Available NOW at

Reviews

Fallen Angel Reviews - Five Angels, Recommended Read, Reviewer Scarlet
Emotional at times, funny at others, Blackberry Pie is always charming and deserves a place of prominence on any reader’s shelves. Author Bonnie Dee has a gift for drawing the reader right into the lives of her characters and keeping them involved to the end.

Joyfully Reviewed, Reviewer Talia Ricci
Bonnie Dee got me right in the heart with Blackberry Pie and I thought about this book for hours after reading it. It was earthy, it was sensual, and I adored every word.

Two Lips Reviews, Reviewer Kerin - 4 lips
Together their happiness will warm the heart of the most jaded individual. The rawness of Bonnie Dee’s writing is compelling.

Mrs. Giggles - 85
Blackberry Pie is, from all appearances, a simple story of a minister's sexual awakening. Dee often goes the extra mile to make every story of hers come off a little more than fluff, so here Nathan and Grace also connect on an intellectual and emotional level.

Just Erotic Romance Review, Reviewer Anna Mae Garland, 4/5 stars
A tender tale of first love and sexual exploration between two people from
opposite ends of the social spectrum. Ms Dee treats the subject matter in a
refined and sensitive way. Her descriptions of their sexual encounters
perfectly fit the nature of the story and are explicit without becoming vulgar.

The Romance Studio, Reviewer Brenda Talley, 4 Hearts
These two young people are polar opposites yet each has something that drew the other. It is a unique plot and Ms. Dee has presented it in an interesting way.

CoffeeTime Romance, Reviewer Krista - 4 cups
Ms. Dee presents a picture of what can be found when we are not looking for it. A sizzling hot story of passion overcoming everything that Nathan fights and Grace needs.

Excerpt:

“Blackberry?” She held up her bucket. The sweet aroma that had teased his senses since he entered the glade rose strong and potent from the mass of fruit.

“Thank you.” He reached into the bucket and picked a berry. It was pulpy and moist from the heat. He nodded at the girl and popped the fruit into his mouth where it burst, syrupy and rich. Hard seeds crunched in contrast to the mushy flesh of the fruit.

She watched him chew. Her gleaming eyes made the act seem too intimate, as if he was doing something other than eating in front of her.

Although the bite of berry was small, Nathan swallowed hard. “Very sweet. Thank you,” he said again.

“This ’ere’s the best patch around.” The girl lifted a berry to her own mouth. Her indigo-stained tongue slipped out between rosy lips. She placed the berry on her tongue and drew it slowly back inside.

Nathan watched, mesmerized, searching for something to say, but his mind was completely blank. Pleasantries like asking about her family, where she lived, whether she ever attended the Grace Baptist Church —which ironically shared her name—all that was beyond him. He could only stare at her moving mouth and the subtle fluctuation in her throat as she swallowed. His erection swelled harder and he backed away a step, looking past Grace at the blackberry patch. “What will you make with the berries?”

“Preserves and pie.” She reached into her bucket and selected another berry. Her eyes sparkled like the sun on a dark pool as she extended her hand toward his mouth. If chewing in front of her had felt intimate, the offering from her fingers directly to his lips was downright erotic. Her eyes challenged him to open his mouth and accept the fruit, and he couldn’t refuse it without looking like a flustered fool.

He opened his mouth, throat dry as sandpaper, and felt the feather-light touch of her fingers brushing his lips and the berry settling on his tongue.

She smiled as she withdrew her hand and let it drop back to her side.

Nathan’s heart pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer. His cheeks blazed with heat and blood rushed in his ears. His cock throbbed in time to his rapid heartbeats. The glade’s heat seemed intensified, smothering. Nathan’s head swam and he wondered if he was about to pass out—all because a country girl hand-fed him a blackberry.

A charge like ionized air before a thunderstorm smoldered between them for several seconds before the girl broke it by speaking. “Must be thirsty from all the walkin’. There’s a stream over yonder.” She pointed toward the woods on the far side of the glade.

“Yes, water would be good,” he agreed weakly.

“Best come ’round the patch lessen you want to get your nice clothes all ruined.” She turned and walked in front of him, hips swaying slightly from side to side.

It took every ounce of Nathan’s willpower to drag his gaze away from the undulations of her hips and buttocks and the long, lean legs stretching down below the short hem of her shift.

“You been to Cadey’s Pass, seen the family up there yet?” she asked as she led him up a slope and through a stand of pine trees. He heard the trickling of water and his mouth salivated in response.

“Um, no. I had directions, but got lost on the way.”

“Easy to get twisted ’round on the mountain.” Her light voice drifted back over her shoulder, rising up and down with a musical lilt.

“Where do you live?” he finally remembered to ask. “What’s your last name?”

“Owl Ridge over yonder. Last name’s Parkins.” She stopped walking suddenly and Nathan ran into her. He stepped back so quickly he tripped on a branch half-buried in the leaf mold. It took him a few stumbling steps to regain his balance.

“Here.” She crouched and pushed back a tall clump of ferns to reveal water bubbling right up out of the ground and meandering away in a thin stream. “It’s plenty cold.” She lay down on her belly and bent her face to the surface of the water.

Nathan could hardly breath, watching her natural ease as she sprawled on the ground and scooped water to her mouth. Her dress rode even higher, revealing a lightly haired expanse of leg all the way up to the rounded shadow where her thighs met her bottom. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat and raised his eyes to the canopy of green leaves above them. This was a test—surely a test from God of Nathan’s dedication to the ideal of chastity.

Back in the seminary it had been easy to talk analytically with his peers about moral and spiritual matters. The seminarians all expected to work in the mission field for a year or two, return home to meet and marry a suitable young woman and begin life as a family man. Full of religious fervor and the desire to grow new spiritual communities, none of them considered delaying sexual gratification a problem. The young men had been celibate so long, what was another year or two? But out in the world, Nathan had discovered working with real people was considerably more complicated than he’d anticipated, and today’s sudden, unexpected and powerful surge of physical desire for a strange young woman took him completely by surprise.

“Ain’t you thirsty?”

He looked down at Grace. She had pushed up off the ground and squatted by the water, looking up at him, her lips glistening wet. Her hair was darker here in the shadows with no sun highlighting it. Her eyes looked darker too. She gazed at him over one bare shoulder, the sleeve of her shift having slipped down her arm. The vulnerability of the soft curve of flesh made his heart twist. She looked like a young girl wearing her older sister’s too-large dress.

“Yes,” he finally answered her question. He dropped to his knees on the leafy forest floor, setting his jacket aside. With one hand pressed flat to the ground, he lowered his face close to the bubbling stream and scooped icy cold handfuls of water to his mouth. The sharp mineral tang soothed his throat and cooled his raging libido a little—until he turned his head and faced Grace’s eyes, only a couple of feet away, looking back into his.