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Santori Stories #1
Behind the Red Doors: Heaven Scent\Diamond Mine\Sheer Delights
An entertaining trio of sensual tales, centering around the romantic escapades that occur in a lingerie shop called The Red Door, includes Vicki Lewis Thompson's Door #1, in which Jamie Ruskin uses the powers of aromatherapy to seduce the man of her dreams, Dev Sherman. Original.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 25, 2002
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347 people want to read
About the author
Vicki Lewis Thompson
498 books1,536 followersNew York Times and USA Today bestseller Vicki Lewis Thompson believes love makes the world go around and laughter makes the trip worth taking. The recipient of RWA’s Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award and the author of more than ninety books, Vicki pioneered a new kind of romance hero with Nerd in Shining Armor. Following the success of her nerd stories, Vicki launched a boisterous paranormal series featuring a matchmaking witch and wizard, an ADD dragon named George, and a black cat inspired by her own precocious feline, Eve.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 23, 2018
Story 1: Not bad. Kind of predictable.
Story 2: Okay. A bit funny at times.
Story 3: Semi creepy, boring.
Story 2: Okay. A bit funny at times.
Story 3: Semi creepy, boring.
June 6, 2016
Actual Rating: 2.8 Stars (overall rating taken from average of individual story ratings)
Behind the Red Doors is the first in a five book romance series called Santori Stories as well as a collection of three romances surrounding Valentine's Day. The stories all take place with the setting of a high-end department store called The Red Doors that houses three boutiques: Heaven Scent sells items pertaining to aromatherapy oils and candles, perfumes, and so on; Diamond Mine sells jewelry and accessories; and Sheer Delights sells mainly lingerie and sexy women's clothing.
While this collection follows a promising premise for three love stories, it didn't escape my notice that there were quite a few things that triggered my frustration and "eye-rolling" issues. Yes, the stories were cute. Yes, this would make a nice little romance read for Valentine's Day. And it also seems that many others have enjoyed it. But I couldn't help that certain aspects in each story didn't quite sit well with me even as I enjoyed their cuteness. They are enjoyable love stories, but only if able to overlook a few quibbles here and there that weren't quite easily overlooked.
Also, it finally dawned on me by the end of the collection that each of these stories hinges on big secrets and lies to create conflict and propel the love stories. I'm not sure how to feel about that.
A short summary
Thanks to a nice financial windfall, courtesy of Dev Sherman, the two best friends Jamie and Faith have decided to invest all their money into a high-end boutique targeting gifts for women. What makes The Red Doors different from other boutiques are the specially programmed gift kiosks for men--a means of which they can input information about the women in their lives to produce a specially tailored gift order from one of the three Red Doors boutiques without the hassle of shopping in the store.
Each story begins a few days before Valentine's Day and progresses into the love story surrounding a certain couple. Meanwhile, a secret admirer is amidst our group of friends, leaving little gifts for widower and manager of Sheer Delights. Dixie Merriweather.
Heaven Scent by Vicki Lewis Thompson -- 3.0 Stars
Jamie has had a crush on Dev since before she could remember and looks forward to seeing him every morning as their small group gets together for coffee each day. Dev has started taking notice of Jamie for the past two years since The Red Doors has been in business. Thanks to the meddling of younger sister Faith, Jamie and Dev find themselves getting together alone for business research where neither can continue to deny the attraction brewing between them.
Heaven Scent was the easiest to like with the cuter of the three stories. Aside from the standard "cynical heroine who doesn't know how beautiful she is", I only had one other frustration about this story. Granted, the couple's interactions are cute, but at the same time, the consistent lack of communication and all the jumping to conclusions between the two made for a grand fest of frustration on my part. Really, if these kids would have just talked to each other and tried to be honest with each other... well, I guess there wouldn't be much of a story.
Enjoyable, nonetheless.
Diamond Mine by Stephanie Bond -- 2.5 stars
As the young daughter of the wealthy Sherman clan, Faith had been determined to make something of herself to prove her success with The Red Doors. But that's not this story's focus.
