SWEET DREAMS by Kristen Ashley.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:The author has been writing since before 2002 and had many books on her hard drive but never published. All of a sudden this year she published more than 20, and she's in process of finishing more. There are several different series. They are not the churning out one book per year at a publisher's request. These are things she felt like writing about - over the years. For a list of her books see her website at kristenashley net.REVIEWER'S OPINION:I really enjoyed this book, but it needed a good editor. There were a couple times the sequencing was out of order. For example, something happens on day one. The next chapter is titled "a month later," then the author switches back to day two, before the month later. Something similar to that happened elsewhere, for example talking about Monday, then Friday, then back to Wednesday. But it didn't really bother me. I could work with it because I liked the content. The result felt like someone was talking about one thing and then said Oh yeah and then this other thing happened before that. Because her content was so good, I was willing to accept the illogical time jumps.There were a number of grammar errors and wrong word usage. For example "consider" should have been "considering." "All" should have been "I'll."It's a long book, at least twice as long as most novels. I'm glad that some publisher isn't telling her to chop it down to 350 pages. I liked what she wrote. I wouldn't want to chop any of it.Tate is such a jerk with the way he gives orders. But then he melts my heart with important things, his actions which show love. I was back and forth between being upset and melting. Yet I adored the guy. For example at 6746 "Which one are you?" I whispered. "What?" he asked. "Are you the good guy, the sweet guy who takes care of me or are you this guy who's kind of a jerk?" His answer was instantaneous. "I'm both those guys, babe. Your job is to get used to it." There it was, another order. Not even an ultimatum. Just, "get used to it."There are a couple of wonderful scenes with Tate confronting Lauren's ex-husband.So many books are popular due to a feisty heroine with witty dialogue. This has none of that. The dialogue here feels real. The characters are showing emotions, feelings, worries, friendship, caring. Almost every situation in this book has normalcy about it. It makes other books sound like they are trying too hard to be entertaining. This book is subtle. Maybe a fitting phrase would be "less is more."This book is strong on character development and relationship development. A strength is showing feelings and thoughts through dialogue. The author did not use the "overused device" of pondering. I enjoyed the lack of "pondering." The author did a wonderful job developing many secondary characters.There are many sex scenes, but they aren't long and drawn out with a lot of explicit details. Instead, they are brief, and they show emotion, love, desire, and hotness. There is a lot of swearing. So if the F and S words bother you, be warned.STORY BRIEF:Lauren's husband cheated on her for five years then divorced her. She quit her job as an executive and drove aimlessly for several months looking for a place to be. She stopped at a bar in Carnal, Colorado, saw a "waitress wanted" sign and applied for the job. She took a room at the local hotel. Tate is one of the bar owners. He works part time as a bartender and part time chasing criminals as a bounty hunter. When Tate first sees Lauren, he is angry at his co-owner for hiring her and calls Lauren a "sorry-ass, old, fat, suburban bitch." Lauren overhears this. It haunts her. She won't forget or forgive. Lauren is 42. Tate is 44. The bar is a biker bar. The town has a lot of bikers.Some of the other characters:Betty and Ned own the hotel and treat Lauren more like family than customer.Shambala and Sunny are two hippies who own the coffee shop and are high most of the time. They too become close friends with Lauren.Tate and Wood were best friends growing up but things happened causing a split.Neeta is Wood's sister. She is married to Blake, but she has been cheating on Blake for years with Tate. She is wild, selfish, and bad in many ways.DATA:Kindle count story length: 16,920 (1006 KB). Swearing language: strong, including religious swear words. Sexual language: strong. Number of sex scenes: about 18. Setting: current day mostly Colorado, with some Indiana. Copyright: 2011. Genre: contemporary romance.