Southern aristocrat Alexandra Kenyon was the daughter of Hanging Harry, Judge Harold Kenyon. She was one Southern Belle lawyer who had a secret yearning for a thoroughly macho man. So one night while she was minding her own business in her own private little bedroom having a private little fantasy, she looked up at the ceiling and got sucked up into a glowing six foot hole that dropped her into the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere happened to be a freshwater ocean, Caribbean style white sand beaches, palm trees, an artificial milky sky and a knock-your-socks-off virile live-in Tarzan/Conan.

Tarzan's actual name was John Hawke. He'd been living in this place he had dubbed the Goldfish bowl. He'd even swum out to the edge and tried to beat his way out of the glass bubble surrounding the whole thing. He had been a Marine in the middle of the war in Afghanistan until he'd been sucked into a glowing hole in the sky and dropped here. He knew it was an artificial environment, and he had dubbed those who ran it "The Bastards" because whenever they did something good for him, they followed it up with something bad. Like the time they gave him a sack of salt, followed by a monster that tried to eat him. The something bad was usually a variant of the monster that tried to eat him theme. Sometimes for variety it was lots of little monsters.

He didn't know what he expected when the hole in the sky appeared again, but it sure wasn't for his fantasy woman to drop out of the sky and into his lap. Not really his lap, into the fake freshwater ocean he was swimming in. He had to rescue her first, but then, since he saved her from drowning, she owed him. And he had decided that now that he had a flesh-and-blood real live woman to protect, and since he made his own rules, she was going to do what he said when he said it, or get punished. Fortunately Alex had that closet fantasy about a broad shouldered feral blonde Dominant man. Only now that fantasy was out of the closet, big time. And did these two have chemistry? Oh yes.

What can I say?
STRANDED
is a Fantasy with a bit of twisted humor, and if there's anything that I like, it's twisted humor and an Alpha hero. They usually don't come in the same package. Short. Hot. Did I say hot? It's a scorcher. It's not War and Peace, but for what it is, it is the best of it. Definitely a keeper.

Reviewed By: Maitresse
(c) July 2004