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House Rehab Men #2
Hard As Nails
Three hard-bodied hunks who are good with their hands and are happy to flip a house or a woman's heart--architect Cole Carruthers, real-estate rehab expert Adam Thomas, and construction foreman Ray Hammond--can be found in three novellas that include This Old House, All About Adam, and Man at the Door. Original.
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
73 people want to read
About the author
HelenKay Dimon
169 books995 followersHelenKay Dimon is a divorce lawyer-turned-romance author. After dedicating years to helping people terminate relationships she now writes romance novels full time. Her books have earned praise, appeared on bestseller lists, won numerous awards and twice been named Red-Hot Reads and excerpted in Cosmo. She sometimes writes erotic romance, sometimes writes romantic suspense and sometimes writes contemporary romance. But no matter what she's writing her books are always filled with smart banter and sexy times, and a HEA is guaranteed.
-"Sharp writing and plenty of sexy romantic sizzle..." - John Charles, Chicago Tribune
-"So smart, sexy and fast-paced, I devour her stories." - Lori Foster, NYT bestselling author
-"Lots of heat with lots of humor." - MaryJanice Davidson, NYT bestselling author
-"She's a delight." - Christina Dodd, NYT bestselling author
-"Sharp writing and plenty of sexy romantic sizzle..." - John Charles, Chicago Tribune
-"So smart, sexy and fast-paced, I devour her stories." - Lori Foster, NYT bestselling author
-"Lots of heat with lots of humor." - MaryJanice Davidson, NYT bestselling author
-"She's a delight." - Christina Dodd, NYT bestselling author
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 30, 2019
This Old House - 3/5 - Cole Carruthers and his partners have just purchased an old house from an elderly woman with declining mental awareness, but apparently this woman’s great niece is squatting in the house, refusing to leave and claiming that Cole and his buddies have conned her aunt. Cole knows that everything is on the up and up so something must be going on, and so he decides to stay in the house too, trying to get this woman to give up her quest. But Cole is pretty much floored by his attraction to her. Aubrey doesn’t really want the house, she just wants some time alone to find the stolen jewels her brother hid there, so he can keep him out of jail. But Cole refuses to leave or leave her alone.
And the longer she’s with him in the creaky old house, the more she wants to jump Cole’s bones...which has Cole all kinds of suspicious since she’s claiming he’s a conman and so he questions her integrity for a whole other reason. And since he’s rich, he jumps on the gold digger train and starts hurling accusations at her. So while this was an interesting story because of the banter between the characters and the results of Aubrey’s stubbornness and their attempts to sort of one-up each other in this confrontation, the feels weren’t in this one for me. You definitely get the lust because they keep drooling after one another and Cole is at least able to put aside his disgust at Aubrey’s obvious money grubbing in order to have sex with her (and sekritly hope she’s better people than she seems). But that is exactly what keeps it from feeling like they’re falling in love. Even Aubrey to some degree, doesn’t seem like she’s falling for him so much as she’s simply finding him more likeable than she did at first. I definitely didn’t get the feeling that they loved each other in the end, but that they decided to keep on having sex and maybe start dating. But I think I prefer that to an insta-love situation, but maybe an epilogue would have been nice.
All About Adam - 3/5 - Adam and Becky had a hot, seven-night fling at a lawyer conference eight months earlier. But after the 7th night, Becky goes out for coffee and never comes back, leaving Adam wondering why she ran. So he tracks her down and manipulates their meeting once again. The sparks are still there, but Becky doesn’t want to talk about her reasons. But Adam is persistent and he finally gets all her secrets out of her.
