Robin Kaye – Too hot to handle

The second book in the Domestic Gods series, published May 2009.



He sure would love to have someone to take care of...
Dr. Mike Flynn's single mom taught him early how to cook and clean, and there's nothing like vacuuming or doing dishes to help a guy relax. Annabelle Ronaldi is an artist without a domestic bone in her body. Since her fiancé’s death, she can't paint, and life looks hopeless.
Until the day after her sister's wedding, when she wakes up with Mike next to her in bed, and then she's really beside herself - because the handsome stranger is a dead ringer for her dead fiancé.
After their mind-blowing one night stand, Mike is sure this is the woman he wants to take care of forever, but she acts like she's seen a ghost. While Mike sets to work wooing Annabelle, she sets to work sniffing out the truth of the convoluted family secret that turns everybody's lives upside down.


Two years ago, Annabelle’s world collapsed when her boyfriend died from cancer. He just gave up, didn’t want treatment, didn’t fight for their relationship. His parents despised her, thought she was only after his money, and threw her out of his (and hers) apartment. She was heartbroken, and to move in with her parents again. With the death of Chip, she also lost her ability to paint. It just hurt to much. Her awful mother drove her straight into a new relationship, with a rat of a man, who cheated on her. Just in time she found out, and cancelled the wedding. To the bitter disappointment and displeasure of her mother, who thought she should be grateful the louse wanted to marry her. Instead, her sister had the wedding she’d been planning for the last year.
And at that wedding, she almost fainted at the sight of the best man of her new brother-in-law, Dr. Mike Flynn. He was the spitting image of her lost love, he could be his twin! Mike of course doesn’t know that he only feels the attraction between them, and when Annabelle gets drunk at the wedding, goes home with her for a passion filled night.
Annabelle isn’t much interested in sex, to her opinion it is overrated, and all that sex stuff in books is just fake. Until she spends the night with Mike, and she finally finds out what it is al about. Her previous two lovers were just selfish and worthless in bed. Mike proves her wrong, she is not frigid, she is a very passionate lover, and he falls in love with her right away. After his endless string of girlfriends, mostly leftovers from his best friend Nick Romeo, he wants something more in a relationship, and Annabelle is it. And now he just has to convince her of that fact, earn her trust. And beat her also interested boss Ben to the job…

Annabelle’s best friend Becca, also the sister of her lost love Chip, wants to see Annabelle happy, and is curious after Mike. Does he really look like her twin? When she finds a picture on Annabelle’s computer, she prints it out and asks her dad about him, never knowing Mike could really be her half brother! Her father tells her the story of his long lost love of his life, and how her own mother betrayed him by posting the news of their engagement in all the newspapers, driving Colleen back home to Ireland, where she was out of his reach. He never knew she was pregnant …
When Mike’s mother Colleen tells Annabelle the same story, and she finds out Mike is dr. Larsen’s son as well, she is devastated. She will not be treated like dirt again, she is no longer 18! But she also will not stand between the man she loves and his newfound family.
And when Mike finds out, he just thinks Annabelle is still in love with her first boyfriend, his own half brother!

They both jump to conclusions, and are miserable. Will they know how to mend this breach, or go their own way?


Another fun and good book from Robin Kaye. I truly like her wicked sense of humor, the hot love scenes she writes, the fun characters. I want me a man who loves to cook and clean too! (Yes, I am happy with my boyfriend, but I hate household chores).
Dog Dave also plays a nice role in this book, as Rosalie and Nick are on their honeymoon. And never forget the Fairy Godfathers, the neighbours Annabelle inherited with the apartment from Rosalie she took over. They are totally the best neighbours ever. I also loved how brother Richie spoiled the first date between Annabelle and Mike. That was funny.

I heartily recommend this series to anyone who is in the mood for a funny and good contemporary romance. Of course, there is more than just light fun, Annabelle really has to deal with the grief over Chip, and relearn her love of painting. As for Mike, he has to deal with issues at his job, and I am sorry I didn’t learn more about that. I am curious what those partners were up to, with the covering they did. Perhaps the next book will reveal more.

8,5 stars