Ok, I have very mixed feelings about this book. My overall impression is that for you erotic romance fans who do not mind non-monogamous sexual relationships, you should check this out. For any readers who have sensitivities about dubious consent or non-consent sexual scenes, I’m going to advise you to proceed with extreme caution. If you like your sex with a lot of blushing and euphemisms, pass on this for sure.
So this book is about Grace and David. I gather from reading this one that another book preceded it that talked about Grace’s initial exploration into an alternate sexual lifestyle. This book is about Grace’s journey towards becoming the first woman David really loves and is willing to commit to. Of course David has some major issues caused by his past and his misunderstanding of what it means to be married and in love. These issues make it difficult for him to stop testing Grace’s commitment to him and even more to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop on the relationship. Grace is…very patient. She is aware of David’s issues, she is aware that David is testing her but she loves David and thinks if she’s patient, he will come around. At the same time, David’s mind games leave Grace in a state of perpetual insecurity. She is plagued by the fear that David only wanted her because she was relatively innocent and offered him a new sexual adventure. Now that Grace has been initiated into the freaky lifestyle, she fears David will lose interest in her.
My struggle with this book was because I am not the right reader for a multi-partner sexual relationship. Through the course of this book, David and Grace host couples at their “hotel of seduction” and while couples are there, David and Grace cater to their every sexual fantasy even when it involves their participaton. This sets the scene for an already insecure Grace to watch David be sexually interested in other women. It also allows David to have his first run ins with jealousy as grace is getting it on with other hotel guest. This whole thing just made me uncomfortable and not because of the sex. It made me uncomfortable because it wasn’t romantic and even though I LOVE the freaky deaky, I need my romance fix and I just can’t get it where the male Hero is willing to share.
Of course all the sharing led to the development of a subplot involving two characters who want to break David and Grace up. Things reach a boiling point in a very….unexpected way. I want to be able to tell you how I felt about the climax of the book but I’m still not sure. It was just a lot to take in. As for the sex scenes in this book, again I have mixed feelings about it. The sex scenes were explicit, varied and there were many of them. The thing that was kind of off is that the language could be almost clinical. There are several references the “vagina” and “penis”…see how uncomfortable that made you? Imagine reading several sex scenes with those words generously tossed around. Sometimes it felt like being at the doctors office.
All in all, I’m glad I read this book and I recommend to the people I mentioned in my first paragraph. Read this review and consider what I’ve said, if you think you are alright with those things, I think you will really like this book.
**ARC provided by RockStarLit PR**