Stranger

Megan Hart's characters continue to fascinate me. Her writing is both amazingly simple and intensely complex making her first person narratives flow seamlessly. While sexually erotic, her novels also embody a stark reality that resonates with real life and real people. Megan Hart is an author who deserves to be on top. There is one garishly loud technical problem with Grace Frawley owning Frawley & Sons and that being the obvious. Living in a small town leaves Grace with limited clients. But after working tirelessly, cutting her pay down to the minimum, and ramping up marketing opportunities, she's been able to pull the business back from the brink of closing. This, of course is unrecognized by her anal retired father who needs to find a hobby that doesn't involve checking up on Grace's every move as far as the business is concerned. Yet despite her father's recriminations, Grace is good at her job and she loves her work. While some may think a funeral director and it's corresponding job objectives as being morbid, Grace would say the very opposite. She is there to help people through the most difficult time of their lives. Not only does she help bury their loved ones in the most respectable manner possible but she is also there to assuage their grief by lending them a hand of understanding. Grace also has a little secret... Grace awaits him at a local bar. She's there to meet a stranger, a stranger in fact but not in the sense whereby stars align and fate bestows the one. Grace has paid in advance for this meeting with her stranger and she hopes to get exactly what she paid for, and boy does she ever. His name is Sam and he gives Grace the most gratifying sex that she's ever had. The only problem - Grace didn't pay for Sam. Her hired rent-a-boy happened to be late and Sam truly was a stranger... While confident in her own skin, Grace is not confident in her life. Death and grief have marked her soul, leaving her with only one option - protection. Terrified of one day losing a husband, Grace has made the decision that she'll never allow a man close enough to cause her pain when he is gone. Her paid escorts provide a scratch to an itch and the impersonal quality of their dates gives Grace comfort. But two men are going to change Grace's life, one is Sam and the other is Jack. Jack and his jaw-dropping, pantie-wetting, and immobilizing megawatt smile steals Grace's heart from almost day one. Fresh after her wild night with Sam the stranger, Grace is looking for any man to take her mind off her lingering and arousing thoughts of him. Her escort service has paired her with a man who is different from Grace's general type with his tattoos and body hardware, plus he's young but boy can he smile. Jack, new to the business but eager to learn, takes Grace through some of her most daring sexual escapades that are heavy on the role play. Yet as the layers pull apart one by one, Grace finds that she really likes Jack. For the first time in a long ti

Megan has become a must buy for me. I agree with other reviewers that its is a very emotional read which is why i love her books so much.I like some sex to go along with my emotion/story not the other way around. With Stranger you "feel" along with Grace..Megan is able to write so that you imagine her characters are real people,which IMO is a gift. Grace has lots of complimentary character traits but enough faults to not make her too perfect. Sam is adorable! He definitely needs to mature but what a guy to wait for..and i LOVE tall men..yum. It was great to see some previous characters in this book,we can see some threads staring to weave their way through..can't wait for Jacks story.. I am getting bored with the average erotica novel as there is just no connection to make me care..just lots of throbbing and thrusting :D Stranger has plenty of hot sex but you don't feel as though it was shoved in to make up the word count - its an integral part of the story and tells you alot about Sam and Grace as a couple and individuals.. The motel card scene was scorching..really well written (kaz fans herself) and loved the little Keanu Reeves references..heh. ALL Megans novel have you feeling emotion one way or another..and this book is right up there as my favourite after "Dirty"

