Review: Flying by Megan Heart

Flying 

Author: Megan Heart
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Pages: Paperback, 384 pages
Genre: Romance
Release Date: April 29th 2014

Summary:
Ever hear of wanderlust? Every other weekend, Stella buys a ticket on the next flight out of town and leaves her life behind. Home is a place with too many memories, and departure is the sweetest possible distraction. As soon as she arrives at her destination, Stella visits the airport bar. She orders a drink and waits for the right guy to come along. A bored businessman, a backpacker, a baggage handler just off shift. If he's into a hot, no-strings hookup, he's perfect. Each time is a thrilling escape from reality that gives the term layover a whole new meaning. When Stella meets the enigmatic Matthew in Chicago one weekend, she hits some serious turbulence. Something about him tells her she's not the only one running from the past. The connection between them is explosive, and for the first time, one taste is not enough for Stella. But returning to find a gorgeous man waiting for her is the easy part& facing the reason she's there is a whole other matter.

Review:
For me, Megan Hart is a go to author. I might not read her books straight when they are released but I know that eventually I will read them – unless they are serials and in that case I'll just boycott them.

Unlike her other contemporary Erotica, Flying is written in the third POV. Like her other contemporary Erotica the building is slow, unfortunately and unlike her other books that I've read so far, the slow building leads to... nowhere .

For the first time while reading a MH book I had a really hard time trying to enjoy the heroine. Stella is a 40 something divorced woman and mother of a 17 years old boy. When the fancy takes her, she flies to other cities to have one night stands with absolute strangers. I didn't mind that. I really did not. I even didn't mind (view spoiler) What I did mind however was her coldness and borderline rudeness when she is on the prowl.

The book is full of miscellaneous bits and pieces that bring nothing to the story. Even the reason why she's "addicted" to the one night stands isn't clear. I'm sorry but if I see the connection between the tragedy that happened in Stella's life and her divorce I don't see how it is connected to her long string of one night stands.

Also, at the beginning of the book Stella says: "In her twenties Stella had taught herself how to be sexy for a man; it was until she was older that she discovered it was so much better to be sexy for herself." but the fine lingerie, just like her wigs, false nails and aliases is actually no more than a tool for when she is "flying". The first time she is flying for work she is caught unaware in granny panties... When I was 19 I discovered the pleasure of fine lingerie for myself and I can tell you that to this day this would never ever happens to me.

The Flashbacks didn't help either. And to be totally honest I also didn't get Craig parts. Then at the 50% marks or so enters Matthew and for the 90 % of the rest of the book he just acts like a jerk. And Stella just deals with his shit.

And last but not least we have the "What. The. Hell?!?!" kind of end. I don't mind Megan Hart "happy for now" kind of ends but after the mess of this book, this was pushing it a bit too far for my liking.


Rating: 

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Review: Divine Solace by Joey W. Hill

Divine Solace

Author: Joey W. Hill
Publisher:  Ellora's Cave Publishing Inc.
Series: Nature of Desire #8
Genre: Erotica *ADULT*
Release Date: March 21, 2014

Summary:

After too many failed relationships, Gen has settled into a quiet, acceptable life as a middle-aged single woman. But then she meets Mistress Lyda and her sexy male sub Noah, and the two of them give her a different view of “acceptable”—as well as a renewed longing for the type of love and romance she thought had passed her by.
Gen has been Marguerite Winterman’s employee at Tea Leaves for some time, and has a close relationship with the reserved, intimidating woman. It isn’t until Mistress Lyda steps into her life that Gen understands why she’s always felt safe under Marguerite’s direction. And with the intriguing Noah guiding her in the world of Domination/submission, Gen’s about to discover a new way to love—and live.
Inside Scoop: Gen’s journey includes references to male/male relationships and a beautifully erotic portrayal of two women falling in love within the ménage

Review:


DNF at 68%

I'm really sorry to say that, but for me this book was all kind of messed up. 

