erotica

Seven Days in June – Tia Williams

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I flew through the first 100 pages of Tia Williams’s novel Seven Days in June. Was this going to be 2022’s The Paper Palace? I wondered.

Nope.

Eva Mercy is the author of the best selling erotica series Cursed. She’s a single mom living with her 12-year-old daughter Audre in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Except for the fact that the fifteenth installment of her witch – in – love – with – a – vampire series is due on her publisher’s desk in a week and she’s run out of steam, she has a fabulous life. Well, she does suffer from debilitating migraines and she does have a complicated relationship with her mother, Lizette. But otherwise, life’s good.

Then, there’s Shane Hall, reclusive award winning author who now spends his time trying to mentor at-risk youth, giving them the support he never had as a kid. He’s recently sober and as part of his recovery, he feels there is one wrong he has to right and it concerns Eva.

He decides the best thing to do is ambush her – after fifteen years – at the State of the Black Author event.

When a horror-movie character sees a ghost, she emits a bloodcurdling shriek. Claws at her cheeks. Runs for her life. Eva was trapped onstage in broad view of New York’s literary community, so she did none of those things. Instead, her hands went completely slack, and her microphone slipped to the floor with a heavy thunk.

For Eva, this was “the moment she’d always feared” but also “the moment she’d always anticipated.” Although he is still devastatingly beautiful – because of course he is – seeing him again shoots Eva straight back to twelfth grade, which is the last time she’d seen him.

Look, I have zero complaints about well-written romance novels. There was lots to like about Seven Days in June. I liked that it was set in NYC; I liked the fandom aspect of Eva’s novels; I liked Audre even though she sounded more like a grown-ass woman than a twelve year old.

Once Eva and Shane are reunited, it’s just a sex romp, really because – sure – two hot thirty-somethings are going to get “groiny” with one another because they have chemistry and feelings and history. But where’s the tension?

Their week together as high school seniors was meant to be some big meeting of the souls, but it was mostly a drug and alcohol fueled week crashing in someone’s empty mansion. I mean, is that the stuff epic romances are made of? Something happened that week, but it’s explained with a phone call. That was one of my issues with this book, actually, all the plot points that just felt like a way for the story to pivot. Ty. Eva’s family ring. For me, the book tried too hard to be more than the sum of its parts.

Seven Days in June is a sometimes funny, decently-written romance about two beautiful people who have sex. A lot. It is not ground-breaking.

Sex/Life – BB Easton

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I watched the Netflix series Sex/Life when it first came out — oh, who am I kidding, I’ve watched it more than once — and so when I came across the book on which the series is based, I thought – the book is always better so I purchased it.

BB Easton’s memoir Sex/Life: 44 Chapters about 4 Men has very little in common with the Netflix series, though. While the series actually traces one woman’s very realistic mid-life crisis (and I don’t even know whether or not it’s fair to call it that because although she’s married with two kids, she looks like she couldn’t possibly be older than 35. Still – she’s definitely having a crisis), the memoir recounts the story of the author’s sexual awakening with four different men – one of whom is now her husband. None of the other three could realistically be the Brad of the series.

One thing the book and the series have in common is that, like the series, the author is looking for a way to kickstart her married sex life. She loves her husband, he is “at least ninety percent perfect” and although he is gorgeous, and kind, a wonderful father and provider, “self-deprecating and tolerant of [her] bullshit” – he’s kind of boring in the sack. In fact, he is often not interested in sex, like, at all.

This is what compels Easton to do a deep dive into her sexual past, and these reminiscences end up in a journal which her husband discovers and reads, and which seems to kickstart his libido. That’s also like the series. (Except in the series, she’s mostly talking about Brad and none of the three dudes she talks about in this memoir are him – at least I don’t think they are. There’s Knight, a local skinhead she meets when she’s a teen. Knight introduces her to BDSM and body piercings. There’s Harley, the stoner with no brains and a penis tattooed on his head, and there’s Hans, bass player for a local band. Perhaps Brad is some sort of amalgamation of all three of these characters, which is unfortunate because Brad is way more sympathetic than any of these three dudes.)

