editor. There were a couple times the sequencing was out of order. For example, something happens on day one. The next chapter is titled "a month later," then the author switches back to day two, before the month later. Something similar to that happened elsewhere, for example talking about Monday, then Friday, then back to Wednesday. But it didn't really bother me. I could work with it because I liked the content. The result felt like someone was talking about one thing and then said Oh yeah and then this other thing happened before that. Because her content was so good, I was willing to accept the illogical time jumps.There were a number of grammar errors and wrong word usage. For example "consider" should have been "considering." "All" should have been "I'll."It's a long book, at least twice as long as most novels. I'm glad that some publisher isn't telling her to chop it down to 350 pages. I liked what she wrote. I wouldn't want to chop any of it.Tate is such a jerk with the way he gives orders. But then he melts my heart with important things, his actions which show love. I was back and forth between being upset and melting. Yet I adored the guy. For example at 6746 "Which one are you?" I whispered. "What?" he asked. "Are you the good guy, the sweet guy who takes care of me or are you this guy who's kind of a jerk?" His answer was instantaneous. "I'm both those guys, babe. Your job is to get used to it." There it was, another order. Not even an ultimatum. Just, "get used to it."There are a couple of wonderful scenes with Tate confronting Lauren's ex-husband.So many books are popular due to a feisty heroine with witty dialogue. This has none of that. The dialogue here feels real. The characters are showing emotions, feelings, worries, friendship, caring. Almost every situation in this book has normalcy about it. It makes other books sound like they are trying too hard to be entertaining. This book is subtle. Maybe a fitting phrase would be "less is more."This book is strong on character development and relationship development. A strength is showing feelings and thoughts through dialogue. The author did not use the "overused device" of pondering. I enjoyed the lack of "pondering." The author did a wonderful job developing many secondary characters.There are many sex scenes, but they aren't long and drawn out with a lot of explicit details. Instead, they are brief, and they show emotion, love, desire, and hotness. There is a lot of swearing. So if the F and S words bother you, be warned.STORY BRIEF:Lauren's husband cheated on her for five years then divorced her. She quit her job as an executive and drove aimlessly for several months looking for a place to be. She stopped at a bar in Carnal, Colorado, saw a "waitress wanted" sign and applied for the job. She took a room at the local hotel. Tate is one of the bar owners. He works part time as a bartender and part time chasing criminals as a bounty hunter. When Tate first sees Lauren, he is angry at his co-owner for hiring her and calls Lauren a "sorry-ass, old, fat, suburban bitch." Lauren overhears this. It haunts her. She won't forget or forgive. Lauren is 42. Tate is 44. The bar is a biker bar. The town has a lot of bikers.Some of the other characters:Betty and Ned own the hotel and treat Lauren more like family than customer.Shambala and Sunny are two hippies who own the coffee shop and are high most of the time. They too become close friends with Lauren.Tate and Wood were best friends growing up but things happened causing a split.Neeta is Wood's sister. She is married to Blake, but she has been cheating on Blake for years with Tate. She is wild, selfish, and bad in many ways.DATA:Kindle count story length: 16,920 (1006 KB). Swearing language: strong, including religious swear words. Sexual language: strong. Number of sex scenes: about 18. Setting: current day mostly Colorado, with some Indiana. Copyright: 2011. Genre: contemporary romance.