Even thought I couldn't finish the book, I would like to thank my friend Baba for asking me to buddy read it with her because without her, after reading the blurb I would just have dismissed the book, and I think that from time to time it's good to explore outside of our comfort zones. 

Even if girl on girl action never appealed to me, as Rough Canvasis one of my top 5 all time favorite books as well as my first MM, I though that JWH could overwrite my prejudices. Also, inAfterlife there is a short warm and playful after care scene involving Dana and the other heroines so I really thought that JWH could pull it off. Unfortunately she didn't.

I would like to start with the writing. One of the things I usually love while reading Joey W. Hill books is the beauty of her writing. I'm not going to say that it was bad because it wasn't but although there were some beautiful quotes this book doesn't have the emotional weight of some of her other books and at times the writing was kind of tedious. It's a feeling difficult to explain so I'll just say that maybe sometimes simplicity and less are really the way to go. 

Lets move to the characters. This book is a ménage so we have 3 main protagonists, Noah, Gen and Lyda.

Noah. 
"I can't," he repeated fiercely. "One person says that makes me a gift, another says I'm damaged and I'm banned from their club." His hands closed into fists. "Someone else tells me I need to be this or that, and none of it is supposed to be about me. I'm everything someone needs me to be, until I'm not, and then I can't stop it or change it. I can't think about it. I just can't."

Even though he is really messed up, as in "he truly is in dire need of a psychiatrist help" messed up kind of way, Noah was my favorite character. 

He's a hardcore submissive, which means that he doesn't do a thing without Lyda's consent. "Whatever my Mistress wants is what I wish" is his credo, the kind of sentence that totally freaks me out. 

He's teaching sailing at the community college, but also works in Lyda's nursery and has other odd jobs, so he obviously knows how to earn money but whatever he earns he gives it all to Lyda for his keep. He lives with her, in her house, but no evidence of it can be seen and all his belongings fit in a canvas bag. He doesn't do "papers", which means that among other things that even though he knows how to drive he doesn't have a driving licence. 

He is immensely charismatic and hot. And last but not least he is appallingly indifferent to what may or may not happens to him. 

"I love touching you," she said. "You're so pretty."
When he gave her a pained look, she laughed. "I didn't mean that in an unmanly way. You're beautiful, Noah. It's not just a physical thing. There's something about you; it's really kind of mesmerizing. Like a drug, but not. More like a feeling of happiness. Like being out on the sailboat when everything is working right. You're a living, breathing, perfect moment."

"He's an excessive nurturer, to the point he could be mistaken for a Dom. His form of submission is like an ocean wave, holding you down. Which makes him an excellent partner to work with a Mistress. It also makes him insanely indifferent to himself."

"The care it took to do that, to step outside oneself and make someone else matter more was something neither of her husbands had given her. Noah gave it to her in ways large and small, and the smaller things held more significance."

The problem is, nobody is taking care of Noah. He really does need help beyond what the BDSM practice can provide and it boggles my mind that nobody seems aware of it. I mean Doms and Dommes pride themselves on knowing what is good or not for their subs and still, here we have Noah, totally neglected. It hurts.

Gen.
She was a decent character but to be honest I had a hard time keeping up with her. She works for Marguerite (Ice Queen andMirror of My Soul) at Tea Leaves. She is a thirty something two times divorced woman, but for me at times she seemed old – not thirty something mature, plain old – and at other times she was acting like a teenager. 

She'd picked two wrong men. They'd reduced her to poverty, stripped her self-esteem, and made her doubt her ability to find love.
[...]She'd been a tool, a means to an end. No, worse. Betrayal meant you were nothing to the betrayer...

Because she's close to Marguerite and Chloe, she has small glimpses into the BDSM world but she never put a foot in a fetish club. She is straight, vanilla and doesn't do pain, but in less than two weeks she embraces her bi, submissive and masochist new shinny self. What. The. Hell ?!?!?!

