Book Review – Mister O by Lauren Blakely

Do you ever go into the second book of a series with serious reservations, because you liked the first one so much? You think to yourself, there’s no way it’s going to be as good as the first one, so should I even bother? I’ve been let down by second books before (cough Insurgent cough Glass Sword cough cough), but I’ve also had the second book be a bright spot in a series (Crown of Midnight, for example, was so much better than Throne of Glass). I weighed all of this before starting to listen to Mister O on audio. And WOWZA, did this one deliver!

Mister O is the name of Nick Hammer’s late night cartoon hero, who gallantly goes off to deliver orgasms to women everywhere. Nick is in the middle of negotiating a new deal with his network, which also trying to keep his feelings for his best friend’s little sister under control. The best friend in question, Spencer Holiday, recently fell for and proposed to his long-time business partner, Charlotte Rhodes, and they’re getting married soon. So the last thing that Nick can allow himself to do is fall for Harper Holiday. No way. That’s not happening.

Until Harper (who is, charmingly, a professional magician) reveals to Nick that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing when it comes to dating, and she’d like him to use all of his Mister Orgasm knowledge to teach her to win men over. Which leads to dates. Which leads to sex. A LOT OF SEX. Which leads to feelings… that Nick shouldn’t be having. But he’s definitely having them, and he wants nothing more than to spend every night AND morning with Harper.

What’s a big brother’s best friend to do?

3 Things I Loved

1. SEBASTIAN YORK. I’m going to end up saying this for every single one of these books, because HOT DAMN, his voice is something to behold. (For those of you who are thinking about knitting baby blankets along with this audiobook… maybe don’t. ;))
2. Harper. Oh my goodness, I loved Harper so much. She’s strong and feisty and she has the same dirty sense of humor that I’ve been *gifted* with myself. Plus, she’s a magician! She’s literally living her dreams! You go, girl!
3. Nick. This entire book is basically Nick’s wish fulfillment, and it was really interesting to hear the story from his perspective. He’s a sweetheart.

Dislikes/Problematic Content

Two things bothered me a little bit about this one. First, all the characters are allocishet and white. Which is a) not true to life; b) boring; and c) did I mention boring? What if Harper had been gay, and she got with Charlotte’s sister, Natalie, and we cut the Hammer twins out all together?! No? Hmph.

Second, Nick should never had felt the need to get Spencer’s permission to sleep with or date his sister. Harper is an adult. She makes her own decisions. So I’ll say it again, for the people in the back. MEN DON’T HAVE TO GET ANYONE’S PERMISSION TO DATE WOMEN EXCEPT THE WOMEN THEMSELVES. This goes across the gender and sexual spectrum, too. In this particular instance, Nick had Harper’s consent the whole time. And that’s all he needed.

Rating

A reminder of the rating scale:

• Red = DNF, I hated everything
• Orange = Ugh, no thank you
• Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
• Green = This was good! 
• Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
• Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!

These types of romances aren’t for everyone, but I really enjoyed this installment in the series. And don’t worry, you’ll be getting more reviews! Hurray! So, after all of this, I’m giving Mister O a GREEN rating. It was good! But it wasn’t earth-shattering or anything like that.

Happy reading!