Faith and Carter broke up a year ago because neither were on the same page with their relationship: Faith wanted an actual relationship and Carter is the typical commitment-phobe broody male hero. He always showed up late or didn't show up at all to dates, and the last straw was forgetting Valentine's Day. Ending things on bad terms a year ago, Faith is not quite happy to see that Carter had been the police officer hired by her brother as the added security she needs for her newest diamond display. What she also hadn't expected was to find out that Carter was currently attached and in a committed relationship. Except that Carter really isn't... he just made one up to make a statement to Faith that he's not the man she assumed him to be and that she'd made a mistake breaking up with him; that he is not a man who is "not commitment material".
Except that he kind of is.
This story had a good premise to play off of. A second chance romance that went wrong because two people weren't in the same place at the same time. And while things were going quite smoothly and I even thought that the big secret reveal had all the potential to break into a huge angsty problem between the couple... turns out that the rest of the love story was just as rocky as Carter's lie.
As another reviewer had pointed out: I think I would have liked to have more honesty and truth telling before we started getting all lovey-dovey and naked. Otherwise, the story isn't too bad.
Sheer Delights by Leslie Kelly -- 2.5 Stars
Joe Santori draws his sister-in-law for their family's Secret Santa gift giving, and after a plea from his brother to get her something that will make her start thinking sexy thoughts again after her pregnancy, he ends up at The Red Doors to pick up a gift certificate. While there, he plays around with one of the gift kiosks and somehow creates a picture of the "woman of his dreams" after inputting several of his ideal details on a woman; for the next few weeks he continues to lust after this imaginary woman, even buying the lingerie gifts generated by his kiosk information input.
Meanwhile, Meg O'Rourke has discovered that her innocent photo posing had been used as part of the lingerie modeling program of The Red Doors kiosk gift generating program. While she's having an emotional breakdown over this problem, who should come to her rescue but Joe Santori, the perfect man, who realizes that his dream woman DOES actually exist.
I had so many problems with this story that it was hard to determine whether or not I actually enjoyed it. Because aside from Joe's strange habit of ogling a computer generated picture of Meg and buying all the negligees he ends up creating, and aside from a few other unflattering pieces of dialogue here and there... the story itself wasn't all that bad.
The interaction between Joe and Meg were sweet and cute, big looming secret notwithstanding. And if we could overlook Joe's strange, almost creepy activity as part of the backstory, the story itself would have progressed a little bit better. I mean, granted, like the second story, the big secret had big, delicious potential to implode with all sorts of revelations and angst... and it kind of did.
But what really made it hard for me to overlook was the fact that I would have liked a little bit of honesty in the relationship before anyone got naked. And on top of that, there were very casual off-hand comments here and there that came off kind of insulting to the female sex, including some indirect slut-shaming of no one in particular.
But I have a soft spot for Leslie Kelly, and while there were those few things that I didn't care for, the love story itself was still pretty cute.
Overall Thoughts:
I had been looking forward to this collection because it sounded like sweet, cute fun for hopeless romantics. I can't deny that I'm slightly disappointed that things didn't turn out the way I had hoped and that I had more quibbles about the stories than I expected. Just the fact that there's nothing else going for these stories outside of sweet and cute love stories makes it hard to overlook a couple flaws that really stand out.
Nonetheless, each story was written well and, in a way, still quite enjoyable to read.
***
2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge -- New to me author #7
• Mount TBR Challenge
Behind the Red Doors is the first in a five book romance series called Santori Stories as well as a collection of three romances surrounding Valentine's Day. The stories all take place with the setting of a high-end department store called The Red Doors that houses three boutiques: Heaven Scent sells items pertaining to aromatherapy oils and candles, perfumes, and so on; Diamond Mine sells jewelry and accessories; and Sheer Delights sells mainly lingerie and sexy women's clothing.
While this collection follows a promising premise for three love stories, it didn't escape my notice that there were quite a few things that triggered my frustration and "eye-rolling" issues. Yes, the stories were cute. Yes, this would make a nice little romance read for Valentine's Day. And it also seems that many others have enjoyed it. But I couldn't help that certain aspects in each story didn't quite sit well with me even as I enjoyed their cuteness. They are enjoyable love stories, but only if able to overlook a few quibbles here and there that weren't quite easily overlooked.
Also, it finally dawned on me by the end of the collection that each of these stories hinges on big secrets and lies to create conflict and propel the love stories. I'm not sure how to feel about that.
