ARC #Review: The Virgin’s Night Out by Shiloh Walker - 3 Wine Glasses

Title: The Virgin’s Night Out
Author: Shiloh Walker
Format: eBook, 264 pages
Published: April 6th 2015 by Shiloh Walker, Inc.
ASIN: B00SZ1XRSI
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Source: NetGalley
Reviewer: Kimberly
Rating: 3 out of 5 Wine Glasses

Sloane Redding is the shy one, the timid one. The morning of her wedding, she's dumped by the man she'd thought she'd spend the rest of her life with. Humiliated, she turns tail and runs, leaving Nowhere, Alabama for a job in the city. Sloane sets out to remake herself. She succeeds...on the outside. On the inside? Different story. She still the shy Redding. Still quiet, still more interested in standing on the standlines. But all of that is about to change.

The night before her brother's wedding, she strolls in the lone bar in Nowhere wearing wicked red and she's got one goal in mind: to show her ex-fiance just what he lost.

The night before his best friend's wedding, D.B. "Boone" Cassidy walks into the lone bar in Nowhere, Alabama with one goal in mind. Get wasted. Former military, he's spent the past few years as a security specialist and all around troubleshooter. It should have been easy to spot the trouble that night...a sexy woman in wicked red. It should have been easy. Yeah, right.

One thing leads to another and his plans to get wasted turn into a night with the sexy woman in red . Boone gets the shock of his life the next day when he shows up at his friend's wedding to find out he'd just spent the night wrapped around his best friend's little sister...and that isn't the only surprise.

Includes a bonus story, Tempt Me.

Kimberly’s Thoughts:
Sloane is going back to her hometown for her brother's wedding and like any woman who was left standing at the altar alone on her wedding day, she is going in guns blazing dressed to impress. When she walks into the small town bar, every eye snaps to the make you drool red dress (yes, from the cover!) she is wearing. One of those pair of eyes just so happens to belong to Boone, former military currently working security detail jobs, who is in town for his best-friend's wedding. Uh oh is right but when Sloane lays out her former fiance with a not too shabby punch, Boone is in lusty love. They spend a wild, crazy, and delightfully sexy no names night together. When identities are revealed, a consequence develops, and a job hazard changes lives, Sloane and Boone are left to decide if their one night stand should be an every night occurrence.

This story started off with a (literal!) bang with the hotness between Sloane and Boone burning up the pages. Their first encounter and one night of sex was sizzling and what you look for when reading the spicier scenes from romance books. The chemistry between the two felt real and sucked me into being invested with them. Sloane and Boone definitely work well in the bedroom (there is a little bit of "One True Vagina" from Boone), it's outside of it and when the story takes a serious 180 from the sexy beginning tone, a little past the 30% mark, that things unraveled a bit.

First off, you're going to hate Sloane. She starts off the defiant, strong, hurt, and vulnerable woman we can relate to and cheer for only to make a decision that many are going to have a real problem with. Sloane decides to keep pertinent information from Boone, even when he asks but because Sloane thinks he didn't ask in the right way, she lies to him. Now, Sloane claims she doesn't lie but I'm willing to bet a majority of readers are going to disagree with her, I know I do. The reasoning behind her lying to Boone is discussed but I still found myself having little sympathy for her. Boone was a sexy alpha specimen who didn't quite get to stretch his character's legs because of this being a shorter story. He is like so many male leads out there in the romance world but he felt more real and genuine, something I can only put down to the author's writing style. He has a little too much self-contempt and lets Sloane, in my opinion, off way too easily but I still liked the guy.

As I mentioned, after the first 30% and its lighter sexy times, the rest of the story takes a darker more serious path. Don't let this fun misleading title fool you, a huge betraying lie, survival in a Mexican prison, amnesia, and having your chickens come home to roost make up the majority of this story. The two contrasting tones didn't quite fit well together and I think why I jumped from wanting to rate the story 2 stars and up to 4 stars at different times. I like the feel of the author's writing style but this story felt very disjointed. I also never recovered from disliking Sloane for her lie and I can never fully enjoy a story where I have a loathing for one of the leads. It is a short quick story though, with a great start and when the leads are together interacting they have great lure.