I read this book in April 2007

When Santa Fe antique dealer Julia Anderson was curiously drawn to purchase a battered jewelry box, she didn't expect it to contain her own personal love slave. Especially not tall, dark and sinfully handsome Tristan -- a man hard to resist and determined to fulfill her every desire.

Though Tristan was a rogue of the battlefield and boudoir, making love with Julia was like nothing he'd ever known. Yet revealing his true heart would break the centuries-old spell and separate them forever. And Tristan would do anything to go on loving Julia. . . even remain a slave through all eternity. . .

Tristan is a proud Imperian warrior. He is determined never to beg for anything ever again because in his youth his father made him beg for every small thing. He is cursed into jewelry box to serve as a pleasure slave by a vindictive Druinn Priestess and sent whirling through dimensions and parallel worlds by the Druinn High Priest he ends up in Julia Anderson’s home in the 21st century.

Julia is calm and reserved and a bit insecure.
Underneath her calm and reserved exterior, a fiery and passionate woman is lingering, waiting to be discovered. And who better to discover this woman than the pleasure slave who appears from a strange jewelry box she bought.
But in spite of the way Tristan makes Julia feel she doesn’t want Tristan to be her pleasure slave but she does have a request, she wants him to help her entice her neighbour whom she considers plain and reserved like herself and therefore safe for her to get involved with.
Tristan agrees and during the lessons the lingering passion between them just drips of the pages and not it's not long before this passion turns into a deep self-sacrificing love.

Again the secondary characters are well written and a real contribution to the story of Tristan and Julia.
Zirra is a mean selfish Druin Priestess who uses everything and everyone to get her way. Romulis is the son of Percen and Heather (characters froum The Stone Prince) who is madly in love with Zirra and he'll do anything for her, including help her trace Tristan.
Peter is the boring and plain nextdoor neighbour whom Julia thinks is her ideal partner and she asks Tristan to help her making Peter fall in love with her.
Tristan calls him “Puny Peter” and I must admit that is a fitting description.

This is the second book in the Imperia-series by Gena Showalter and the last one written so far.
And again I loved it and I hope Showalter will continue this series in spite of the other series she’s got going on.
She has created a nice mix between the mystical and mysterious world of Imperia, with it’s alpha male warriors and the modern day 21st century earth with it’s independent women. This mix leads to a fun read, which spikes your senses and leaves you wanting more of these stories.
Although this book and The Stone Prince are from the same series you can easily read them stand alone.

I must say this one was a little bit less hilarious than The Stone Prince, it has a more serious underlying atmosphere but that doesn’t make it less good.
In the contrary…I enjoyed it till the very last letter and went through a caleidoscope of emotions and feelings while reading it. And don't get me wrong there were really funny scenes in the book that made me laugh out loud like the scene where Tristan and Julia talk men’s underwear or the scene with the gay sales man in the mall who hits on Tristan. So no worries for the ones who love humor in their stories.

Quotes:

He was a exquisite specimen of manhood. So exquisite, in fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had “Grade A one-hundred-percent pure beef” stamped on his butt.

Tristan: “My tongue burns for the taste of you. My hands itch for the feel of you. And my shaft screams for the core of you. Let me have you.”

I read this book in March 2007

A LOVE AS BRIGHT AS THE STARS AND ENDURING AS STONE...
Beautiful and bold home renovator Katie James is unlucky in love-so unlucky she’s been reduced to kissing a marble statue in the garden of her newly bought Victorian mansion. But her luck changes when the statue warms to life in her arms-and turns out to be a hunk straight out of any woman’s fantasy! Well, almost….Jorlan en Sarr hails from another planet and like all the other men Katie’s known , he comes with a lot of baggage. Before long, she is swept up in tumultuous passion that will either save this man she has come to love, or destroy him.

A CURSED WARRIOR WITH A LOVER’S MAGIC TOUCH…
Jorlan en Sarr, a mighty alien prince, is cursed by his half-brother to spend eternity as a marble statue, able to see, hear and feel everything around him, yet be unable to respond. His one chance for freedom is a spell that catapults him to Earth, where he spends one thousand years awaiting a woman’s kiss.
Entombed in his stony skin for centuries, Jorlan has been waiting for a maiden fair to break the spell. Yet this statuesque beauty with the will of an Amazon an d kisses like flame is a far cry from the obedient damsels of Imperia. And though Jorlan is tempted to abandon all for the sake of Katie, unless he can convince her to give him her heart in two week’s time, he’ll be turned back to stone. And she’ll be lost to him forever.

Embarking on a new author I find myself totally blown away! In the most positive way possible! Humor, sensuality, passion, the ultimate dominant alpha male, these are the ingredients for a great journey!
Delightful and witty are the first words that came to mind after reading the first two chapters.
I devoured this book, the plot involves not only a sort of time-travel but also “planet-travel” for Jorlan is an alien from the planet Imperia.
A planet where women are obedient, meek and compliant and there only purpose is to serve their men who are there to protect the women.
And now Jorlan finds himself on earth in the twenty-first century where women, and especially Katie James, are independent, self-sufficient and don’t need any man for protection.
This causes hilarious dialogues between them.
Especially the one where he demands that she sleep with him to end the curse for once and for all. This only happens when the woman who kissed him also declares her love for him. Jorlan is utterly convinced that one sensual bedding session is enough to make her fall in love with him.
I truly loved Jorlan as the ultimate alpha male with his conception of women being vulnerable, meek, submissive, needing protection all the time.
And Katie is great! A modern, independent young women who stands her ground but at the same time falls head over heels in love with this amazing alien creature.
Katie grew up with 4 older brothers and a very protective father and she’s fed up with overbearing men telling her what do to so she knows exactly how to deal with this dominant male.
His reaction to her ordering him around is priceless. How dare she -a weak female- order him –a mighty warrior and above all a man!- around.

Besides the love-story there is also the story the relationship between Jorlan, Percen and their mother and why his half-brother Percen cursed Jorlan into a statue. Their triangle is very complicated and difficult but strangely enough I could understand and sympathize with the reasons and motivations of Percen’s actions, however mean they were towards Jorlan.

Again I have found a treasure in this book. The reason for it was the feelings, motivations and actions being so pure, basic and “real”! No pretences, deceitfulness but everything direct and in the open, pure and raw. I noticed that I’m really starting to favor this kind of writing I really enjoy these books. This combined with fun and sensuality makes it a keeper for me and I really am looking forward to reading more by Ms Showalter’s hand.

Quotes:
When Katie sets a few rules he has to uphold if he wants her to allow him to come home with her, he first demands some adjustments of the rules and then says:
“If I break one of your rules, I will allow you to give me a severe tongue lashing all over my body.”

Ms Showalter also has a funny way of using food-metaphors, with a special preference for chocolate and icecream. I found at least 7 or 8 in the book but here the two I liked the most:
- She might as well have asked him if he wanted to finger paint her naked body with caramel-and-chocolate ice cream and lick it off
- Since he first appeared in her garden she had lusted after him like he was a piece of chocolate in a PMS survival kit