Karlynp & The Doggone World

3.5 stars. Melting Ms Frost is a spicy contemporary romance set in London. It explores a lite dom-sub relationship between Aiden, a mysterious and handsome Irish bar tender, and his boss Annabel Frost, the cold, stiff and proper manager of the chic restaurant.

Aiden is a talker: a smooth talker, a sweet talker, and most assuredly a dirty talker. While Annabel would never fraternize with the help, she is drawn to Aiden's shocking flirtatious advances as he pushes well beyond the boundaries of appropriate in a work place. She denies her attraction and sets out to avoid him, but he can read her like a book and persists through her resistance to eventually make her his.

I should probably mention that I could count the number of BDSM themed romances I have read on one hand, and still have a few fingers left. It is normally not my cuppa, and while I enjoyed this book I still don't think it's my cuppa.

Aiden only wants a dom-sub relationship with Annabel, but to have that way he will need to make her see how she is attracted to that lifestyle. When the relationship finally heats up, the game of dom-sub means she must surrender control to Aiden if she is to receive 'satisfaction'.

I instantly liked Aiden, and loved the way he would go about shocking Annabel with his naughty whispers of desire. Annabel, being the cold and stiff person she is, was much harder to like at first. But the cat and mouse games between them was fun to watch, and slowly we began to see a likable side to Annabel as well.

The story is heavily focused on the sexual relationship between Aiden and Annabel, but I hesitate to call this one an 'erotica' novel. It is a spicy read with light-erotica moments, but it spends more time on the sexual tension build up and not so much on the bedroom scenes. (If you are looking for hardcore erotica or hardcore BDSM, this isn't that book.)

There are a few secondary story lines including Annabel's mother's horrible taste in men, and Aiden's history that led him to eventually decide to take on a bar tending job. While they were interesting enough, for me they were easy to skip over. The main meat of this book really is the relationship between Aiden and Annabel.

Overall I did enjoy it despite not being a fan of BDSM themed romances. I loved Aiden and enjoyed the cat and mouse games between them as their relationship grew. But I had trouble relating to the sex scenes as my own preference is certainly elsewhere and not with the dom-sub role play. I would also be lying if I said I enjoyed the ending. It ended how it should given all the story lines, but not as I had hoped.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for making this ARC available in exchange for an honest review.