Easton’s memoir is often funny, definitely raunchy but, strangely, it lacks the introspection of the series. What I appreciated about the series, which did not exist at all in the book, was Billie’s tumble back into her past. She loves her life, but she feels that she is missing something essential – something that makes her feel like herself. I think lots of women can probably relate to that. You’re a mom, and a wife, and especially when your children are young, you make a lot of sacrifices. Billie wants to know why she can’t have it all.

The series is also angsty as hell. Yes, sure, Brad is a “bad boy” and he breaks Billie’s heart – but when he suddenly reappears eight years after their break-up, it detonates a bomb in her life — a bomb that was waiting to go off anyway. I think the series does an exceptional job of walking that line many women traverse. Plus, it’s as steamy as heck.

So, I guess I have to thank Easton for writing Sex/Life as it provided the source material for the series, but the series is just way better, imho.

The Kiss Quotient – Helen Hoang

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Stella Lane is a task-oriented, intelligent, wealthy single 30-year-old. If it weren’t for her mother badgering her about settling down, Stella might have been content to focus on her career as an econometrician. (Yeah, I’d never heard of it either. It’s a person who uses “statistics and calculus to model economic systems.”) Stella has had exactly three sexual encounters in her life, each more disappointing than the last.

Her latest sexual experience had been with one of her mother’s blind dates. He’d been good looking – she had to give him that – but his sense of humor had confused her. […] When he straight-out asked her if she wanted to have sex with him, she’d been caught completely off guard. Because she hated to say no, she’d said yes. There’d been kissing, which she didn’t enjoy. He’d tasted like the lamb he’d had for dinner. She didn’t like lamb.

Stella figures she needs practice in the sex department, and so she hires an escort, Michael Phan, a Vietnamese-Swedish hunk, to teach her the ropes – so to speak. For Stella, Michael is “by far the finest male specimen she’d ever laid eyes on.” For Michael, Stella is quite unlike anyone he’s ever met.

The hook for Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient is that Stella is on the autism spectrum. She doesn’t like loud noises, strong scents, any disruption to the routine that makes her feel safe. She says what she thinks and has trouble reading social cues. Career-wise, she’s respected and successful, but as she tells Michael on their first date “I’m awful at…what you do. But I want to get better. I think I can get better if someone would teach me.”

I doubt you will ever meet two characters as sweet and wholesome as Stella and Michael and yet the sex in this book is on the face-fanning steamy side. Turns out, Michael is extremely good at his job, but more than that, he genuinely likes Stella and as their relationship morphs from a pay-for-sex gig into friendship things start to get complicated for the both of them. Suddenly, Michael is taking Stella home to meet his family and revealing his private life in a way that is very unprofessional. I’m not sure the complication at the end was necessary (after all, everyone and their dog could see these two were CRAZY for each other) but it hardly matters because at that point you’ll be all-in.

The Kiss Quotient is smut with two delightful central characters and if that’s your thing, enjoy.

Corrupt – Penelope Douglas

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If you are a fan of Penelope Douglas, I suggest you skip this review as you won’t be happy. Kind of like I wasn’t happy that I paid $30 for this brick of utter shite.

Some context.

I occasionally watch book tubers to see what they are recommending. One night I watched this girl talk passionately about the enemies to lovers trope and even though she was WAYYYYY younger than me, it is a trope I enjoy, although I guess my kink is more specifically bad boy/good girl. Still, I like a well-written, smutty book. If it’s a little on the dark side: bonus. So I went looking for the book she really liked: Corrupt by Penelope Douglas (apparently a NY Times best selling author, although Corrupt was clearly self-published.) I couldn’t find it on Amazon or Indigo, but I was able to order it from Book Depository, so I did. (This is how impressive this book tuber’s sales pitch was; I felt as though I MUST read this book.)

So the book arrives. I knew then. The same way that I knew Colleen Hoover’s much-loved-by-anyone-that-is-not-me book Verity was going to suck when it arrived. Just a feeling based on the physical object alone.

So, what is Corrupt about? Please know that there will be spoilers galore in this review so if you really think you want to read this book – and I implore you not to waste your time as I will provide, at the end of this review, a list of MUCH better books to read – you have been warned.