A short summary
Thanks to a nice financial windfall, courtesy of Dev Sherman, the two best friends Jamie and Faith have decided to invest all their money into a high-end boutique targeting gifts for women. What makes The Red Doors different from other boutiques are the specially programmed gift kiosks for men--a means of which they can input information about the women in their lives to produce a specially tailored gift order from one of the three Red Doors boutiques without the hassle of shopping in the store.
Each story begins a few days before Valentine's Day and progresses into the love story surrounding a certain couple. Meanwhile, a secret admirer is amidst our group of friends, leaving little gifts for widower and manager of Sheer Delights. Dixie Merriweather.
Heaven Scent by Vicki Lewis Thompson -- 3.0 Stars
Jamie has had a crush on Dev since before she could remember and looks forward to seeing him every morning as their small group gets together for coffee each day. Dev has started taking notice of Jamie for the past two years since The Red Doors has been in business. Thanks to the meddling of younger sister Faith, Jamie and Dev find themselves getting together alone for business research where neither can continue to deny the attraction brewing between them.
Heaven Scent was the easiest to like with the cuter of the three stories. Aside from the standard "cynical heroine who doesn't know how beautiful she is", I only had one other frustration about this story. Granted, the couple's interactions are cute, but at the same time, the consistent lack of communication and all the jumping to conclusions between the two made for a grand fest of frustration on my part. Really, if these kids would have just talked to each other and tried to be honest with each other... well, I guess there wouldn't be much of a story.
Enjoyable, nonetheless.
Diamond Mine by Stephanie Bond -- 2.5 stars
As the young daughter of the wealthy Sherman clan, Faith had been determined to make something of herself to prove her success with The Red Doors. But that's not this story's focus.
Faith and Carter broke up a year ago because neither were on the same page with their relationship: Faith wanted an actual relationship and Carter is the typical commitment-phobe broody male hero. He always showed up late or didn't show up at all to dates, and the last straw was forgetting Valentine's Day. Ending things on bad terms a year ago, Faith is not quite happy to see that Carter had been the police officer hired by her brother as the added security she needs for her newest diamond display. What she also hadn't expected was to find out that Carter was currently attached and in a committed relationship. Except that Carter really isn't... he just made one up to make a statement to Faith that he's not the man she assumed him to be and that she'd made a mistake breaking up with him; that he is not a man who is "not commitment material".
Except that he kind of is.
This story had a good premise to play off of. A second chance romance that went wrong because two people weren't in the same place at the same time. And while things were going quite smoothly and I even thought that the big secret reveal had all the potential to break into a huge angsty problem between the couple... turns out that the rest of the love story was just as rocky as Carter's lie.
As another reviewer had pointed out: I think I would have liked to have more honesty and truth telling before we started getting all lovey-dovey and naked. Otherwise, the story isn't too bad.
Sheer Delights by Leslie Kelly -- 2.5 Stars
Joe Santori draws his sister-in-law for their family's Secret Santa gift giving, and after a plea from his brother to get her something that will make her start thinking sexy thoughts again after her pregnancy, he ends up at The Red Doors to pick up a gift certificate. While there, he plays around with one of the gift kiosks and somehow creates a picture of the "woman of his dreams" after inputting several of his ideal details on a woman; for the next few weeks he continues to lust after this imaginary woman, even buying the lingerie gifts generated by his kiosk information input.
Meanwhile, Meg O'Rourke has discovered that her innocent photo posing had been used as part of the lingerie modeling program of The Red Doors kiosk gift generating program. While she's having an emotional breakdown over this problem, who should come to her rescue but Joe Santori, the perfect man, who realizes that his dream woman DOES actually exist.
I had so many problems with this story that it was hard to determine whether or not I actually enjoyed it. Because aside from Joe's strange habit of ogling a computer generated picture of Meg and buying all the negligees he ends up creating, and aside from a few other unflattering pieces of dialogue here and there... the story itself wasn't all that bad.
The interaction between Joe and Meg were sweet and cute, big looming secret notwithstanding. And if we could overlook Joe's strange, almost creepy activity as part of the backstory, the story itself would have progressed a little bit better. I mean, granted, like the second story, the big secret had big, delicious potential to implode with all sorts of revelations and angst... and it kind of did.
But what really made it hard for me to overlook was the fact that I would have liked a little bit of honesty in the relationship before anyone got naked. And on top of that, there were very casual off-hand comments here and there that came off kind of insulting to the female sex, including some indirect slut-shaming of no one in particular.
