Tag: romance

18

Dark Lover (A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood) – J.R. Ward

Title: Dark Lover (A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood)
Author: J.R. Ward
Publisher: Piatkus (3 Feb 2011)
ISBN: 978-0749955229

When I told a very good friend of mine (who is almost as book-obsessed as I am) that I was starting this website, one of the first things out of her mouth was ‘Don’t you dare forget the Brotherhood!’.

Of all the book series’ I’ve recommended to people over the years, this one has proved by far and away to be the most popular. I don’t know what it is – the characters, the writing, the world-building – but when readers describe the Black Dagger Brotherhood as ‘book crack’, they’re not far wrong. Like a bunch of addicts, we’re on top of the latest release in J.R. Ward’s bestselling series the moment it comes out and are soon clamouring for our next fix, regardless of whether the hit we had last was as spectacular as we imagined it would be. (Because, truth be told, some of the instalments are better than others.)

Dark Lover is the very first book in the Brotherhood line-up and although it was initially published in 2005, I was a bit late to the party and didn’t discover it until 2007. In fact, I actually read book three (Lover Awakened) first after seeing it pop up on various recommended lists on Amazon. I um’d and ah’d about buying it – I was put off by the cheesy title and the cover art – but I’m so pleased I did; I went on to devour Awakened and the other three Brotherhood books that were available at the time (Dark Lover, Lover Eternal and Lover Revealed) in less than a week. Book crack indeed. Continue reading →

09

The 52 Seductions – Betty Herbert

Title: The 52 Seductions
Author: Betty Herbert
Publisher: Headline (19 Jan 2012)
ISBN: 978-0755362530

It’s a ‘fifty’ book, but not the one you’re thinking of. The 52 Seductions began life as a blog, with the author, Betty Herbert, recording a series of seductions that she and her husband perform in in an attempt to kick-start their waning sex life.

Realising that, sexually speaking, things have started to go off the boil in their relationship despite them still being very much in love with one another (‘I am not prudish; I have just been married for ten years’), Betty talks ‘Herbert’, her husband, into engaging in a seduction every week for a year. Her theory is that sex begets more sex, and by ‘forcing’ themselves to make love, their desire for each other will increase in proportion to the amount they’re actually having. They agree that they’ll take turns devising them, with Betty dreaming up and organising a seduction one week and Herbert the next. What unfolds is book that charts Betty and Herbert’s rediscovery of one another and an examination of their attitudes towards sex in general.

One of the things this book does well is to highlight – very accurately – the hum-drum of long term partnerships while also pointing out that said hum-drum doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve fallen out of love with your significant other. It boldly acknowledges what’s likely true for a lot of long-term couples: that you’ve gone through the first, frenzied flush of sexual discovery, things have settled into a routine, and going outside of the status quo when you’ve been plodding along the same road at the same pace for some time takes some guts. Continue reading →

05

Fifty Shades of Grey – E.L. James

Title: Fifty Shades of Grey
Author: E.L. James
ISBN: 978-0099579939
Publisher: Arrow (26 April 2012)

I’ve procrastinated over whether to do a review for Fifty Shades of Grey because, frankly, there’s not a lot that I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. The coverage of – and the furore around – this book has been absolutely massive and you can’t seem to walk five paces without bumping into someone who’s reading it or having a conversation about it. It’s broken sales records set by J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard, Harry Potter, and is the first book ever to reach the one million sales mark on Amazon Kindle. If you’ve been living in a parallel universe and haven’t a clue what I’m going on about, here’s a brief run-down …

Fifty Shades of Grey is an erotic romance written by British author E.L. James (a pseudonym for London T.V. executive Erika Leonard). It started life as fanfiction based on the characters and stories from Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, which James later reworked to create Fifty Shades of Grey and the two subsequent books in the series, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. To boil it right down to basics:

- Edward Cullen (wealthy blood-sucking vampire) becomes Christian Grey (wealthy flogger-wielding sadist);

- Bella Swan (virginal high school student) becomes Anastasia Steele (virginal college graduate);

- Forks (small Pacific North West town) becomes Seattle (large Pacific North West city). Continue reading →

04

The Dirty Bits for Girls – India Knight

Title: The Dirty Bits for Girls
Author: India Knight (editor)
ISBN: 978-1844082285
Publisher: Virago UK (March 1, 2009)

The Dirty Bits for Girls has been around for a while – it was first published in 2006 – but I’m offering it up because 1) it’s a great read and 2) because it gives you enlightening glimpses into books that you might not have considered picking up otherwise.

This collection of ‘dirty’ excerpts runs the gamut – Georgette Heyer, Anaïs Nin, John Cleland, Jilly Cooper, to name just a few of the authors whose work appears in it – and, as such, caters to pretty much every taste. From the over-the-top soap opera sex of 80s Judith Krantz (Scruples) to the dark eroticism of Pauline Reage’s Story of O, Dirty Bits serves up a tasting menu of sex in literature and is perfect as means of steering you towards the books that do it for you and away from the ones that don’t.

The extract from Georgette Heyer’s Regency Buck with its smouldering, rakish hero, the Earl of Worth (a.k.a. Julian St John Audley), is toe-curlingly good. At the risk of sounding like a giddy thirteen-year-old, the guy is hot. He’s handsome. He’s arrogant. He’s dominating.  He’s insolent. There’s not a single ‘traditional’ sex scene in the excerpt (or in the entire book for that matter) – the raciest it gets is a raised hem and a kiss in the back of a curricle-and-four – but the sexual frisson between him and Judith, the heroine, is brilliant. Reading this particular snippet sent me into something of a Heyer frenzy and I consumed a number of her Regency ton romances in short order after reading the Dirty Bits taster. A perfect and satisfying example of Alpha male versus feisty, spirited heroine, with sexual chemistry to boot. Continue reading →

03

It’s not about curtains

Chintz has been an idea in my head for a very long time and I’m so excited to finally be welcoming you all ‘behind the curtain’.

I’ve always adored books and have been an avid reader throughout my life. And I’m fascinated by just about all forms of writing – books, blogs, newspapers, the labels on cleaning products … You name it. If it’s got text on it, I want to pick it up and read it.

While I can’t remember how old I was at the time, I can vividly remember my first-ever encounter with a book that hinted at sex and sexuality. It was called Brown Cows (unfortunately, no longer in print) and etched forever in my brain is a scene in which a boy is given the opportunity to touch a girl’s breast for the first time. Despite the fact that the moment portrayed was actually quite emotionally awkward, it was something of an awakening for me and from that moment on I began to seek out and take notice of sex and relationships in the books I was reading.

Fast-forward to my teens and the discovery of the 80s ‘bonk busters’ on my mother’s bedside table (think Judith Krantz, Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins), which resulted in me lying in bed for hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings, practically inhaling the words from the pages and being at once fascinated and slightly horrified by the sexual antics of the characters (why would anyone put THAT in their mouth?!). With a few more years on the clock and a bit more maturity, however, the shock factor I’d initially experienced was considerably lessened and I began to enjoy some much deeper, more edgy erotica and romance titles, ineffectually hiding the ones with the raunchier covers from casual passers-by by bending the front covers backwards against the bodies of the books. (God bless eReaders.) Continue reading →