Clever Cleo

by S.L. Finlay

A mysterious - and smoking hot - man arrived in my lab today, he could burn everything down and I would dutifully hand him the matches.

Cleo has worked hard to be taken seriously, not an easy feat when you’re a young female science professor but she’s managed to pull it off with flying colors. When her classroom is invaded by sexy and mysterious William though, she can’t seem to hold her ground and tell him to leave.

There’s just something about William, the professor visiting from Sweden - or so she thinks - has her feeling more like a teenaged girl than a strong independent career woman. And she doesn’t hate it.

Cleo has held fantasies about meeting the perfect Daddy Dom for a long time. Is this a role William could fill? Or will his secrets tear the two apart before they could even appreciate what they have together?

This fast-paced romance novella is heavy on the science and sci-fi as Cleo and William strive to make a positive difference in the world with their work. With a heartwarming - and spicy - love story simmering just underneath the surface that’ll keep you turning pages to see what happens next. Clever Cleo can be read as a standalone or as first in the series where every book has a guaranteed happily ever after (HEA).

100 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 16, 2023

About the author

S. L. Finlay is an Australian author who uses her erotic fiction and romance stories to force questions about human sexuality, to celebrate love, sex and life.

Reviews

[kymagirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

William (H) is part of an alien exploration team that crashes in the Australian desert and continues his studies of human behavior, technology usage, and societal implications as the crew works to repair their space ship. Posing in disguise as a visiting researcher, he partners with Cleo (h) a professor at an Australian university where she teaches and studies climate change. I’ve actually previously read and reviewed this book as “Choosing Cleo” by Ava Paris and there have been some minor tweaks to remove a few climate change heavy paragraphs, though it does still lean into climate change and data and documentaries and research. The other addition was a few sentences added in that has Cleo thinking of William as “Daddy” and wanting to be his little girl and calling him Daddy a few times. I have much higher heat expectations when it comes to Daddy Dom and BDSM romances, which were strong points made in the blurb I read for the book and why I didn’t initially realize this was a book I’d already read in a previous version. I’m rounding the rating up to a 3, but it falls more into a 2.5 for me.

[Douglas Williamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our heroine is good at what she does, which is what draws our hero to her. He wants to help her make a difference in the world, but there is more to him than meets the eye. And our heroine is curious to figure out exactly what that is.

This is a science fiction romance with some daddy elements. The story is well written with interesting characters and an easy to follow plot which nevertheless throws in a few challenges to make things interesting. I enjoyed the light science fiction elements to the story as it made it a bit different from the usual. It all leads to a nice bit of steam as well as delightful HEA. Overall, a pleasant read for a weekend distraction.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout for review purposes.