As I said, Gen is a decent character, unfortunately she gave me a lot of WTH ?!?!?! moments. The mildest was when she assumed that Lyda washed her clothes and prepared her breakfast. I mean, hellooooo? We are talking about Lyda, here. Or did she miss how Lyda introduced her Noah? Or maybe she forgot the previous week-end she actually spent with Noah? *rolls eyes*

She divorced her two husbands because they weren't treating her right and one of them was beating on her. And in chapter six she says that she isn't into pain but during her first session Lyda flogs her really hard and at some point asks her if she wants more, and Gen actually answers "yes". Finally Noah had to use his safeword to make Lyda stop. Again: WTH ?!?!?!

If that wasn't enough, the next morning, Gen go to meet Lyda where she's teaching fitness classes, they are in the locker room after the classe and this happened:
(view spoiler) And again: WTH ?!?!?!

But whatever, let's move on.

Lyda.
What a despicable sadistic manipulative cold bitch! 

I really do love strong, independent and capable heroines but to the exception of 2, I have a hard time standing dominatrix heroines. As far as I'm concerned, they just can't pull it off. 

"A good Domme never does what a sub doesn't truly, deeply want." Whenever that kind of sentence goes out of a Domme's mouth, in 99% of the case for me it's just crap because sooner than later their actions will contradict it. And to that regard, Lyda didn't disappoint because first and foremost, if she really did what Noah truly, deeply needed she would have made him consult. 

"Taking care of his cock so I have use of it whenever I wish is an important priority for a male sub."

"You said being a Dom is about really knowing what the other person wants and needs, but what does it mean when you hold back on that, not for them, but to protect yourself? How is that different from being a cruel bastard who can't put down the cable remote and make you feel for one goddamn second like you're more special than a fucking golf match?"

"She knows how crazy it gets after she scrambles your brain. It takes time to process it all, especially at first."

Lyda invites Gen to come to The Zone, Tyler's BDSM club, telling her that she'll just watch, get a feel of the BDSM world, ask questions... But when Gen is there she takes her to a semi-private place and tells Noah to go down on her and Gen can't come unless she promises to go home to spend the night with Lyda and Noah. Another WTH ?!?!?! moment...

Four days later, she invites her again to The Zone under the guise of seeing if Gen likes to dominate. Gen is wearing a "Domme" and a "no play" bracelets, she has no more introduction to the how things are done, no safeword, no ideas about what she could expect or not during and after a session, but again, she ends up playing the sub for Lyda, being flogged and fucked while fucking Noah. 

"Diamonds," Noah snapped. "Mistress."
"A miracle," Lyda said. Gen was panting. While Lyda might not be drawing blood, Gen thought she might be, her fingers digging into Noah's chest. "The first time he's ever used it," his Mistress said. "But he used it for you. Which is good, because you've never chosen a safeword, Gen. You didn't even think about that, did you? It's why a Domme can't trust a sub to use a safeword, though you should always have one."

Oh yeah? Maybe you should have thought about it first. Such a stellar Domme indeed. And wasn't it Lyda who was talking about being aware of the body language? 

"Practice. Intuition. Trial and error. This is a consensual game, Gen. No matter what I do to you, you can end it with a single word. We call it a safeword. However, I always rely on unconscious signals first and foremost, because they're more truthful, and often come into play long before the safeword."

When I was talking about crap talk... 

Another thing that bugged me with Lyda is her unwillingness to answer Gen questions. Gen just had to trust a total stranger. Period. 

My overall impressions...

I enjoyed the moments where Noah and Gen were together because there is a real chemistry between them and their sex scenes were hot. However I couldn't stand Lyda, and all the scenes where she was involved be it directly or indirectly where just a big no no. 

At one point in the story Noah had a big crisis, that's where we learn why he behaves like he does. Lyda's answer or what I should call the diner scene is what made me drop the book definitely. Because really, there's just so much crap one can take in one book. 

I also enjoyed Marguerite, Tyler and Chloé participations. Particularly the silent duel between Marguerite and Lyda. However at +/- 68 % of the book I was also pissed at Tyler. 

