Tag: erotic romance

23

On Dublin Street – Samantha Young

Title: On Dublin Street
Author: Samantha Young
Publisher: Samantha Young (31 August 2012), Penguin (17 January 2013)
ASIN: B0094J01VG
ISBN: 978-1405912983

On Dublin Street has been gathering some serious, serious momentum since its release in August of this year. Originally self-published by its author, Samantha Young, in less than three months it’s been picked up for re-release by Penguin, has over 16,000 Goodreads reader ratings (most four stars and above), and made it into the final round of the latter’s Choice Awards for 2012. That’s pretty damn impressive.

Jocelyn Butler (Joss) is hiding from the life she once knew. Having lost her immediate family in a tragic accident at the age of fourteen, she has spent her adulthood getting as far away from her past as possible. Quite literally, by packing up her entire life and escaping to her mother’s country of birth, Scotland. Emotionally shuttered and unwilling to properly deal with the deaths of parents and sister, Joss is living in a self-imposed bubble, existing without actually living.

Enter Braden Carmichael, a stubborn, sexy and irreverent Scotsman who refuses to let her lock herself away – physically or emotionally. Continue reading →

15

Willing Victim – Cara McKenna

Title: Willing Victim
Author: Cara McKenna
Publisher: Ellora’s Cave (06 August 2010)
ISBN: 9781419928482

If you have a penchant for non-con (non-consent) role-play, a man with a dirty mouth, and rough-and-ready sex, you’re going to love this one. Willing Victim is all about indulging those slightly darker and more aggressive fantasies that many of us have but are often afraid to admit to.

First thing’s first. If you’re at all sensitive to reading about rape – in either a real or imagined capacity – then this is definitely not the book for you. (Note my over-zealous use of bold and italics here.) Per Willing Victim’s Reader Advisory warning:

 

‘Although all sex acts are 100-percent consensual, Willing Victim contains role-playing scenarios that may upset some readers who are sensitive about rape, even in a simulated capacity.’

 

Still here? Good. Then on with the review …

Laurel’s not really sure what she’s doing with her life. Despite being a qualified engineer, she’s simply drifting from one day to the next, making ends meet by waitressing. Then one day, quite by chance, she meets Flynn, a native Bostonian who works construction. There’s just something about this hulk of a man that draws Laurel and she finds herself doing something completely out of character: asking him out. Initially, he refuses her offer, but Laurel refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer and, eventually, Flynn capitulates – after a fashion: Continue reading →

14

Leave Me Breathless – Cherrie Lynn

Title: Leave Me Breathless
Author: Cherrie Lynn
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (06 November 2012)
ISBN: 978-1-61921-379-1

Can two people who, outwardly, appear so different have a future together?

I’ve been waiting for this, the third book in Cherrie Lynn’s Ross Siblings series for what feels like forever. Since falling completely in love with Rock Me and its fabulously tattooed and wickedly pierced hero, Brian, (apradavyas, anyone?) when it was released back in 2010, I’ve been sitting and impatiently tapping my foot for Leave Me Breathless’s release. Because there’s nothing I like more than a slightly left-of-centre hero – and Ghost (real name Seth) pushed all my buttons in Rock Me, despite his billing as a secondary character. Cue swoon.

Seth is the sort of guy most middle-class mothers give their daughters stern lectures about. He’s big, tattoos people for a living, is covered in ink himself, and plays death metal for a band named In the Slaughter. Macy, on the other hand, is your typically average woman: close-knit family, conservative, white picket fence. She even rides ponies. (Okay, horses.) Yet, despite their different backgrounds, interests and appearances, Ghost and Macy find themselves extremely attracted to one another. Even better, when it comes to sex, they discover they’re absolute dynamite. The question is, is their compatibility limited to the bedroom? Continue reading →

02

The Magician’s Lover – Danielle Austen

Title: The Magician’s Lover (The Prophecy Girl Trilogy)
Author: Danielle Austen
Publisher: Xcite Books
ASIN: B00960YQ46

Slights of hand, games of illusion. The Magician’s Lover walks the line between elaborate magic show, Las Vegas style, and erotic supernatural urban fantasy. An original and somewhat unusual proposition. Per the book’s blurb:

Shy receptionist Lindsey Wade can’t believe her luck when a chance encounter with world-famous stage magician Angelito Tarrago leads to an affair. But when he tries to convince her that he possesses genuine supernatural powers – and she might too – her life changes forever.

I must admit, I struggled with this book. While the storyline held much promise, it just never quite managed to establish that all-important rhythm and page-turning stickiness I crave in an erotic romance. The plot development felt somewhat erratic and the various story threads too loosely plaited together to really grab and hold my attention. More crucially, despite the high and varied level of sexual interaction, the core characters just didn’t seem to make solid emotional connections with one another (not until the very end, at least) – and as The Magician’s Lover is billed as having romantic elements, that was something of a problem for me. (I personally think this title would have worked better as a ‘straight’ erotica, with the more traditional romantic elements stripped out.) Continue reading →

25

Sweet Persuasion – Maya Banks

Title: Sweet Persuasion
Author: Maya Banks
Publisher: Berkley (02 June 2009)
ISBN: 978-0425227701

This isn’t the first book in the Sweet erotic romance series by the ever-popular Maya Banks, but, in my opinion, it is the standout title in the line-up. In other words, if you’re going to pick one, this is the one to go for. Sweet Persuasion is a cracking, singe your fingers read. Put the cat out, dim the lights, grab a friend (breathing or battery operated) hot.

Serena is in the business of making dreams and wishes come true for other people. She spends her days fulfilling fantasies and making others happy, but what she really wants is to indulge in a secret fantasy of her own. Serena wants to be a sex slave. To give up complete control to a man, temporarily, and then return to her normal life once her slavery is complete. Continue reading →

17

Maintenance Night – Trent Evans

Title: Maintenance Night
Author: Trent Evans
Publisher: Tritium Press (27 August 2012)
ASIN: B00935QWGY

A married couple. Friday evening. It’s Maintenance Night. Are they doing DIY? Well, in a sense, yes. They’re engaging in the ‘upkeep’ of their relationship. It just so happens that their form of nurture involves some spanking and caning.

This is the first Trent Evans book I’ve read and I have to say I really, really liked it. Maintenance Night is relatively short, weighing in at just fifty-one pages, but it doesn’t suffer from what I like to call ‘small book syndrome’ (a tale as threadbare as a two-hundred-year-old rug or a story that’s so ridiculously overstuffed that it’s afflicted by literary indigestion). The plot is strong and simple – as mentioned above, it focuses on a single night in the life of a married couple – and the action is centred on them connecting with one another through D/s. Continue reading →

12

Alert me: love and text, penis pump theft, and a S.E.C.R.E.T. society

Once again, my link round-up (which I’ve now decided to call ‘Alert Me’) schedule is a bit out of whack. Sorry about that. But I have finally managed to filter through the Google nuggets I’ve received this week and pull out the ones I think are most amusing and interesting: SMS love, penis pumps, and the ‘Canadian Fifty Shades of Grey’. Enjoy.

 

Modern romance for Generation Text, showcased on HeTexted.com
Source: www.guardian.co.uk

 

‘ … we should probably be grateful that John Donne didn’t have BlackBerry Messenger back in 1600. Would our great romantic poets have troubled themselves with erotic odes of seduction if they had SMS or Twitter to hand? In Donne’s case I suspect probably he would, whereas, much as I revere him, I have a strong feeling that Robert Burns would have simply sent a photo of his penis instead … ’

 

So it seems that the finger (rather than the pen) is the sword of modern romance. This article by Ally Fogg of guardian.co.uk takes a humorous look at the culture of text messaging and its role in confusing those embarking (or not embarking, as the case me be) on fledgling relationships. Included, an excellent reference to Robbie Burns’ bawdy poem Nine Inch will Please a Lady and a discourse on the website HeTexted.com, whose aim is to ‘decode’ text messages sent to women by guys who may or may not be interested in them. Warning: difficult to stop yourself looking at the HeTexted.com text messages once you start! Continue reading →

08

Lovehoney to release official range of Fifty Shades of Grey sex toys

Last week, U.K. sex toy retailer, Lovehoney, announced that they would be selling a range of sex toys developed in conjunction with Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James. (You may have seen the @ChintzCurtain tweets about it.) Per the Lovehoney website:

 

‘The Fifty Shades of Grey official collection is beautifully packaged, discreet and couple-friendly. Products are supplied with a luxurious, branded storage bag and each comes with suggestions for use and tips on introducing the toys into a relationship.’

 

Image: courtesy of Lovehoney

Yes, fans of the series will soon be able to buy ‘Inner Goddess – Silver Pleasure Balls’, ‘You. Are. Mine. – Metal Handcuffs’, a ‘Submit To Me – First Time Bondage Kit’, ‘All Mine – Deluxe Satin Blackout Mask’, the ‘Sweet Sting – Riding Crop’, and the ‘Twitchy Palm – Spanking Paddle’. Continue reading →

05

Straits Academy – Alice Liddell

Title: Straits Academy
Author: Alice Liddell
Publisher: Blushing Books (29 September 2012)
ISBN: 9781609688363

A novel of punishment, pleasure and intrigue set against the exotic backdrop of 1920s Singapore, Straits Academy will almost certainly appeal to those with a penchant for sexual discipline. I was really intrigued by this book’s synopsis – I’ve not come across many contemporary erotic novels set in the early twentieth century – and the promise of crops and correction within the context of a colonial girls’ boarding school was too much to resist.

In the first few pages of Straits Academy, we are introduced to our intrepid heroine, Adelaide Hartley (Addy), as her boat makes its way into Singapore harbour; she is excited about meeting her new fiancé, Arthur Fitz-Bowman, after a long-distance courtship and looking forward to the prospect of embarking on a new life in a foreign country. Her joyous anticipation quickly fades, however, in the face of the news that her future husband has been murdered – possibly as a direct result of an opium smuggling investigation he was conducting at the time of his death. Mr Thomas Drake, the man responsible for delivering Adelaide an account of the terrible event, suspects that his murder – and the smuggling – is somehow tied to the beautiful Madame Ong who runs a well-known girls’ boarding school, Straits Academy. A close friend of the deceased, he has been doing his utmost to solve the mystery surrounding his acquaintance’s untimely death. Yet as he speaks with Adelaide (who despite her age of twenty-two years resembles, in stature, a teenage girl) he is struck by a somewhat unconventional idea that results in an even more outlandish proposal: will she consider posing as his niece and attending Straits Academy in an attempt to glean information about Arthur’s murder? To his surprise, Addy  agrees to his suggestion – and thus begins a wonderful tale of raised school dresses, lowered drawers and very pink bottoms. Continue reading →

23

From M/F/M to BDSM – the erotic alphabet

Letters. They have quite an important role in erotica and erotic romance book synopses. If you’re a seasoned reader of titles from these genres, you’ll know immediately what I’m talking about, but if Fifty Shades of Grey was your first foray into racy reading, you may be somewhat curious – or perhaps confused – as to what all the letters and acronyms you’re encountering in erotic book descriptions actually mean. Should you pay any attention to them? Are they important? Is there any difference between a book that has M/F/M listed in its description from one that has M/M/F?

In a word, yes. Many (but not all) erotica and erotic romance authors and publishers use letters and acronyms in online blurbs to give readers an idea of how the characters in their stories relate to one another sexually. And that’s important, because it lets you know what you’re getting yourself into before you start reading. Turned on by lesbian sex? Love the idea of a threesome? Behold, Chintz’s quick and dirty guide to the erotic alphabet … Continue reading →