Susan Andersen takes us back to the world of Las Vegas showgirls, where Treena McCall and Jax Gallagher last met and fell in love. This story is about Treena's best friend, co-worker, and neighbor, Carly Jacobsen. Carly is tall, blonde, beautiful, and built, and she's also big-hearted and fun-loving. Like the other characters, Carly has wounds from her past and had felt herself a misfit until realizing she fit in right where she was, and made a family with similar people who also built their lives in Sin City. Carly doesn't expect to add her uptight neighbor, security expert Wolfgang Jones, to the group because they detest each other. Carly tends to live in the moment while Wolf doesn't do anything he hasn't planned as carefully as a chess move, including his sex life. That all changes one day when they accidentally land in each other's arms and all but go up in flames. Intense animosity becomes red hot lust, and they find themselves sucked inexorably into an all-consuming affair. At the same time, Wolf's nephew Niklaus lands on his doorstep after nearly 17 years of being dragged from place to place by his flighty mother. Wolf, who had always found it safest to be solitary, suddenly finds himself a parent with a lover and burgeoning friendships. Nik, prepared to hate everyone and keep his distance from his rigid uncle, instead finds himself with a group of friends and a girl, as well as developing love and respect for his uncle.

Though there was only one very long, very well-written sex scene, this book is nevertheless very hot as it details not only the lust but the budding of very important, very deep feelings that can sometimes go with it. It doesn't stop there, though. It also dealt lightly with a teenage romance from the boy's point of view, and showed how the warmth of the love of friends can create a surrogate family for people whose lives have been fractured in one way or another. Wolf is an especially endearing character as he opens up from his "solitary is safe" stance to becoming a good parent to Nik and tumbling head over heels for Carly.

The focus of this book is very different from Andersen's last, "Skintight," which detailed a lot of the work that goes into being a showgirl. This one was more about cracking open wounded hearts and the healing power of many kinds of love, from burning romance to the bond with man's best friend. Susan Andersen has always written excellent modern romance, and this book really shows her stuff. She brings us her familiar sense of humor while humanizing larger than life characters. These people have flaws and vulnerabilities, and are so real you can almost touch them. I can't wait to see where the imagination of Susan Andersen will take me next.

This book was a quick read for me. It was okay, nothing memorable about the story.

Sequel to SKINTIGHT.

Even though she graduated with a teaching degree, Las Vegas showgirl Carly Jacobsen loves her dancing job. She's got the talent and body for dancing and it allows her to thumb her nose at her money-grubbing, ladder-climbing mother. In her spare time Carly indulges her love of animals by rescuing cats and dogs and using them as therapy pets for children stricken with cancer.

Carly immediately strikes sparks with her uptight new neighbor, Wolfgang Jones. Wolfgang also happens to be the number two security honcho at the resort hotel/casino where Carly works. Wolfgang's army/embassy worker dad married his German mom and has lived all over the world.

Wolfgang's got a "plan" for a white picket fence life and a Stepford wife. His plan doesn't involve anybody even remotely like Carly. Too bad for him. When his nephew, Niklaus, comes to live with him, Wolfgang's plan is further sidetracked.

Good, solid story. Carly was an incredible, positive woman - strong, smart, funny. She carried the story. The stalker subplot was dumb and conveyed no real sense of threat. And Niklaus was typical teen angst, just stellar.

Just For Kicks by Susan Andersen is the story of Vegas Showgirl and love/hate relationship with The head of security at a Vegas Hotel. This novel has some dash of mystery and a steaming romance. This novel was good but not stop everything you are doing and read novel.

This book was charming, with well-drawn characters and a believable love story, but there was just something missing. . .

In my opinion, the lack of spark comes from Andersen's mix of "older" and "younger" dialogue. I had the same problem with the first book, "Skintight." Like some of the other reviewers, I, too, cringed every time Carly referred to someone as "toots" or referred to sex as the "hootchie-kootch." I mean, who uses terms like that anymore? There were times when the words sounded very much like a 30-something person; other times, they sounded like my grandmother. It kept a good book from being excellent. Ironically, Nik's "teenage" language was very well done. Too bad she couldn't have made Carly's language a little more realistic.

I would recommend this book as a light, pleasant read, nothing spectacular. Andersen has much better books that I consider keepers, but I would not count this as one of them.