SUMMARY: Erika Fane is in love with Michael Crist, her ex-boyfriend Trevor’s older brother. Michael was a big deal when he was at school, and now he’s a professional basketball player. Erika is about to go off to her second year of college in another city and she can’t wait to get away from her mother, who has been in a drug-induced lethargy since Erika’s father died, and Trevor, who irritates her. Trevor and Michael’s family are loaded. So is Erika’s family. Michael is HOTHOTHOT. So is Erika – who for some reason that makes no sense, is called Rika. So, how old are these people? Erika is 19 and Michael is 23 or 24…making Corrupt New Adult. Anyway, Erika has always believed that Michael hates her, especially after what happened when she was sixteen and she ended up hanging out with Michael and his three besties Kai, Will and Damon, collectively known as The Four Horseman. Their Devil’s Night pranks landed Kai, Damon and Will in jail for three years, but now they’re out and they’re looking for revenge. That’s where Michael comes in: he’s going to help them because, after all, he hates Rika, too. Only not so much.

WHY IT’S GAWDAWFUL:

  1. No one behaves the way these people do. Seriously. No one. Can we just have some sensical character development, please? Here’s my best example of crazy town. Once everyone but Damon realizes that Rika is NOT the reason three of the four horsemen ended up in the clink, Michael and Erika settle into the relationship we’re all supposed to be rooting for. They start to make out in a steam room, only to discover that Kai is also in the steam room. So, what’s a girl to do?

He looked so alone all the time, and tears lodged in my throat, because we’d all been changed forever. Michael had hated, because he couldn’t take being helpless. Kai had suffered, because his limits had been pushed, I’d gathered. And I had struggled to find out who I was and where I belonged for so long.

…

“Touch me,” I whispered. “Please.”

Yep – Rika’s road to healing for the three of them is hot three-way sex in a steam room. Is Michael jealous? No, he’s woke. “You’re fucking perfect,” he tells her before encouraging her to “Show me how much you like my friend eating your pussy.” This is the road to a perfect, healthy relationship.

And before you accuse me of being a puritan, I am most definitely not. Get it on, I don’t care. My problem is that a New York minute ago, Michael and his friends were trying to make Erika’s life a living hell by standing outside her bedroom window at night wearing their ridiculous masks, by cutting her off financially (Michael can do this because his father looks after the Fane estate), by making her mother disappear, by threatening her with bodily harm. All is forgiven, though, if you can make a girl come. Am I right?

2. Douglas is a fan of repeating herself. One of the irritating ways she does this is by telling us what song is on the car radio, the CD player, the wherever music comes from

  • “Starting the car, 37 Stitches by Drowning Pool poured out of the speakers…” p 11
  • “Slipknot’s The Devil in I blared through the classroom…” p 20
  • “Like a Storm’s Love the Way You Hate Me echoed all around me…” p 72
  • “The Vengeful One by Disturbed echoed through the house…” p. 110

I could go on (and on), but you get the point. Yes, Ms. Douglas, you clearly have a playlist.

Douglas has other little writing ticks. For instance, Michael often fists Rika’s hair – straight out of the porn handbook. Rika often folds her lips between her teeth. Michael is always pulling Rika back by the front of her neck, which I believe is called the throat. When I start to notice clunkiness, that’s all I notice.

3. It’s borderline misogynistic. We’re supposed to believe that Michael’s feelings for Rika are just as powerful as Rika’s feelings for Michael, yet he often treats her like shit.

He ignored me, condescended, and insulted on occasion, but the cruelty hurt beyond words.

“That was English, Rika,” he barked, making me jump. “A dog listens better than you.”

OR

She was only a floor away, and I had the key to her apartment burning a hole in my pocket. I needed her on her hands and knees as I took whatever I wanted, whenever and however hard I wanted it.

OR

He let out an aggravated sigh. “Your fucking mouth never stops, does it?”

And let’s not forget the time when the Four Horsemen tell Rika about the girl who was drugged and raped in an old church basement where everyone hangs out at to party. They didn’t catch all the guys who had a go at her. There’s still at least four running around, Michael makes a point to tell her. Good times.

This is the guy Rika can’t stop thinking about? We’re supposed to be all in? Dear Lord. Girls, just because a guy is hot and makes your panties moist doesn’t mean he’s a good guy. And we’re supposed to understand Michael because he’s just trying to help his buddies out? His number one rule regarding Rika is “Don’t be alone with her” because he wants her and the heart dick wants what it wants.