But I have a soft spot for Leslie Kelly, and while there were those few things that I didn't care for, the love story itself was still pretty cute.
Overall Thoughts:
I had been looking forward to this collection because it sounded like sweet, cute fun for hopeless romantics. I can't deny that I'm slightly disappointed that things didn't turn out the way I had hoped and that I had more quibbles about the stories than I expected. Just the fact that there's nothing else going for these stories outside of sweet and cute love stories makes it hard to overlook a couple flaws that really stand out.
Nonetheless, each story was written well and, in a way, still quite enjoyable to read.
***
2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge -- New to me author #7
• Mount TBR Challenge
February 17, 2019
It was an interesting idea to have these three romance novellas be connected. They all center around The Red Doors, a trio of boutiques and a coffee shop that have the unique feature of allowing men to enter information about their significant others into a computer system and having an algorithm determine the perfect gift. The first story features Jamie, one of the co-owners of the store, who’s been in love with her best friend (and fellow owner) Faith’s brother Dev but thinks he’s to good for her and would never be interested. The second story follows Faith, who reencounters an ex who she never got over when the jewelry store she runs needs some extra security. And finally the last story is about Joe, who enters a computer kiosk on a whim and finds the lingerie model is the woman of his dreams. A couple months later he meets her in real life and finds out that she’s actually a rather frumpy schoolteacher who didn’t realize what her picture was being used for. There’s also a fourth storyline, a secret admirer of Dixie, the woman who runs the lingerie store for them.
So this was cheesy, predictable, and full of instalove. As most romance novels are. The first two stories used the whole misunderstanding/lying about who you really are/not being honest which each other trope that I really don’t like. Its used a lot in romance and it always frustrates me. Why not just be honest with each other? The third one used it to a small degree but not as badly and was my favorite story. Honestly the little secret admirer love story between side characters was probably my favorite of the book.
So this was cheesy, predictable, and full of instalove. As most romance novels are. The first two stories used the whole misunderstanding/lying about who you really are/not being honest which each other trope that I really don’t like. Its used a lot in romance and it always frustrates me. Why not just be honest with each other? The third one used it to a small degree but not as badly and was my favorite story. Honestly the little secret admirer love story between side characters was probably my favorite of the book.
July 26, 2017
Features Heaven Scent 4 stars
I like the the story, I first read it years ago so my judgement may be clouded.
Diamond Mine 2 stars
The story wasn't bad, but I can't help thinking Faith is not the brightest or the most moral person.
Yeah, Carter's lie was a stupid idea, it definitely didn't prove he's ready to be in a realtionship, but I can see where he was coming from. Sort of. I was hoping he'd tell her the truth before they do something stupid but he didn't.
I like the the story, I first read it years ago so my judgement may be clouded.
Diamond Mine 2 stars
The story wasn't bad, but I can't help thinking Faith is not the brightest or the most moral person.
Yeah, Carter's lie was a stupid idea, it definitely didn't prove he's ready to be in a realtionship, but I can see where he was coming from. Sort of. I was hoping he'd tell her the truth before they do something stupid but he didn't.
November 24, 2018
If you haven’t read about the Santori family you must grab these books!
March 23, 2019
Cute, easy to read stories. The last one surprises in its plot, thought it would focus exclusively on Dixie's love life. I wish it had.
November 11, 2013
2.5 Stars. The Red Doors, an upscale Chicago boutique specializing in lingerie, jewelry, and perfume, connects three romances.
First up, Heaven Scent by Vicki Lewis Thompson. Sporty nerd, Jamie, crushes on her best friend’s brother, Dev, a businessman she thinks is way out of her league. Jamie’s the kind of person who considers upgrading to a two bedroom apartment all to accommodate her book collection, so, yeah, I liked her. It did disturb me a little that Jamie tries to be someone she’s not to land the guy, but it’s apparent early on that Dev loves Jamie for who she is, so I was mostly okay with it.
Next up, Diamond Mine by Stephanie Bond. Faith’s a jeweler, and a romantic, she longs for commitment, so she dumps commitment-phobe cop Carter. A year later, to prove her wrong about him, Carter spins a lie. There are some cute dialogue moments involving the lie, later though, the lie loses much of it’s cute as things heat up. With the lie still between them, yet carrying on as if it isn’t there, it puts both characters in a not so great light. I’m sure I would have enjoyed this more had the truth happened before the naked.
