Title(s): Breaking the Rules, Bloom (Master of Love)
Author: Kate Belle
Publisher: Random House Australia (02 January 2013)
ISBN(s): Breaking the Rules – 9781742758343; Bloom – 9781742758350
Reviewer(s): Michael & Jane
Take three!
In our third joint-review outing, Michael and I debate the motivations of the supremely debonair Ramon from Kate Belle’s Master of Love series. I suspect he and Sting have been hanging out together a fair bit; Michael’s trying to decide how he’d look with a pair of Eros wings.
Now, if someone would just lend us the Sorting Hat …
MICHAEL’S TAKE
What can I say about Ramon Mendez?
Men want to be him. Women want to be with him. He’s working on a Ph.D. in Women’s Sexuality – only he isn’t a woman. He puts ladies through a real workout – without them even taking off their clothes.
And Dude’s a Rule Breaker. If he wants to be with a woman, he finds a way. It doesn’t matter if she is in a position of authority over him, like his College Adviser, or one of his students in a mid-morning fitness class. If he sees something he likes, he doesn’t hesitate.
Grace had a chance at love once. But she decided to focus on her career instead. She was happy and the last thing she wanted to do was advise a man in her speciality where he had no business being. A man who made her feel things she had given up on.
Emma had it all. A husband who was a good provider. Three healthy children. And a dog. She was just missing one teeny tiny thing. Romance. A way for the man she loved to see that she needed more than a roof over her head. Someone who would remember to keep her birthday open.
Ramon – the Licentious Lothario. Ramon – the Caring Cupid. Ramon – the Tantric Tornado.
He knows not just what these women want but what they actually need. The things he does to them and with them could destroy them. Instead they come out with their hearts intact and ready to go after the thing they only dared to hope for.
The only thing we don’t know is what he is actually searching for.
JANE’S TAKE
Breaking the terms of your employment agreement to have sex with a student.
Cheating on your husband.
Are either of these scenarios ever okay in a romance novel? Is it possible to create a love story in which the characters in a book do things that so ostensibly break the unwritten rules of the genre (no cheating, a storyline that involves the development of a meaningful and lasting relationship between the characters)?
For me personally? The second of these scenarios is a difficult one. At least as far as my own definition of romantic love goes. I know it sounds crazy, but I am far, far more comfortable reading about kink or indulging my passion for Dark Erotica than encountering infidelity in a story. Yeah, I know that probably sounds upside down to some people. What can I say? My mind works in mysterious ways.
The commonality between these two books from Kate Belle’s Master of Love series, Breaking the Rules and Bloom, is Spanish lothario, Ramon, who appears to be every woman’s sexual fantasy come to life. He’s young. He’s handsome. He’s charming. He has an unbelievably talented tongue. But in both books, he’s not actually the Happily Ever After. Not the man that the female lead in either story is destined to be with. He’s merely a catalyst for sexual and emotional change.
Grace is a forty-something university professor who has locked off her sexuality in an attempt to cope with her male-dominated career environment. Thirty-six-year-old Emma is overweight and crumbling under the weight of kids and a husband who is too busy working to notice her. In rides Ramon on his white stallion (sorry, in his red Honda), masterful tantric penis at the ready (he and Sting must be attending the same classes because he can orgasm without ejaculating) to chase away the cobwebs, restore sexual vitality and point the women towards the men they are ultimately supposed to be with.
Surprisingly, the adultery depicted in Bloom was less of a hurdle for me than Ramon himself. There was nothing I could put my finger on, nothing overtly wrong or sinister about him, he just seemed so … calculated. The way he places himself in Grace’s path. The way he handles Emma. Throughout both books I kept asking myself ‘Why is he seducing these ladies?’ and ‘What exactly is his motivation?’ It’s never quite clear – we never get inside his head – and, as a result, it became impossible for me to categorise him as either ‘hero’ or ‘villain’. I couldn’t categorically name him as ‘the man who put everything to rights’ or ‘the man who took advantage of women at their most vulnerable and it just all happened to turn out okay’.
Is he Vicomte de Valmont, Don Juan, Casanova, or an Alfie with morals?
Who knew I had such an obsession with compartmentalising characters?
Unexpected, different and quietly brave. Breaking the Rules and Bloom both felt very real. Definitely not your typical erotic romance fare and, for that reason, these novellas will likely be a Marmite choice for readers.
Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to purchase:
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Kobo
* Please note that copies of Bloom and Breaking the Rules were provided by the author, free of charge, in exchange for a fair review.
Love the cartoons – highly entertaining for a dull Friday morning. Keep reading, you two!