There was nothing redeeming about this story. The characters were one dimensional. The plot, nonsensical. The writing – well, I’ve read wayyyy better fanfiction. So why in the hell did I keep reading it? Maybe because I paid $30. Maybe because it has loads of positive reviews. Maybe because I’m a masochist. I dunno, but if you want to read books of the same ilk that are worth your time and effort (New Adult/YA/and Adult), here are some titles for your consideration.

  1. Easy – Tammara Webber (NA)
  2. Breakable – Tammara Webber (NA, companion to Easy)
  3. Perfect Chemistry – Simone Elkeles (YA)
  4. Topping From Below – Laura Reese (Adult/graphic)
  5. How Not to Fall – Emily Foster (Adult, not bad boy/good girl, but smutty fun)
  6. Velocity – Kristin McCloy

Topping From Below – Laura Reese

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In the world of BDSM, topping from below means that the submissive partner is actually toppingtrying to control the scene, aka control the top (dominant person). That’s exactly what Nora Tibbs is attempting when she pursues a relationship with Michael (referred to as M.) the music professor she’s convinced murdered her younger sister, Franny,  in Laura Reese’s novel Topping From Below.

It’s reasonable that a reader’s first question might be why in the hell she would get involved with the dude she thinks tortured and killed her sister. Is it because “He is swarthy, good-looking, if you like that type, slimly muscled and dark-complected, with an angular face that could have been sculpted….”  Or is it because Nora feels like she can control any situation?

Whatever the case, the cunning M. knows who Nora is from their meet cute and, says the spider to the fly, come on over and I’ll make you dinner and tell you stories about how I degraded your sister, but whom I most certainly did not kill, and in exchange, you’ll let me tie you up, and abuse your body in numerous other ways and trust me, you’ll like it.

The thing is, Nora does  like it.  She likes it even when M. hurts her, which I suppose is one of the tenets of BDSM: pain and pleasure combined under controlled circumstances. She tries to make sense of it but “My feelings are paradoxical: I hate him, fear him, yet at the same time his dominion over me, however brief, is intoxicating.”

She likes it so much that she no longer feels anything remotely like sexual desire towards her bland, blond, dependable boyfriend, Ian. M. sucks her further and further into his world and reveals to Nora, bit by by, her sister Franny. He also encourages Nora to reveal parts of her own life that she’s kept buried for many years, to try to get to the underlying reasons for why she seems to lack the ability to get truly close to anyone. Despite the fact that there’s a ten-year age gap between Franny and Nora, they are similar on that front.

Obviously, readers will have to suspend disbelief to reconcile how a seemingly intelligent woman (she’s a bloody science journalist, for goodness sake) would allow herself to pursue the guy she thinks killed her sister. It’s not the kinky sex that’s at issue here, really, because you’ll find no judgement from me on that front.  There are some instances of “Really? Um, a world of no,” but Reese writes it all like she means it and I have to admire that. Lots of people would find the sex in this book unpalatable.  Let me put it this way; Topping from Below is NOT your garden-variety Fifty Shades of Grey

 

Savage Bonds – Ana Medeiros

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Savage-Bonds-cover-194x300Canadian author Ana Medeiros’ The Raven Room Trilogy follows the sexcapades of Dr. Julian Reeve, a child psychologist, and journalism student Meredith Dalton. Sometimes you can jump into a series without having read the first book, but I really felt like I was at a severe disadvantage reading book two in Medeiros’ trilogy. Savage Bonds picks up where The Raven Room leaves off, but for a newbie reader, I literally had no sweet clue what was going on and I never felt as though I was sufficiently caught up.

This is what I do know:

Julian Reeves is addicted to the darker side of sex which, as a card-carrying member of The Raven Club, he has access to. He’s also addicted to drugs. And he has a troubled and complicated past which is somehow connected to Tatiana and Alana. And when Savage Bonds opens he is being questioned by the cops (one of whom just happens to be Meredith’s step-mother, Pam) because Alana is dead and Tatiana is missing.

When another woman with connections to The Raven Room (and Julian) turns up dead, Meredith decides that she needs to investigate. That’s because Julian is Meredith’s lover (or was her lover; they don’t get it on in this book although Meredith gets around and shares Julian’s predilection for rough sex, or at least sex of the non-vanilla variety.)

