2 Wine Glass #Review for Four Letter Word by J. Daniels

Title:  Four Letter Word
Series:  Dirty Deeds  #1
Author:  J. Daniels
Format:  Paperback & eBook, 417pgs
Published:  Oct. 4, 2016 by Forever
ASIN: B01BKSLGW6
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
Source: NetGalley
Reviewer:  Kimberly
Rating:  2 out of 5 Wine Glasses

Fate. Hate. Love. Lies.
Which four letter word will change their lives forever?

Sydney Paige was never so mortified to hear the words "wrong number" in her life. She meant to tell off the guy who broke her best friend's heart, but unleashed her anger on a perfect stranger instead. And now her world is turned upside down by the captivating man who wants to keep her on the line.

Brian Savage is living a life he's quickly come to hate-until Sydney's wild rant has him hooked and hungry for more. Soon the sexy woman on the phone becomes the lover in his bed. But Brian has secrets, and the closer he lets Syd get, the harder it is to shield her from the devastating mistakes of his past . . .

Kimberly’s Thoughts:
Married right out of highschool, Sydney thought she had her happily ever after wrapped up but after being blindsided by her husband, even though the writing was on the wall, she gets a chance to find herself again. A chance aided by a mistaken identity and a wrong phone number.
Being woken up and cursed out by a strange woman somehow ends up being the best thing that could have happened to Brian. Drowning in guilt after an accident and just going through the motions in life, his late night conversations with the mystery woman are helping him live again.
After all their painful experiences, Sydney and Brian are about to be rewarded by fate.

Love was a risk. It was wild and unpredictable. You could either hold on for the ride, not knowing how it would end, or you could let go and never know the amazing you could've had.

First in the new Dirty Deeds series, Four Lettered Word, is a steamy New Adult read that incorporates some deep emotional elements. This was a new to me author and I couldn't help noticing how similar her writing style, especially with the hero's dialogue, is to Kristen Ashley. The verbiage and tone with the nicknames (babe) and hero's casual just accept it possessiveness of heroine was definitely reminiscent; this author's sentence structure and syntax is more on point and I think readable.

Our first introduction to Sydney is when her husband is telling her he is done with their relationship. We don't get to see the conversation but instead Sydney's thoughts and feelings, this was an incredible emotional way to start the story. The numbness the author was able to convey and then the sudden rushing of emotions hitting Sydney felt real and was powerful. Unfortunately, as the story went on I felt like Sydney started to display an immaturity that wasn't worthy of the first introduction to the character. Brian came off as a calm and cool character, he had a lot going on in regards to what he was dealing with but it worked in and with the framework of the story. The first 40% of the story worked really well for me but after that it started to lose me to redundancy and loss of sense of direction; some scenes could have been cut out.

The premise of Sydney and Brian getting to know one another over the phone was a solid one and I liked how they progressed from text messaging to talking but I would have liked to have seen more of those in depth conversations and felt their growing closeness. We're told they talked about their lives for hours but only get more superficial ones. I also thought when they started getting into phone sex that these scenes could have been drawn out more, they felt kind of like wham, bam, thank-you ma'am; felt like a lost opportunity for some great sexual heat and tension. This does read like a New Adult and I often find that they lack the emotion I'm looking for in sexual situations, so this could be a personal taste (going by the numerous reviews praising the hotness of this story, I'm the dissenting voice on this one).

One thing I liked about the main and secondary characters was the varied issues they all were dealing with. Brian's friends and Sydney's friends are all obviously being set-up for their own books and each was interesting in their own way. I do have to say though, that the introduction to Brian's friend Jamie (who also looks to be the hero in the next book) was extremely off-putting. Spoiler - He is said to have a great attraction to "untapped pussy" and in one scene it's joked about how he better check ids and acts like he doesn't care if the girls were underage. End Spoiler. His general actions throughout the story are fine but what I put in spoiler tags does not really endear him to me. The rest of the cast though look to have engaging backgrounds that could keep you locked into the series for a while.

I liked the beginning and how our couple got together but thought the rest sagged with the love developing too quickly between our leads and the second half of the story not really having anywhere to go. I think this would have really worked for me in more of a novella format, snappier tempo or if the emotion between our couple could have been given more breadth. However, if you're a fan of Kristen Ashley you'll definitely want to check this one out.