This book was awesome. It's a very long story and it built up as it went and by the end of the book I just loved Tate and Laurie so much I didn't want it to end! Laurie is a great leading lady and Tate is so great he just made my list for my "book boyfriends". This couple is just awesome and while they had some rough times at first they are perfect for each other.Lauren (aka Laurie aka Petal) was searching for something when she came to Carnal. She wasn't looking for something special though. She'd just split with her now ex-husband (who had been cheating on her with her best friend for the last 5 years...) and that had convinced her that there is no special out there. When she reaches Carnal though she feels at home there and just wants a nice life even if it's nothing special. She's had some rough times but isn't broken. She still has some spunk (which grows as she finds herself more) and is a genuinely nice person (the type of person I'd love to know in RL).She meets Tate right after she gets a job at the local bar. He doesn't make a good impression because he shoots his mouth off and insults her (not to her face but within hearing) which puts him on her s*** list so things don't go smoothly for these 2 at first.Tate tends to say things he doesn't mean when he's pissed and the first time he sees Lauren he just happens to be pissed. Bad timing and bad luck. Tate realizes she heard his unkind words and is sorry about it but he has a hard time getting her to look past his actions. Of course the fact that he just tells her to "shake off" her feelings about what he said doesn't help.Tate and Laurie have trouble from the beginning...not just from Tate's comments but also from his demeanor. Laurie really doesn't know how to handle him most of the time (at least in the beginning) and Tate tends to assume that she knows what he's talking about which causes further issues. Her not understanding biker speak causes a mis-understanding and when Tate goes on a hunt for a fugitive and Lauren thinks he dumped her and ends up going out with someone else. When Tate gets back from his hunt he's kinda pissed when he finds out Laurie hasn't been sitting at home waiting for him. Fortunately he does manage to get back in her good graces pretty quickly (events conspire to help him with this) and then we really get to see them grow in their relationship.One of the things I just loved about this story was that it showed the slow building of their relationship. In some ways the development of their relationship moved fast but yet it didn't feel that way and it wasn't "insta-love" like you see in many stories. I enjoyed seeing them battle things out and grow in their relationship and Kristen did a great job with writing that. There were a few times when I thought Laurie was willing to back out too easily (mostly when she got scared and needed space) but Tate wouldn't let her go. That's one of the other things I loved about this story, once Tate was in to Laurie, he didn't let things stand in his way when it came to getting her...not even Laurie's own fears. Tate is rough but yet at the same time he's super awesomely sweet (although it doesn't show much at first). He can be a dick and totally admits it but he also has the capacity for such caring that I just kept wishing he was a real man (and I had him for myself).During the story there is some action to go with the romance. Tate is a bounty hunter and it seems that there's a serial killer in the area that has to be found and causes danger and drama for the people in the story. It's a good part of the story line but not one that takes over the book...the focus is still mainly on the relationship between Laurie and Tate and also her growing as a part of the town and the friendships she builds. And showing how she found something special when she wasn't even looking.This book was awesome. It's the second book I've read by Kristen and I loved the 1st book as well so I will definitely be reading more of her books. This story is wonderful and I'm sure I'll be rereading it numerous times in the future. I would highly recommend this story. 2 thumbs way up!!(I know some people mentioned run on sentences and need of editing. I noticed a few issues with this at the beginning of the story but honestly...as I read the story I didn't even notice them any more. Maybe they didn't continue or maybe the book was so good I didn't notice them. Not sure which it was and I don't care...book was still awesome.)

Tate Jackson, are you kidding me? He could be such a jerk but then such a wonderfully amazing guy. I love how Lauren changes her life . . . and all those characters. Such an enjoyable and great read. Loved it.

Me leí uno tras otro todos los libros de Colorado Mountain series. Me han encantado. Quería más. Así que esperando que K A escriba lo que le dé la gana, que lo leeré.

Que delicia de livro. Você não quer que acabe. Historia muito bem escrita, com personagens sólidos e bem construídos. Amei. Essa autora nunca decepciona !

Questo è il secondo volume della serie Colorado Mountains la cui ambientazione è data da due cittadine fittizie del Colorado: Gnaw Bone e Carnal. In The Gamble, il primo libro della serie, facciamo la conoscenza di Gnaw Bone, in Sweet Dreams veniamo introdotti nella realtà di Carnal, cittadina a misura di biker, di quelli tatuati, vestiti in pelle nera e circondati da un'aura di pericolo. Ed è in questa realtà che Lauren, la protagonista, quarantaduenne borghese, divorziata e senza più sogni, si ritrova dopo mesi on the road in cerca di pace. Qui inizia la storia che, come sempre nella Ashley, parla di seconde chances, di crescita attraverso desolazione e sofferenza, di forza e di stima in se stessi conquistate grazie agli incontri che la vita ci permette. Il tutto scritto nel consueto stile spumeggiante e divertente, con scene d'amore bollenti e parecchi spunti di riflessione.Consiglio vivamente questa autrice dando come giudizio cinque stelle piene.

J'adore les livres de Kristen Ashley! Ces personnages sont très attachants et on a envie de les revoir ! C'est drôle, c'est touchant, c'est intense... Quand je fini un de ces livres, j'ai toujours envie d'en lire un autre et comme c'est un auteur qui écrit beaucoup, il me reste encore beaucoup de très beaux moment à passer ;-)