I don't understand. I feel much more sad at the end of Stranger, which had a happy ending, then I did at the end of Tempted, which didn't. But anyway. I had a knot in my throat towards the end of the book and that knot is still there. Tears are actually rolling down my cheek. I've never read a book that left me so emotional. Tempted was an emotional read, but this one was different somehow. Grace is afraid of dealing with the loss of someone she loves (as in a spouse). She thinks that if she never gets close enough to someone, then she'll never feel the pain of when that someone leaves. But the heart sometimes is stronger then our minds want it to be and she ends up falling in love with Sam. Sam made me so angry towards the end of the novel. I felt that he didn't have a right to be angry because he didn't know her. It didn't have anything to do with him. It shouldn't have mattered. But she didn't break. She wouldn't let herself. She went on, because she had to. The thing that always hurts the most about when relationships end is the fact that we still are alive just the same. Naturally we function better as part of a pair, but we can still function by ourselves. That's what kills the most. I think that's why this novel touched me on such a painful level...because I know the feeling. I know the feeling of suddenly being alone and knowing that you'll survive. You know it's not going to kill you, but some days you just wish it would. I didn't like the ending so much. Yes it was a happy ending...but it was too easy. Sam hurt her too much but he doesn't have to win her back. She just wants him so much. For someone who had so much trouble letting someone in her life and then losing them, she was quick to let them try again. And I'm not saying that she shouldn't have let him back in. Just that...it should have been harder for him. Stranger made me feel lonely. Usually romance novels leave me feeling warm and fulfilled. But this one left me wishing that things had worked out with that last guy. It was real and I liked that. I wish more of the books I read left me feeling something real. This review is really just a bunch of my jumbled thoughts. Just know that this book touched me on a level that I've never encountered before. I've read books that have left me feeling emotional and teary, but for different reasons. I've never read one that made me feel sad for me. If you can handle the graphic scenes, then please read this book.

I was happy to see Jack (from Dirty) return in Stranger, along with another follow-up with Dan and Elle. But also surprised that he was so prominent in the first three quarters of the book, more so than our hero. It was almost like reading two books, or two inter-related novellas. The first about Grace with her rentboys, during which I was sure she and Jack were falling for each other. Then suddenly in mid-scene that goes out the window when she decides its the last time with him, and by the way, he's in love with another girl that he can't be with. The second, shorter, book is with a very different Grace and (finally!) her relationship with Sam. It was like Megan got carried away with all the great sex with Jack until the last few chapters, when she realized she had to cram in an entire relationship with Sam before the book got too long. Still great, just a bit annoying for that. I'm half hoping for Jack to get his own book in future. He and Alex from Tempted are too hot to say goodbye to! The side story of Jared and Shelly was nice too, and I expect will resolve in another book. Despite my criticism, I can never fault Megan Hart's writing. And even though this was not angst-driven like the last three heartbreakers, I still cried toward the end. Megan is so damned good at twisting the heart before you even realize she's crawled in there. Her writing is almost too good, makes one feel almost too much. I'm emotionally exhausted after some (like Tempted), but not so with Stranger. Thank you again, Megan!

After being devastated by love and as a funeral director seeing first hand how difficult loss is, Grace decides she'd rather pay for a lover than invest in a relationship. At a bar, she expects to meet her latest rentboy but unwittingly leaves with a stranger named Sam, and has the best encounter of her life. She soon comes face to face with Sam again when his family hires her to bury a loved one, and Sam doggedly pursues her, while she continues to exclusively hire Jack for weekly encounters. When she does finally hook up with Sam, she feels something she hasn't felt in a long time - love and security. But how will Sam react when he finds out the truth about her past? Megan Hart is probably one of the best authors I have had the pleasure to read. The consistency of her writing and narrative is unsurpassed, delving deep into her characters motivations, not just finding the shortest way to get to the next lust scene. Most authors write at least one crappy novel in between a sea of good ones, however, each of her novels is as good as the last. She excels at writing erotically charged fiction that is so well written, you often don't realize the content. Unlike many authors who tackle similar subject matter, you could actually take out her sexual passages and still have a cohesive, well-written and entertaining story. Fans of Hart's novels will recognize secondary characters Elle and Dan, the protagonists from her novel "Dirty." While "Stranger" might be her least graphic novel, it is also one of her best. © Tracy Vest, January 2009