So I liked that Becky’s reasons for running were sort of the drive to keep reading...as a reader I wanted to know what it was that made her leave. I had my guesses, but she wasn’t telling and the hero kept asking. Her reasons weren’t much and I couldn’t figure why she’d avoided the conversation the whole time. But honestly, the heroine admitted in the end that she wanted to see the hero again, so I couldn’t understand why she was so resistant to being around him….except maybe the feels that originally scared her. But once she decides to give in completely, she does so with gusto and they have some pretty sexy scenes together before the feelings discussion start happening (during which Adam makes some major errors and doesn’t grovel enough for my liking). Both Adam and Becky admit to the start of certain lovey-like feelings during their affair which panicked both of them. They made Becky run. And during their separation, Becky was celibate...Adam was not. In 8 months apart, Adam had sex with at least 4 different women (when the story starts he’s been celibate for 1 month). This probably wouldn’t have bothered me if he hadn’t been actively looking for Becky at the time. But he was, which meant he hadn’t put her out of his mind and did have feelings for her and he still had sex with other women. I didn’t like that. Now the author was pretty clear about the hero’s ability to compartmentalize this sort of stuff, so at least I know why. But this sort of thing makes me think if he can compartmentalize that, he can definitely do it with an affair later on down the road.
Man at the Door - 3/5 - Ray is working for Cole, Adam and Whit by fixing up the Shipman house, which Erin bought. They’ve been circling around each other, flirting and eyeing each other up and Ray is about done with the waiting. He’s ready to have Erin in his bed now. But she’s still not giving in, even though he knows she wants him. So he shows up on her doorstep and announces that he’s moving in - he’s got to have this house ready by a deadline and the only way that’ll happen is if he’s there 24/7/ And it’ll give him a chance to “persuade” Erin to his view of things. Erin is certainly tempted by Ray, constantly. But she’s trying to listen to her head which reminds her that he’s young and carefree and loves the spotlight, which she prefers to avoid. They may be hot in bed, but there’s no chance of a future for them. But Ray sees things differently and is determined to work through her issues so she’ll see the potential they could have.
This one was probably my favorite from the bunch in this anthology. Maybe it’s because Ray sort of falls first - he doesn’t know what it is, but it has all the symptoms of love and the only way he has of expressing it is getting Erin in to bed. Since she’s loaded down with baggage, he decides he has to take it all on and she’ll be worth it. Well, that would work if Ray was even halfway good at actually handling Erin’s baggage. He basically challenges the most stubborn woman in the world (instead of being suave and going around her issues) and she rises to each and every challenge. The direct route didn’t work...but he stuck with it. And in the end it worked, since Erin is the one who sacrifices for him, which I felt was totally appropriate. She basically grovels and does it pretty well considering she hadn’t really done anything bad. Their sex is pretty hot too. The problem these two had was communication...as in not communicating. And with the “ask for what you want” thing out there, that worked as a plot device quite nicely. What I didn’t love was the hellishly confusing conversations in which Ray was communicating what he wanted but I was so damn confused that I had no idea...did he want sex? A relationship? Her trust? He was as clear as mud about his own wants, how could he expect Erin to be clear about hers? Those conversations were a bit frustrating but didn’t really affect the total enjoyment of this story.
And the longer she’s with him in the creaky old house, the more she wants to jump Cole’s bones...which has Cole all kinds of suspicious since she’s claiming he’s a conman and so he questions her integrity for a whole other reason. And since he’s rich, he jumps on the gold digger train and starts hurling accusations at her. So while this was an interesting story because of the banter between the characters and the results of Aubrey’s stubbornness and their attempts to sort of one-up each other in this confrontation, the feels weren’t in this one for me. You definitely get the lust because they keep drooling after one another and Cole is at least able to put aside his disgust at Aubrey’s obvious money grubbing in order to have sex with her (and sekritly hope she’s better people than she seems). But that is exactly what keeps it from feeling like they’re falling in love. Even Aubrey to some degree, doesn’t seem like she’s falling for him so much as she’s simply finding him more likeable than she did at first. I definitely didn’t get the feeling that they loved each other in the end, but that they decided to keep on having sex and maybe start dating. But I think I prefer that to an insta-love situation, but maybe an epilogue would have been nice.
All About Adam - 3/5 - Adam and Becky had a hot, seven-night fling at a lawyer conference eight months earlier. But after the 7th night, Becky goes out for coffee and never comes back, leaving Adam wondering why she ran. So he tracks her down and manipulates their meeting once again. The sparks are still there, but Becky doesn’t want to talk about her reasons. But Adam is persistent and he finally gets all her secrets out of her.