Many of these relationships seem to have been established in the first book – so it’s really difficult for me to give this book a fair shake considering I spent  lot of time just trying to keep these people straight; I was definitely missing backstory. Although, ultimately, I wonder if backstory would have helped me enjoy this story any more.

I have read a lot of erotica. And a fair amount of BDSM-flavoured erotica…and Savage Bonds didn’t really up the ante. I mean if  The Raven Room is supposed to be this super-sekrit underground club, shouldn’t it be special? A little bloodplay and anonymous blow jobs don’t really scream exclusivity to me. Worse, without the benefit of what came before I just didn’t care about any of these players and all their interactions with each other seemed shrill or forced. Am I supposed to be rooting for Julian because of his troubled past? Am I supposed to be shipping Julian and Meredith?

From what I could tell on the Internet, readers seemed to really enjoy The Raven Room and were quite anxious to read Savage Bonds. A few of them, though, had some of the same issues with this book that I did…and they were invested going in.

So – maybe start with The Raven Room and see how you feel. I won’t be backtracking because, honestly, the whole thing was just meh for me.

Thanks to TLC for the opportunity to review this book.

 

How Not To Fall – Emily Foster

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Remember when Fifty Shades of Grey was all the rage? Sure you do.  125 million people bought that piece of crap. (Okay, yes, I read it. But I did not read its sequels. I have standards, people.) Suddenly everyone was reading erotica – loud and proud or behind the more secretive screens of their e-readers.

I love a good smutty book, but the problem with smut is that no two readers will be alike when it comes to what turns them on. Perhaps E.L. James just got lucky. In fandom, which are the loins from which her books sprang, BDSM is as common as sex in the missionary position with the lights off. My objection to the Fifty Shades book(s) had nothing to do with the subject matter (I spent ten years in fandom; I’ve read it all) and everything to do with the quality of the prose and one-dimensional characterization. (It couldn’t be any other way, Edward/Christian and Bella/Anastasia are about as one-note as they come.)

27208942Enter How Not To Fall. Of course I’d seen this book at the book store, but I don’t think I even picked it up to read the blurb. Then I read a review – although I can’t remember where. The reviewer avoided comparisons with Fifty Shades, but did sing the book’s praises. Smart and hot – which is probably a pretty good combination. So, the next time I was at Indigo, I bought the book and now I’ve read it.

Annabelle (Annie) Coffey is a 22-year-old student at a university in Indiana. Dr. Charles Douglas is a 26-year-old postdoctoral fellow in Annie’s psychophysiology lab. He’s British and brilliant and “a dreamboat” and, technically, her teacher.  Annie’s been lusting after him for two years, but as her undergraduate degree draws to a close, she figures it’s about time to take matters into her own hands – so to speak. She tells her roommate and best friend, Margaret, that she is “going to ask Charles to have sex.” She asks, he declines, but Annie is convinced that she hasn’t misread the signals. She tells him

“The thing is, I think you and I have A Thing, and I know if I don’t at least put it on the table, I’ll always wonder ‘what if’ and so I’m just…putting it on the table, you know, and leaving it there. Like bread. For sharing.”

Turns out, Charles does reciprocate Annie’s feelings; he’s just too professional to act on them. So they make a deal – once all her research is in, once there is no possibility of a sex act compromising ethics – they’ll do it. Cue about 200 pages of smut.

Here’s what I really liked about How Not To Fall.

  1. Annie/Charles  Annie is self-deprecating and her narration is charming and often funny.

Am I a beauty queen? I am not. My nose has a great deal of character. My hair has some interesting ideas about its place in the world. My body is built more along the lines of a wristwatch than an hourglass – flat yet bendy. It works for me – I am my body’s biggest fangirl – but I recognize where it falls short of the culturally constructed ideal.

Charles is smart – like brilliant smart – but also kind and, as we learn gradually, a little bit damaged, too. Also, on the hotness scale – according to Annie “it is a mercy to the world that the man doesn’t try to look good.”

2.  The sex is well-written. That’s a big one for me. If I am going to read erotica, I want to read well-written erotica. And since How Not To Fall contains a lot of sex it might have easily gotten boring. You know – geesh, are they going to do it again? I didn’t skim. Actually, overall, the book is well-written.

3. Personally, I kinda loved the way the book ended – although it did break my heart a little. Apparently, there’s a sequel coming out next year. (I will probably read it: see #1.)

I did have a couple little things that irked me. Charles often sounded like a middle-aged man. He called Annie “Young Coffey” a lot. Like he was twenty years her senior rather than four. He also refers to her as “termagant,” a word I was not familiar with, so I had to look it up. It means a “harsh or overbearing woman.”  I couldn’t really make the connection. Also, I don’t have a foot fetish – clearly Charles does. Too much feet/toes for me. These are niggles, because overall, I enjoyed the book for all the reasons one might enjoy a book of this type.

So – if you are looking for a fun, smutty book to pack in your beach bag – give this one a go.

Off the Shelf – February 16, 2015

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First of all, I don’t really believe in putting books into categories. I don’t believe in book shaming – that is – judging someone for reading something they enjoy just because it doesn’t fit into someone’s preconceived notion of what a person should be reading. So, for example, adults reading Young Adult lit. I read it because I teach teenagers and in order to do that well, I think I have to be on the same page as them (pun intended.) But I also read it because a lot of it is really good.  I guess categorization is useful for finding books – but I always tell students it’s important to read outside their comfort zones every once and a while.

When I think back to my days as a young reader, it was really before such a thing as “Young Adult” literature. You read kids’ books like Trixie Beldon and Nancy Drew and then you just graduated to the rest of the books. So, when I stopped buying books from the Scholastic book flyer I graduated to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I can also remember reading my mom’s bodice rippers, books by Rosemary Rogers and Kathleen Woodiwiss. Now, of course, young readers have a lot more choice and one of those choices is New Adult.

New Adult (NA) fiction is a developing genre of fiction with protagonists in the 18–25 age bracket. St. Martin’s Press first coined the term in 2009, when they held a special call for “…fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an ‘older YA’ or ‘new adult‘.”

So – it’s sort of like the protagonists have graduated high school and gone off to college.

Remember being age 18-25? It is a tricky time in the people’s lives – sometimes juggling new responsibilities and freedom is harder than it looks so some of the tropes in new adult fiction include personal issues like anger-management, family difficulties and expectations, abuse, alcohol and drugs and sometimes the plots are soap-opera-esque. Often the narrative is told in the first person. The other thing people will likely notice in NA fiction is that the romantic scenes are just a tad racier than in YA fic – not of course 50 Shades racier, but still.

<insert rant about how crappy 50 Shades is>

OK – I am not a book snob and I read 50 Shades of Grey and laughed hysterically at all the hype it got as the book that revved up the libido of women all over the planet – 100 million copies, people. But that book has a very peculiar pedigree, right – started as fanfiction based on Twilight. So Anastasia is Bella and Christian is Edward. E.L.James wrote as Snowdragonprincess and posted the story in installments on Twilight fansites. Her fans (yep, fanfiction writers have hoards of fans) encouraged her to change the names and publish it as original fiction. My issue isn’t with the content or even that it started as fanfic – my issue is that it’s just BADLY WRITTEN. Here’s my review of the book.

But I digress

If you are interested in checking out some New Adult fiction, here are a couple titles in the genre.

easyEasy  – By Tammara Webber

So Easy is the story of Jacqueline Wallace, a second-year university student who is leaving a frat party and attacked by someone. She’s rescued in the nick of time by Lucas. He’s a Harley driving, pierced and tattooed artist-type who is also smart and awesome. Although their relationship is not without its problems, these are characters readers will fall in love with and root for. There’s a sequel of sorts for Easy, it’s called Breakable and it’s Lucas’s story. I really liked this book.

tentinybreathsTen Tiny Breaths – by K.A. Tucker

I didn’t like this one as much as I liked Easy. Kacey and her kid sister leave Michigan where they’d been living with their aunt and uncle after the death of their parents in a drunk driving accident. Kacey decided it was time to go after her uncle was getting a little too hands n with her little sister. They arrive in Florida where Kacey gets a job and meets Trent, the hot guy next door who has his own dark past. This one was just sort of ‘meh’ for me.

If you are interested in checking out other NA writers here are some of the names to know: Cora Carmack, Colleen Hoover and Jamie McGuire.

I Take You – Nikki Gemmell

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tlc tour hostThanks to the folks at TLC, I’m back with another book by Nikki Gemmell. You’ll recall that I took a look at her novel With My Body last month and today I am going to talk about her book I Take You. Beginning with The Bride Stripped Bare, With My Body and I Take You form a trilogy of sorts, although the characters and plots don’t really overlap so each book could be read independently of the others. I Take You

I Take You is the story of Connie Carven, wife to Clifford, a banker who has been seriously injured in a skiing accident and can no longer – erm – perform certain husbandly duties. No matter, Cliff has found other ways to satisfy his wife, most of them involving his Mont Blanc pen and a wicked imagination. At first Connie seems like a willing participant in her husband’s increasingly perverse sexual games, but one night Cliff takes things a teensy bit  (okay, a lot) too far and something in Connie, I don’t want to say snaps – changes.

Truthfully, I didn’t get Connie’s relationship with Cliff. Like, at all. Pre-accident he was  “her American…someone to be laughed at and admired and feared in equal measure.” Cliff is over-the-top rich and Connie “grew quickly addicted to this way of living – loved the sparkly, unthinking splash of it.”

When she tries to explain her relationship with Cliff to her father she says:

“We’re happy , Dad. As we are. I’m his wife and I have a job to do. A very important one. Now more than ever. Only I can help him, only me. I’ve bcome crucial to him in a way that’s impossible to explain.”

We are meant to believe that Cliff’s accident was the impetus for her to fall in love with her husband because “it tipped their sex life into something else. Because Cliff gouged out – patiently, gently, beseechingly – the very marrow of his impenetrable wife. It had been the trigger that now tipped him into something else.”  But the thing is, I don’t see these two as having very much of anything at all except perhaps for a co-dependent relationship and a penchant for kinky sex. And I never saw Cliff as a nurturing, kind man and he can’t kiss worth a damn, apparently.

Then, matters get more complicated when Connie meets Mel – he’s the gardener who takes care of the private communal garden that belongs to the houses on their square. It was at this point that I had a ‘wait a minute’ moment. I Take You was starting to sound suspiciously like another book: D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterly’s Lover.  According to the blurb on the back (which I hadn’t bothered to read) Gemmell was indeed inspired by Lawrence’s infamous book.

Everything you think is going to happen, happens. Mel and Connie start an illicit affair; Cliff gets all bent out of shape about it; Connie chooses personal happiness over marital responsibility.

So how does I Take You compare with the other erotica out there? Well, Gemmel’s writing is still lovely (although I think I might have appreciated this book a bit more if I’d had more of a breather between this one and With My Body.) It’s often quite graphic, so if that’s not your cup of titillation tea – perhaps this isn’t the book for you.

I can’t say I was quite as enamoured with I Take You as I was with With My Body. I may need a little while longer to figure out why Connie’s journey just didn’t resonate with me the way the narrator in With My Body did.

Breaking the Girl by Kim Corum

Christie2 Comments

I’m not going to lie – I enjoyreading erotica. But I have standards, people. And Kim Corum’s ridiculous novella, Breaking the Girl doesn’t meet any of them.

Kristine is a stripper in New Orleans. She didn’t set out to be a stripper. She’d gone on holiday with her friend to escape her recent marital break up and suddenly she and her friend found themselves bumping and grinding on stage at a strip club. The money was good so Kristine – who doesn’t have any other talents besides sex – stuck with it.

Enter Frank. Handsome and rich (although we never find out what he does), he takes a shine to Kristine and invites her to come live with him. Yeah – it really is that simple.

Thus begins her training. To the untrained eye beating someone with a belt until they’re so disoriented they fall down the stairs might be considered abuse, but everything Frank does is for Kristine’s own good.

Breaking the Girl is meant to be a novel about domination and submission. Okay, I’m down with that. But this book just doesn’t have anything to recommend it. The sex was pretty tame (and let’s face it, isn’t that why we read this stuff?), the characters were cardboard cut-outs and Corum tries to add heft to the story with a bunch of hooey about why Frank needs to “break the girl”.

So, so mediocre.