Rating: 

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ARC Review: Ablaze by Morgan Black

Ablaze by Morgan Black




Publisher: Mark My Words Book Publicity
Series: Fireside Series #1
Genre: Romance, Erotica
Release Date: January 17, 2014
Summary:
*This book is not suitable for readers under the age of 18* 


What if love was like gasoline? Light a match and become engulfed in it's flame.

Cheyenne is attempting to run into the arm’s of her betrothed Collin, when fate intervenes and she becomes trapped at her family’s cabin with another man. Luke, a ranch hand at her father’s farm, makes her heart race. When the lights go out, she finds herself falling into his arms, and into his bed.

This is a serialized set of erotic romance titles. Ablaze is the first installment and it is novella length

Rating: 

Review:

I have a confession to make: I was a total cover slut when I requested this one on Netgalley. I know; shocking! I blame it on the flu! I was momentarily impaired by flu attack.
Well, seriously. I did like the cover. Its HAWT, which is not why I requested it, but why I did read the blurb.

This is the first of a serial. And I kinda like the idea of serials. It reminds me of Dumas, since it was his way of publishing his books. But this was definitely way too short.
If we talking novella? This should have at least17500words,  for some reason I doubt it has half. We talking not more than 50pgs - at best.
And this is one of my biggest issue actually. It felt rushed.  It barely started, then there was smut, and poof it was over.
I didn't expect this to have a finished storyline. But this was way to quick for me. Considering that this is supposed to add up to a book... If it were a book it would be totally on the borderline of becoming a DNF at the moment.
In such a short time there is little character building that can happen. But seriously I am not sure I care for Cheyenne. She is rather melodramatic and seem really imature.
The writing style was really not my cup or tea. And here lies the true problem. It felt scripted. Sound weird saying it about a book, I know. But this is supposed to be written from Cheyenne's POV, its written in direct narrative, yet she says things like;

"His gray eyes searched my body and his hands curved around my voluptuous breasts. "

who speaks like that about their breasts?!  sorry, no one i know does.

Then we come to the whole romance thing. In my opinion this is not just insta -everything; love, lust, you name it - but there is no chemistry. Now we all know how keen I am on insta-love.. so let's just not go there.

"I had made my decision. My previous innocent crush for Luke had turned into a severe lust that I couldn't control any longer."

Just one example of the odd insta thing thats going on.

But Luke is just sketchy at best and Cheyenne is really needy, I didn't feel any chemistry between them, the smut honestly made me crinch.
Will I read the next installment? well, I might give it a try. Because I do like the cover and I like the idea of the serial. Plus I have hopes that it might get better?

I think this is a fun little serial for serious romance lovers, people who don't mind any of the above mentioned.

ARC was provided by Publishers through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

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Review: Fire Inside by Kirsten Ashley

Fire Inside by Kirsten Ashley

Publisher: Forever
Series: Chaos 2
Pages: Pages (Hardcover)
Genre: Romance
Release Date: June 4, 2013
Summary:
Lanie Heron isn’t looking for love—no surprise, considering her last serious relationship nearly got her killed. So when Lanie propositions Hop Kincaid, all she wants is one wild night with the hot-as-hell biker who patrols with the Chaos Motorcycle Club...

For Hop, Lanie has always been untouchable. She’s too polished and too classy for his tastes. But when she gives Hop the once-over with her bedroom eyes and offers him a night in paradise, he can’t say no. And he doesn’t regret it when he finds that Lanie is the best thing that’s ever happened to him—in or out of bed. Now the trick will be to convince her of that.

Rating:


Review: 

I'm sorry to say it, but Fire Inside didn't do it for me.

It isn't that it was bad. It's just that there was nothing new and no story line to make the book interesting. To make things worse I couldn't connect with Lanie or Hope and their "I'm coming to try to reconcile but I'm living you" dance almost made this one a DNF.

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Review: This Is Who I Am by Cherise Sinclair

This is Who I am  by Cherise Sinclair

Publisher:  Loose Id, LLC
Series: Masters of Shadowlands #7
Pages: 369 Pages (ebook)
Genre: Erotica *ADULT*
Release Date: May 27, 2013
Summary:

When trying to save a woman from slavers, Sam screwed up. Royally. Now Linda wants nothing to do with him. Or with BDSM. She won’t even admit she’s a masochist. As a dominant and sadist, he can give her what she needs, and when an opportunity arises, he slips into her life, intending to make amends. She’s everything he knew she would be…except for her bullheaded determination to be ‘normal’.

Now the horrible time is past, Linda just wants to return to her small conservative town, pick up her quiet life, and be normal. But how can someone who likes pain be ‘normal’? To her dismay, when someone spray-paints her home with obscenities, Sam shows up to rescue her. Again. Doesn’t he understand that the last thing she needs in her life is a sadist? He’s amused by her objections. But his dry sense of humor can’t disguise that he’s tough as nails and dominant and stubborn. He’s not going to let her drive him off this time. Soon she realizes she wants him to stay.

When he takes her to the Shadowlands, she feels as if she’s found a home…until she hears a voice from out of her nightmares.

Rating:


Review: 

He gave her a contemplative stare as if he’d never had a woman tease him. Then again, who in their right mind would tease a sadist?

Amongst the BDSM themed books the sadist/masochist couples are part of the ones I like the least. I’m sorry, but I can’t find a sadist appealing so if I can help it I tend to avoid BDSM books with sadist heroes.

That being said, even though I knew that Sam and Linda fell in that category I couldn’t wait to read “This is Who I Am”. For three reasons. The first one is although Sam is a sadist, since book 5 I couldn’t help but like him. The second reason is because in book 6, wanting to help Linda, Sam ended up messing up big time. He knows something went wrong but doesn’t know what and feel bad about it. The last reason is because in this book the identity of the mole in the Shadowlands Club was to be revealed (this particular sadist was creepy).

And then he’d made a mistake; to this day, he wasn’t sure exactly what. He had ideas, but hell, he could be totally off base.

“I’m not sure what I did.” Where were all the arguments he’d come up with over the past months? “But I did something wrong. I’m sorry, girl.”

Still, because of the MC's preferences I was prepared to not enjoy this book as much as the other, so this book was a really really good surprise. I don’t know how she did it but somehow Cherise Sinclair managed to write the story in such a way that their relationship was just beautiful and right.

With Sam, she’d felt safe. Safe enough to let go, to let pain transform into pleasure, to let herself slide into her happy place. His strength, his voice, even his brutal honesty was reassuring. So was the way he’d hold her afterward with surprisingly tender hands, caring for her as if she... meant... something.

I think that one of the things that allowed this achievement is that during the different BDSM scenes, instead of focusing on too much technical details or the pain side, Cherise Sinclair focused on the pleasure felt by Linda.

Glorious, erotic rawness. Unsure if she hurt or felt wonderful, she whimpered.
Delight filled his eyes.
[...] The pain was —as Goldilocks said—just right.

Another thing that helped is that not only none of them is in the humiliation stuff but after her abduction Linda is determined to be threated with respect and Sam is there to help her recover her self-esteem and confidence. I really liked the game they played where she was to receive “good” punishment if she misbehaved and “bad” ones if she was polite and compliant.

After donning the suit coat she’d fetched, he gave her an approving smile. “Miss Madison, I’m Sam Davies, the CEO of Pain International.” He held his hand out. (LOL!)

Sam is a really thoughtful and watchful Dom (inside and outside the club), Linda is a strong and loving woman and together they were beautiful. I think the fact that they are both mature added a dimension to their story.

Expecting to see amusement in his gaze, she saw only concern. It didn’t matter. She rose to her feet, rattled when he did the same. But he was the kind of man who’d observe that old-fashioned courtesy. A gentleman sadist.

"May have less muscles, but women got more guts than most men."

Of course this book being part of the Masters of the Shadowlands series, there was also funny moments. And I absolutely can’t wait for Sally, Galen and Vance story!!!

"Those two. They’ve got tag teaming down to a science. And they make me feel stupid. I never feel stupid. I need a drink."

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