So I liked that Becky’s reasons for running were sort of the drive to keep reading...as a reader I wanted to know what it was that made her leave. I had my guesses, but she wasn’t telling and the hero kept asking. Her reasons weren’t much and I couldn’t figure why she’d avoided the conversation the whole time. But honestly, the heroine admitted in the end that she wanted to see the hero again, so I couldn’t understand why she was so resistant to being around him….except maybe the feels that originally scared her. But once she decides to give in completely, she does so with gusto and they have some pretty sexy scenes together before the feelings discussion start happening (during which Adam makes some major errors and doesn’t grovel enough for my liking). Both Adam and Becky admit to the start of certain lovey-like feelings during their affair which panicked both of them. They made Becky run. And during their separation, Becky was celibate...Adam was not. In 8 months apart, Adam had sex with at least 4 different women (when the story starts he’s been celibate for 1 month). This probably wouldn’t have bothered me if he hadn’t been actively looking for Becky at the time. But he was, which meant he hadn’t put her out of his mind and did have feelings for her and he still had sex with other women. I didn’t like that. Now the author was pretty clear about the hero’s ability to compartmentalize this sort of stuff, so at least I know why. But this sort of thing makes me think if he can compartmentalize that, he can definitely do it with an affair later on down the road.
Man at the Door - 3/5 - Ray is working for Cole, Adam and Whit by fixing up the Shipman house, which Erin bought. They’ve been circling around each other, flirting and eyeing each other up and Ray is about done with the waiting. He’s ready to have Erin in his bed now. But she’s still not giving in, even though he knows she wants him. So he shows up on her doorstep and announces that he’s moving in - he’s got to have this house ready by a deadline and the only way that’ll happen is if he’s there 24/7/ And it’ll give him a chance to “persuade” Erin to his view of things. Erin is certainly tempted by Ray, constantly. But she’s trying to listen to her head which reminds her that he’s young and carefree and loves the spotlight, which she prefers to avoid. They may be hot in bed, but there’s no chance of a future for them. But Ray sees things differently and is determined to work through her issues so she’ll see the potential they could have.
This one was probably my favorite from the bunch in this anthology. Maybe it’s because Ray sort of falls first - he doesn’t know what it is, but it has all the symptoms of love and the only way he has of expressing it is getting Erin in to bed. Since she’s loaded down with baggage, he decides he has to take it all on and she’ll be worth it. Well, that would work if Ray was even halfway good at actually handling Erin’s baggage. He basically challenges the most stubborn woman in the world (instead of being suave and going around her issues) and she rises to each and every challenge. The direct route didn’t work...but he stuck with it. And in the end it worked, since Erin is the one who sacrifices for him, which I felt was totally appropriate. She basically grovels and does it pretty well considering she hadn’t really done anything bad. Their sex is pretty hot too. The problem these two had was communication...as in not communicating. And with the “ask for what you want” thing out there, that worked as a plot device quite nicely. What I didn’t love was the hellishly confusing conversations in which Ray was communicating what he wanted but I was so damn confused that I had no idea...did he want sex? A relationship? Her trust? He was as clear as mud about his own wants, how could he expect Erin to be clear about hers? Those conversations were a bit frustrating but didn’t really affect the total enjoyment of this story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 16, 2009
3 short stories woven together around the renovation of a historic home in Washington DC. [Scary for those of us who are remodeling challenged.:] Interesting characters - nice plot - good read. I will look for this author again.
March 6, 2009
Loved this book! 3 novellas all by Helenkay Dimon. The stories are interrelated between two brothers and 1 friend, although the timeline changes from novella to novella. I really enjoyed the third story the best - Ray's story.
Rated "mild" R for sexual content and language.
Rated "mild" R for sexual content and language.
March 25, 2012
I couldn't get past the first story, and I only finished it because I resorted to skimming. Dumb premise, flat characters, no thanks.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews