Giveaway & Review ~ Model Position by Kitsy Clare

Blurb: 

In Manhattan’s glitzy gallery scene love and art are perilous games.

Will Sienna dare to play? 

All too soon, artist Sienna Karr will graduate art school and be flung out into Manhattan’s glamorous but cutthroat gallery scene. Luckily, she’s just met Dave Hightower, heir to the hippest gallery ever. He’s asked her on a date, and offered to introduce her to the gallery owner, his intimidating aunt Lydia. Sienna’s excited! Now she’ll be able to climb the ranks and make those all-important art connections.

Trouble is, she’s falling hard for the sexy live drawing model, Erik, whose sizzling green eyes seem to pierce right into her soul. Dare she risk losing those potential art contacts for love? Erik insists that Sienna is a real talent and her painting stands out above all the others. But she worries that he whispers this come-on line to every pretty art student who flocks around him during breaks. And her friends worry, is Erik up to her pay grade? What kind of guy chooses modeling for a living? Who is he, really? Her choice may be her ruin—or not—but she must decide fast. Everything in Sienna’s super-organized life is turning to terrifying yet sweet chaos.

Book title: Model Position

Author: Kitsy Clare

Genre: new adult contemporary romance novella

Release date: February 20, 2014

Publisher: Inkspell

Purchase Links:

Amazon * B&N * ARe * Kobo * Inkspel

"Kitsy Clare paints a provocative picture with words - a sexy montage of art, beauty, lust and love as colorful as any artist’s canvas."  -Share my Destiny, romance book blogger

"A captivating and sensual work of art!" -Jaycee DeLorenzo, author of The Truths About Dating and Mating

“Model Position is sexy, suspenseful and oh, so hard to put down. Kitsy Clare mixes a skillful, fast-moving story as Sienna, a talented but uptight art student takes on the trendy New York art scene.  She’s caught between the pull of ambition and the possibility of steamy, but true-blue love in the form of Erik, a delicious male model with no connections.  Or is he true?  And is Erik really all he seems to be?” -Helen Mallon, author of Indecent Exposure & other short stories;

Book Reviewer, Philadelphia Inquirer

Excerpt:

I prop my canvas on the easel and squeeze oil paints onto my palette. I’ve been looking forward to this last new class of spring semester. It’s so different from what I normally do: computer art—neat, digital prints. But oil paint is buttery and sexy, with a warm pinesap aroma that I could inhale all day. I make sure my paints are in a perfect color-spectrum line, from cadmium yellow and permanent rose, all the way to the darkest ultramarine blue. 

I’m like that. At home my shoes are arranged from lowest to spikiest heel, and the dresses in my closet are color coordinated. Order is good. Chaos is scary. I’ve known that since my mom went through her third divorce. Three hubbys done in by her sinkfuls of dirty dishes, mountains of wrinkled clothes, and hoarded bags of dresses from shopping sprees she couldn’t afford! No mess in my life. Not happening. You could eat off my apartment floor. 

So far in class we’ve only done charcoal drawings, so oils will be an interesting change. Though I don’t have high hopes for today’s model. The live models have been a motley crew: a guy in a clown suit and Medieval court jester’s hat, a dowdy lady in a diaphanous gown, and a skeletal girl in a bikini who bit her nails and paced during breaks. 

Where are all the sexy male muses? 

“Hey, Sienna!” Dave Hightower saunters in and chooses the easel next to me. He hands me a steamy cappuccino.

“For me? Thanks, Dave.” This is why I like Dave. Well, that and his passion for expensive Italian sweaters, leather dress shoes, tight black denims, and the body to work them. I sip my drink and look around at the other guys in class, all dressed in the arty grad-school uniform of paint-spattered jeans and T-shirts with slogans. I shake my head and return to the more pleasant sight of the well-dressed man next to me, who’s flashing me an array of professionally whitened teeth. I can’t help but admire Dave’s perfectly coiffed black hair, longish but combed back neatly. He has chiseled features and a strong brow, as if he’s carved out of marble. Intimidating, really. I’ve never dated a guy as put together as Dave.

 But I feel like I should. 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a snob. Dressing like a slob is fine for freshmen, but we’re in our twenties now.

This summer after I graduate, I’ll be pounding the pavement, searching for a lucrative arty job to replace my part-time gig retouching perfume ads for Chanel. Artists have to present well in the real world. They have to pay their car loans, credit cards, and apartment rents like anyone else.

Dave Hightower catches me admiring him and grins. “Ready for our date later?”

I just met him two weeks ago, and he asked me out during our last class. I’m looking forward to it and to getting to know him—and his family’s gallery—better.

“Sure, where are we going?”

“I’ll take you over to Studio Hightower, my aunt’s gallery,” Dave suggests offhandedly, as if I am not already completely aware and awed. It’s been all Merry, Harper, and I have talked about since we found out Dave was in this class. My two best friends here share charcoal sticks, drawing paper, and essential buzz. “There’s a show at Hightower you’ll like,” adds Dave, “of wildly painted neon environ-scapes.”

I nod. Sounds off-putting. I prefer the order of photorealism and crisp digital art, but I keep my mouth shut. After all, it’s Dave Hightower. 

Anyone who has talent and ambition would kill for a solo show in Studio Hightower. It’s on West Twenty-Second Street in the heart of Chelsea, the hottest gallery district in Manhattan.

“Hey, always up for new art,” I say. “I like wild art done by a loose hand.”

“Manually manipulated is the way to go,” Dave says suggestively as he waggles his eyebrows and puts his fingers into plastic gloves. 

Plastic gloves for painting? Germaphobe. I’m a clean freak, and even I don’t do that. I quickly ease my judgmental cringe into a fetching grin as I search for a funny comeback. “I wonder who our next model will be. Do you think Mr. Court Jester will make a repeat appearance?”

“I’m betting on Nightgown Lady.” Dave squeezes out his last color with an oozy splot.

The teacher, a soft-spoken man in faded corduroys and wire glasses, announces that the model will be out momentarily. From across the room, I exchange anticipatory glances with my friends, Harper and Merry, and pantomime a fake drum roll. They snicker and do drum rolls back. The class turns its attention to the small stage in front of our easels. It’s been set up with risers and a red velvet curtain, as if it’s a Broadway production.

Then the model emerges, and I almost spill my cappuccino on Dave’s shoes.

The sexiest male muse I’ve ever laid eyes on pads out, all oiled coordination and sleek muscles. He’s at least six-four, and every chest muscle ripples and cuts in the right place. His hair’s sandy and shaggy, and his jaw is square and resolute with a gold-dusted five-o’clock shadow. But it’s his eyes that strike me most; they’re emerald green with a slight upward slant toward each cheekbone, as if he hiked all the way here from a northern land of sun and wind.

When Kitsy Clare isn’t creating romances on her Mac Air, she teaches writing workshops. She also loves to draw, travel, read spicy romance, sci-fi and all kinds of thrillers. She divides her time between New York City and her Catskills studio, where she enjoys the sounds of birds, bullfrogs and the random coyote. 

She also writes young adult fiction as Catherine Stine. Her YA futuristic thriller, Fireseed One won finalist spots in both YA and Science Fiction in the 2013 USA Book News International Book Awards, and was an Indie Reader Approved notable book. Her YA Refugees, earned a New York Public Library Best Book. Ruby’s Fire, the new companion novel to Fireseed One, is receiving high praise from reviewers. She’s a member of RWA, SCBWI and SFWA. She loves her readers and enjoys hearing from them.

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My Thoughts:

This novella was a quick read full of art, multiple guys for the heroine to choose from, dilemmas, and romance.

Sienna was an art student who was very talented. She had the attention of Dave Hightower, another student who was rich and whose family owned art galleries. Talk about someone with connections! However, she didn't really feel a spark with him.

She did however have an instant attraction to the model her class was painting. ;-)

Erik was handsome  but he also knew how to listen. He wasn't rich but he had the spark that was missing with Dave.

Sienna had to choose between the man that could give her every desire money could buy, and the man who awakened desire in her.

This is her story about her choice.

I received an ecopy in exchange for my honest opinion. I enjoyed it.

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