Ella Sheridan - Teach Me

A tough security specialist rides his Harley to the rescue when a young woman is menaced by her ex. He'll do anything to keep her safe, but what about his heart? She'll do anything to survive, but what if she puts him in danger?
Southern belle Jess Kingston spent eight weeks healing from an ex-boyfriend’s brutal attack. Now she’s ready to put her life back together, if only he'd stop stalking her. She needs someone who can teach her how to fight back—someone like the tough ex-soldier who rides to her rescue.
Ex-military security specialist Conlan James avoids commitment like the plague. His job, his Harley, and an occasional one-night stand are all he needs—or so he tells himself. But after he rescues Jess from a tense situation, he can’t get the shy, sexy brunette out of his mind. He can teach her self-defense, but can he shield his own scarred heart?
Jess's ex escalates his deadly game of cat-and-mouse and Con intensifies his protection, but the heat between Con and Jess builds even faster. His self-defense training ends with her in his arms, where the wrong move may lead to heartbreak. Outside their safe haven, one wrong move could lead to death.


Comment: I decided to read this book because it would feature a premise I don't usually purposely look for but that I tend to appreciate somewhat which is the client/instructor theme and I imagined many things about the heroine needing to have self-defense classes and the (obviously) sexy instructor who would be her teacher and, eventually, they would fall in love.

It also helped that at the time this book caught my eye it was for free on some online retail sellers and I managed to get it like that.

In this story we meet shy Jess Kingston, who is just back to work after a beating by her ex. She has physically recovered, she ditched the guy but feels stalked by him so she decides to have self defense classes. It doesn't hurt that the guy she trusts to help her is Conlan James, he works in the security firm close by and they see each other almost every morning at the coffee shop but have never exchanged a word.

Conlan has admired from afar the woman with the sad eyes and when she requests classes on their firm, he can't accept any of his colleagues would be in such close contact with her so he offers to be her teacher himself.

The problem is that they are attracted to each other, Jess' ex is escalating his stalking and it seems more people could be in the path of danger. What will Jess and Conlan do?

You know, if I were the sort I'd immediately reply "have sex" because even during stressful times when I can only assume people would be too worried or too busy to think about that, there is always a little room to have sex too.

I was quite expectant regarding this novel. I thought this would be a sweet romance about two people sharing time and space together, fighting their attraction due to the professional environment they would be in but still slowly falling in love while trying to battle common fears of commitment and staying away from the woman's ex. 

I don't know about other readers, but after reading a blurb, I tend to create an idea of where the story might go. Sometimes authors are amazing and twist things so amazingly, even when I didn't see it coming, I still devour it. Other times things are just the expected and if one likes that, that can be fine.

Then there is the case of when things don't go well at all. I felt this was what happened here. Thinking about what I've read leaves me with two mixed ideas: flat characterization and random details. This means I can't barely recall stuff because this book was both boring and unappealing as a whole.

Since I didn't end up enjoying much of this novel, I won't go too much into it but the detail that bothered me the most was how it seemed, I repeat, it's just my impression, the author didn't really know how to portray abuse in a realistic way. Maybe the situations described could be real but having Jess been so abused, so recently, to think about sex so soon seems weird. Yes, she could have her thoughts and desires but wasn't she still a little afraid? Was she not getting lessons because she feared stalking? But even before the first lesson she was already thinking about sex with Conlan. It just seems weird. Throughout the novel there are the sex scenes in times I'd say were untimely. Was Jess really dealing with her past abuse? I don't think the novel was very well thought.

Even worse is how this ends. I won't spoiler it but here we have a heroine battling her abusive ex, who made her do and feel things she was not consenting to and the end of the book is... well, Conlan in the heat of sex of course asks to say one thing. Ok, it's a sexual context but the heroine has suffered. Can you really not think about her feelings and be all caveman with her like that? I found this to be so out of line in with what the books seemed to focus on - the heroine's overcome of abuse to find happiness - that I thanked the fact it was already the end so that I didn't have to read anymore.

The protagonists don't seem to go much past the usual characterization of these types of characters, meaning:

- the hero was more or less like: "I'm aloof, I like sex but don't want to worry but I want to have sex with her"

- the heroine was "I'm sad and weak but I'll become stronger and I need to have sex with this hot guy"

- the villain was "I want to have power over, if I can't have you, no one else will"

All valid I know, but if underdeveloped, who cares? Everyone felt very one dimensional.

I'm certain others have loved it but I don't think I'll try more by this author so soon...

Grade: 3/10