Review: Experimenting With Ed (#1)

Experimenting with Ed by Katie Allen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a happy surprise this book turned out to be!! It was a totally random purchase and I absolutely fell in love with it. (Obviously, judging it by the 5 stars I gave it!)

It starts off with Claire at a bar with her boss and coworkers - celebrating a grant that their research team was due to receive. Claire’s boss, a pube-faced toad of a man that had the hots for her, had finally pushed her a little too far. So far that a bouncer stepped in to make sure Claire was OK. The bouncer was Edward Astor. Ed for short. And he was just about the most handsome man that Claire had ever laid eyes on.

After the little issue with her boss - and Ed intervening on her part - Claire decides to walk home. Ed, being a gentleman and a tough guy, doesn’t want her walking five blocks, alone, at night. So, he takes a break and walks her home. I was hoping for some hot monkey sex at this point, but it didn’t happen. But I was pretty sure it was coming, eventually.

The next day, Ed is waiting for Claire.....to walk with her to work. Some might view this as creepy and stalker-ish, but I didn’t. I thought it was sweet. It’s pretty obvious from the beginning that Ed is a little different, but he never comes across as creepy. Socially awkward and a little shy, maybe. But never creepy. So anyway - he walks her to work and they’re the first ones there so she brings him in and shows him around the lab where she works. Ed is a little freaked out - he doesn’t like labs or doctors - but Claire keeps the mood light and even introduces him to her favorite test subject.....a lab rat named Wilma. There’s also a hot make-out session in the supply closet before the rest of Claire’s coworkers get to work. (YUMMY!) And while Claire’s day started out good, it goes downhill from there. She gets fired because she refused to support her boss when he told her he was planning to falsify data in order to secure the grant money. And it only gets crazier from there. (And I mean crazy in a good way. Like, crazy as in action packed.) Claire almost gets killed twice, there’s a fire, some car chases, some motorcycle chases, and a whole lot of crazy hot monkey sex. Good Lord, you will fall in love with Ed. It’s that tortured Alpha-male thing again. That gets me every single time. That, coupled with the fact that Ed is just a big ole teddy bear when it comes to Claire. *Swoon* I mean, really. What’s not to love?

Along the way, we meet Ed’s friend, Darwin, and we also learn a little bit about their past and how they both came to be......different. I won’t spoil it here, but let’s just say that it’s Top Secret / Government / Off The Record type stuff. It explains a lot, but it also opens the door wide open for many more books to come.

Don’t get me wrong, I did have a few issues with this book. The resolution played out a little too easily, a little too neatly. In - out - clean escape - problems solved. But the problem solving didn’t get mentioned except in the epilogue as our couple is driving into the sunset. I would like to have seen all of that played out over the course of a chapter or two, rather than having it mentioned merely as an afterthought. BUT.....I didn’t write it, so I have to respect the author’s choices. But even with that, I still can’t give less than 5 stars because I did love the characters so much.

Ya know, I feel so smug about having found this book. Why smug? Because it was a great story with lots of hot sex, action, and a hero I could really fall in love with - and I discovered it all on my own. It wasn’t a recommendation from anyone. (I know, what am I....a five year old? LOOKIE! I did it all by myself!) And furthermore, I don’t even remember how I found this book to begin with. I think it was an impulse buy on Amazon due to those “customers who bought this book also bought this book".  I think. But whatever the reason, I’m so glad I found it.

Experimenting With Ed happens to be the first in a series that will focus on all the men that were “altered”. I know from reading the author’s blog that the next book with focus on Ed’s friend, Darwin. There are 5 men in all, so I can only assume that there will be 5 books in the series. All of the men were assigned letters and when they escaped, they choose their own names. We have Ed, then Darwin....because I’m a genius, I’m guessing the remaining three guys will have names that start with C, then B, and finally A.

Bring on boys D, C, B, and A! I can’t wait.