Lastly, Sheer Delights by Leslie Kelly. At first, I wasn’t sure about the hero's lingerie shopping habit, but it turned out construction guy Joe wasn’t as creepy as that potentially seemed, he made an effort to romance grade school teacher Meg. My one quibble here, is similar to story #2, where a confession really should have happened before the naked, it wasn't Joe's most heroic moment. I did enjoy him with Meg though, and the big warm family vibe was a nice bonus in the story.
First up, Heaven Scent by Vicki Lewis Thompson. Sporty nerd, Jamie, crushes on her best friend’s brother, Dev, a businessman she thinks is way out of her league. Jamie’s the kind of person who considers upgrading to a two bedroom apartment all to accommodate her book collection, so, yeah, I liked her. It did disturb me a little that Jamie tries to be someone she’s not to land the guy, but it’s apparent early on that Dev loves Jamie for who she is, so I was mostly okay with it.
Next up, Diamond Mine by Stephanie Bond. Faith’s a jeweler, and a romantic, she longs for commitment, so she dumps commitment-phobe cop Carter. A year later, to prove her wrong about him, Carter spins a lie. There are some cute dialogue moments involving the lie, later though, the lie loses much of it’s cute as things heat up. With the lie still between them, yet carrying on as if it isn’t there, it puts both characters in a not so great light. I’m sure I would have enjoyed this more had the truth happened before the naked.
Lastly, Sheer Delights by Leslie Kelly. At first, I wasn’t sure about the hero's lingerie shopping habit, but it turned out construction guy Joe wasn’t as creepy as that potentially seemed, he made an effort to romance grade school teacher Meg. My one quibble here, is similar to story #2, where a confession really should have happened before the naked, it wasn't Joe's most heroic moment. I did enjoy him with Meg though, and the big warm family vibe was a nice bonus in the story.
August 19, 2015
Another delightful anthology with 3 romance stories well tied together by the three authors. Heaven Scent by Vicki Lewis Thompson has same light sense of humor and good character development as all of her other works. First time reading something by Stephanie Bond and Leslie Kelly. I will be following up and reading more of their work. The impressive thing about this anthology is that all of the stories are closely tied together. After the first story I had to finish all of the others.
July 9, 2011
BERFORE i start the first story really really did it for me...
If you enjoy a fun, sassy read with three great heroines and three even hotter heroes, than this is the book for you. The stories all tie together nicely, yet easily stand alone.
fan page www.facebook.com/romance.novel.junkies and group Romance Novel Junkies with 500+ members
If you enjoy a fun, sassy read with three great heroines and three even hotter heroes, than this is the book for you. The stories all tie together nicely, yet easily stand alone.
fan page www.facebook.com/romance.novel.junkies and group Romance Novel Junkies with 500+ members
February 6, 2011
BEFORE i start the first story really really did it for me...
If you enjoy a fun, sassy read with three great heroines and three even hotter heroes, than this is the book for you. The stories all tie together nicely, yet easily stand alone.
If you enjoy a fun, sassy read with three great heroines and three even hotter heroes, than this is the book for you. The stories all tie together nicely, yet easily stand alone.
February 19, 2013
That was a fun lighthearted read! I haven't read straight feel-good romance in a while and it was a nice change from the dark suspense I have been into lately. It was a bit dated, (I am still laughing at the VCR incident), but it didn't make the story any less enjoyable.
April 26, 2013
This was such a cute anthology. The authors did a great job at tying all three stories together and making the characters consistant from story to story, which I loved. An easy romantic read that would be great anytime of the year, although particularly centered around Valentine's Day. Will reread.
November 13, 2013
Three Valentine connected stories. 1Jamie and Dev Sherman. 2. Faith Sherman and Carter Grayson police detective/security guard for The Red Doors jewelry store. 3. Meg O'Rourke finds her picture on the Red Doors and is discovered by Joe Santori.
July 16, 2014
Heaven Scent by Vicki Lewis Thompson - 2 Stars
Diamond Mine by Stephanie Bond - 2.5 Stars
Sheer Delights by Leslie Kelly - 4 Stars
Diamond Mine by Stephanie Bond - 2.5 Stars
Sheer Delights by Leslie Kelly - 4 Stars
March 16, 2013
Cute stories loved the nod to the princess bride in the final story
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews