Being engaged but not altogether certain about it can be difficult.

In a nutshell:

Short synopsis:

Woman is engaged to boring, but reliable guy and looks for a one night stand to “be young” for once. Doesn’t work out the way she had planned.

Language I read the book in:  English

Did I like it?  Not so much

For people who:  liked Fifty Shades of Grey without the kink but with a rival for Grey.

My thoughts: 

“Just one night: The Stranger” is the first part of a trilogy and it is very short. At about 130 pages it keeps the plot to a minimum and jumps right into the sex. I am sorry to say that, even with erotica, sex without context doesn’t do it for me, so I found the erotic scenes not so much erotic but rather boring and uninspiring.

Kasie goes to Vegas because her best friend tells her she has to sleep with a stranger before she marries her reliable, secure, but rather boring boyfriend. She does it and, needless to say, the stranger, CEO of his own company, turns up again as a client. She is a business consultant, and at this point -in spite of my complaint that the plot was scarce- I cursed that there was plot at all. The business babble between the consultants or between them and the client was so vague, tedious and empty that it made you wonder why anyone would pay for their advice.

Anyway, the whole client-consultant relationship was just there in order to drive on the sex development which it did splendidly. Kasie and Robert have sex and then some more. In between she beats herself up over it and thinks of herself as a sinner. In order to justify her betrayal of her boyfriend/fiancé she comes up with all sorts of ideas. For example she asks her boyfriend whether he is ever tempted by beautiful female colleagues and when he says that he isn’t she conveniently interprets this answer as a lie (it came too fast to be true) and thus regards her own behaviour as excused.

She is constantly torn between her desire for Robert – which is huge, she dreams about him 24/7 and practically drools just from the thought of him – and her wish to be respectable. How dreadfully boring! One day she tells Robert they can’t meet again, the next day she seduces him, one day later she tells him to stop…after a while she so got on my nerves, I just skipped whole paragraphs. What bothered me most was the fact that she loves the idea that Robert knows the woman who lies underneath her business like exterior instinctively (and he does seem to know her very well), on the other hand she is so clueless about him that probably his bin men know him better than she does. It’s a tragedy.

The end is just another cock teasing episode with a twist when her boyfriend changes the course of events.

SPOILER

At the end of book one there is a short teaser for book two, called "Exposed". At the end of “The stranger” Kasie has to literally leave Robert and go back to her fiancé without another word to Robert. You would imagine that this calls for something other than sex at the beginning of the sequel, but no! It starts with a scene where she has just been violated by her fiancé and now has fantasies about Robert again. Bloody Hell! She has just been threatened by her fiancé, possibly raped, had to leave her lover for good and all she does is come?! I find this hard to believe.

Read this if you must. I will stay away from the sequels.

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One couple, two points of view.

In a nutshell:

Short synopsis:

The story of Jack and Amy, told from both sides.

Language I read the book in: German (Come together)

Did I like it? Yes

For people who: like modern romance (not erotic).

My thoughts: 

When I got this book from a swap partner I didn’t know whether I would like it, but the idea about the two voices sounded nice.

Both protagonists start telling the story at a point some time before they met and it was quite good to get to know them beforehand. As is often the case with me, I immediately sided with the guy and didn’t think Amy was such a nice  person. Her irresponsible behaviour in her job (she is a temp) made her unlikeable to me. My initial feelings about her were confirmed later in the book in various other situations, but that didn’t spoil the reading fun.

The plot covers all the usual ups and down, the story is realistic and definitely not being told from a pink cloud. Insecurities, jealousies, misunderstanding, stubborn behaviour, we have all been there.

For my taste people could have been a little less inebriated. I am no teetotaller by any means, but in general I don’t like people to get drunk at every party until they can hardly remember their name the next morning. And I dislike it even more when they do things while drunk and then use that as an excuse.

One thing I really could have done without was the corny way Jack was thinking about things. Well, I read this in German, so I can only give you a (translated) idea, but there we go:

I saw, I conquered, I came.

How awful is that? There are some passages like this one where you just have to shake your head and quickly read on, otherwise you’d throw the book in the corner, but otherwise it is a fun read. There are a couple of sequels out and I am waiting for “Come again” to turn up in my mailbox.

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Odd couple gets together and then part ways again.

In a nutshell:

Short synopsis:

Ugly Elsie meets a man on the bus who will soon give her life a different direction for a while.

Language I read the book in: German (Eine zufällige Begegnung)

Did I like it? Yes.

For people who: like quiet stories, interesting and unusual characters.

My thoughts: 

I got this book because the title caught my interest. I had no idea what to expect, Charles Chadwick was an unknown name to me and I just started reading.

The story is told from various points of views and at first I found it a bit difficult to get into it. After a while, however, I just could not stop. It was obvious that the acquaintance would not turn into romance but rather into a friendship and until now I still can not figure out where the line was.

Elsie’s disfigurement makes it impossible to awake any romantic feelings in Stan, even though he wishes this was different. On the other hand Elsie has feelings for Stan, but knows they will never lead to anything. I liked her attitude towards herself. She never indulged in self-pity and just took things as they were without making a fuss about them.

All characters were well developed and believable. Elsie’s brother and uncle I found absolutely insufferable. How his sister’s looks can play such a big part that he even lies for years to his children (or rather lets them believe something which was not true) is incomprehensible. Her uncle Geoffrey is such an ass, but you find people like him all over the place. His character was so realistic it was frightening. Pretending to be generous, but then never living up to his own words with some“excuse” or other. I thoroughly disliked him.

The only complaint I have is that the relationship between Elsie and Stan came about a little too quickly. On the other hand, maybe people like them have to make snap decisions in order to grab what is being offered. I don’t know. Maybe we all should be a bit more like that.

This is a quiet and quick read that, in spite of it being so unspectacular, will stay with you for a long time.

Location: Mostly Dorset, UK

Images from flickr user j-sin and wikipedia user Saffron Blaze

Product info and buy link :

If you click on the buy link above you will be taken to The Book Depository.co.uk. If you buy the book through this link I will earn a small commission. You can find my general affiliate links to The Book Depository, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com here.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? I would love to hear other opinions.

If that sorry effort is what modern women get off on, it’s not looking good for the future of erotic literature .

In a nutshell:

Short synopsis:

Ditz meets rich guy and consents reluctantly to a D/s relationship.

Language I read the book in: English

Did I like it? No, it was complete drivel.

For people who like: not sure.

My thoughts: 

Starting to read:

I don’t know what the hype is about. This story is exactly like any other (erotic) romance that is out there. Just much worse.

The two protagonists are run of the mill:

• Little self conscious woman who is embarrassed way too easily. Who gets intimidated by the powerful, rich, extremely handsome man. Who bites her lip way too much (which turns him on no end).
• Uber attractive, richer than God stud who is a control freak. Who sometimes lets his mask down and shows how lonely and desperate he is. Who is always smiling ironically. Who always seems to be amused and, at the same time, exasperated about the heroine.

Give me a break, this is just Christine Feehan without the paranormal.

Later on:

Why does Christian think that She. Is. So. Sweet? That woman has nothing going for her, nothing. She is a klutz and an idiot who doesn’t get a thing. It can’t be her witty conversation or her great sense of humour, her elegant poise or her sophisticated tastes. There is none of that. It can only be her naive innocence, and ingenues can get on your nerves very quickly, not to speak of the fact that soon the innocence will have vanished.

The whole contract concept seems very simplified to me. Given that everything else in the book is described very detailed, this doesn’t work. No experienced Dominant can expect a total newbie to come up with a list of things she won’t do. She doesn’t even know what CAN be done. If you have no idea about BDSM would you think of, let’s say, games involving breath control to include in your list of no- nos? You wouldn’t even think that this is a possibility.

Ana is an odd mixture of contradictions when it comes to sex. She is a virgin, is taken by surprise that “That was inside me”, seeing that Christian’s cock is so big (and bad… just kidding), on the other hand she is expertly deep throating Christian when she gives him her first blow job ever. I am not buying that. 
How often we read about her “inner goddess” I can’t count. That goddess is constantly revelling in her success to arouse Christian. Or she feels rejected or disappointed or whatever. Her “inner goddess”! Have you ever thought of your inner goddess when pondering a man? I haven’t.

I had another Christine Feehan déjà vu when it came to Christian’s eyes turning “molten gray”; the “molten lava” won’t take much longer to turn up, I am sure. Given that Christian’s eyes are gray to begin with, I don’t think they have changed much by becoming molten, but what the heck!

A bit later still:

No molten lava yet, but how about molten silver? I wasn’t too far off.

OK, I haven’t talked about the erotic factor. It took the story a while to get there, that’s why I am only mentioning it now. I have read car manuals that are more erotic than this. Someone who calls this erotic must have limited themselves to reading non-fiction up to now. The sex scenes are boring and uninspired to the extreme. There is NO sexual tension to speak of between Christian and Ana, even though we are constantly told how much they want each other. The scenes are a lacklustre sequence of sexual activities without even making an attempt to engage the reader’s imagination.

The writing style is repetitive and simple. The number of times someone is staring at their hands/fingers, blushing, gasping or talking in a small voice (mostly her, but he DOES gasp once in a while) is mind boggling. Also get used to “holy crap”, “holy cow” and “crap” in general. They are the default beginnings of sentences (again, her).

Want a sample? Here you go:

Situation: She has sent him an email to which he responds by showing up in her bedroom (btw, she is a 21 year old student in the year 2011 and has no computer and no email address. In order to rectify this he gifts her with a state of the art MacBook Pro).

Holy Cow, is he offended? I stare down at my fingers. How am I going to dig myself out of this? If I tell him it was a joke, I don’t think he’ll be impressed.

“I thought you’d reply by email.” My voice is small, pathetic.

“Are you biting your lower lip deliberately?” he asks darkly.

I blink up at him, gasping, freeing my lip.

“I wasn’t aware I was biting my lip,” I murmur softly.

My heart is pounding.

About 55% done:

I am going to stop reading now. This is such insufferable drivel, I can’t continue this. Apart from all the things I mentioned before it annoys me no end to continuously read that someone is “fucked up” and “depraved” simply because he likes that lifestyle. If that is the way he rolls, fine. It has nothing to do with depravity or being fucked up. If it is not your thing, then just walk away!

I don’t have to read this book until the end, and so I won’t.

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