I’ll confess that I had become disenchanted with your work. The grown up hookers with a heart of gold series followed by two dark and somewhat unromantic stories made me gun shy. But a free book of an author I’ve liked in the past? I can’t resist at least giving it a try and I am glad that I did.

Rachel Delaney is a newly divorced single mom sharing custody of two teen boys with her ex husband. Before her divorce, she was a homemaker. Now she is working at a receptionist for a local company but her small salary doesn’t allow her for many extras even with her ex picking up the tab for the mortgage. Her eldest, Nathan, is playing Rachel against his father like a pro, starting to hang out with a bad crowd, and acting perpetually angry. Rachel would like something just for herself and while a lover would be nice, she’d settled for a vibrator.

Rand Torvik is a believer in the law of attraction or perhaps the universe reshaping things that were meant to be. He sees Rachel three random times – at a grocery store, outside a sex store where Rachel bought her vibrator, and in a local coffee shop – before approaching her with his interest. Rachel isn’t looking for a relationship but she wouldn’t mind calling on Rand for a little adult time. This suits Rand just fine.

In some ways, Rand and Rachel’s sexual interaction is much like a courtship. Even in this erotic book, their first encounter is relatively chaste, at least between the two. Rand’s neighbors are exhibitionists and Rand essentially sets up a first date atmosphere with wine on his upper balcony and a cinematic view of the neighbor’s hot tub antics. Every encounter that Rand and Rachel experience explore a few more fantasies from video taping themselves to participating in some exhibitionism themselves. Inevitably their physical connection brings them emotionally close. Rachel and Rand’s relationship is put on hold when she discovers that Rand is her son’s new principal, a man that her son hates.

As Rachel becomes more sexually adventurous with the encouragement of Rand, she gains confidence at work with the encouragement of a co worker. I felt that Rachel was blossoming into the person she could have been, not because she had a job and a lover, but because she began to identify herself as an individual and it was through those two vehicles that this came about. I enjoyed her recognizing that her skills as a mother translated into managing fractious co workers.

The one weakness in the story was Rand. The story could have been written in the first person because despite scenes from Rand’s point of view, he remained much of a mystery. He had little character movement and everything he did was exactly right. He knew exactly how to nudge Rachel into loosening her inhibitions, guessing exactly what would turn her on. He was able to turn her son around with exactly the right methods. I found him too good to be true and in many ways a flat character. I was also puzzled by his mantra that the laws of attraction bound his actions. The way he conducted his life didn’t seem as metaphysical as his philosophies would indicate.

The ex husband storyline was fairly predictable and while it was used to propel Rachel’s storyline and exhibit her newfound personal strength, I didn’t find the ex husband’s actions particularly believable which worked to lessen the tension that I believe it was supposed to present.

I did love the subtle sex positive, pro woman message in the story. A repeated mantra is that Rachel deserves to have it all. She deserves to be viewed as a good mother, an upstanding member of her community, and most of all, she deserves to have great sex. Rand is happy to stand by her side to make sure all of those things come to fruition, particularly the great sex part. It seems that full length erotic romances are a wasteland of late so The Principal’s Office, even at the trade paperback price, might be worth it. B-

Best regards,

Jane

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Show and Tell by Jasmine Haynes
2. REVIEW: Yours for the Night by Jasmine Haynes
3. REVIEW: Unlaced by Jaci Burton, Jasmine Haynes, Joey Hill, Denise Rossetti

This anthology is composed of three erotic contemporary stories and one erotic paranormal, similar to the previous anthology, Unlaced. Once again, the stories are loosely joined by the use of a corset in each of them, but the device is tangential to what’s happening in the individual stories, not unlike many of the other anthologies out there.

No Strings Attached by Jaci Burton.

Ella Hicks is the CEO of Hicks Construction, a company she built with her husband James, and took the helm when he died five years ago. She’s made a success of her company, and leaned on a particular friend and sometimes rival, Clay Mansfield, for business advice. Ella has spent so much time making Hicks Construction a powerhouse that her sex life went to the grave with her husband. Huh…too morbid? This story definitely isn’t. Ella realizes that she needs to do something to get herself out of this anti-social and anti-sex rut, especially since she’s been spending more time eyeing Clay’s ass than worrying about building codes. She schedules a vacation in an exotic locale, hoping to find rest, relaxation, and an anonymous partner for some meaningless, yet satisfying sex. Not exactly the smartest thing for a woman to be alone and on the prowl, and this is where Clay comes in.

Clay Mansfield has realized that Ella is more than his good friend’s widow. Sure, Clay deludes himself into thinking he’s going on vacation in the same spot as Ella just to make sure she doesn’t get herself into trouble, but that thought lasts half a second, or at least until he sees Ella at the pool:

Clay finally exhaled. It was Ella. Holy shit. She sure looked a lot  different in a bikini than she did in boots, jeans and a work shirt.

He almost felt guilty over the tightening of his cock.

Almost.

Clay and Ella give each other what they need: a guiltless fling that goes deeper than just a zipless fuck (apologies to Erica Jong), providing them with a level of satisfaction that wouldn’t otherwise be reached. One of the caveats of this relationship is that it won’t go beyond the vacation; once they’re back in Oklahoma, it’s back to business as usual. Delightfully, it’s Clay that realizes there’s no “usual” much faster than Ella. The depth of characters and relationships was impressive for such a short story. I never felt that Ella and Clay’s interaction was forced, or that there was some sort of strange hook to make everything work. This was an enjoyable read. A-

La Petite Mort by Jasmine Haynes

I hate making a comparison, but in an anthology, I think it’s inevitable, especially when two straight erotic contemporaries are put one after the other. This story struck me as strange, with a dash of sad and dark thrown into the mix. Sophia, a former model currently working as a VP at Caprice, a high end cosmetics company, has a polyp on her uterus that needs to be removed and biopsied. Sophia has no close friends, no relatives and no one to turn to to discuss her fear that the polyp might be cancerous. Ford Connelly, the CEO of Caprice, knows that Sophia is off her game when she barely makes it through a presentation, and brings her into his office to confront her.

While I might be able to overlook a dark and slightly sad beginning, I couldn’t ignore that the characters crossed a major line when Ford essentially forced Sophia into telling him why she needed a day off. Ford and Sophia’s prior interactions had been purely on a business level, and I know it was important to have Sophia open up, but the way it was done stuck in my craw. From here, the story continues into uncomfortable territory. Ford asks Sophia if she could do anything at all, what would it be…and yep, it’s a MMF threesome. Ford has the hots for Sophia (it’s mutual) and wants to make this happen for her, so he sets it up for her the night before her surgery. Yeah, she’s gonna do two men before uterine surgery. In addition, guy number two was such an oddball; more of an acquaintance of Ford’s than a friend. This story was out of my comfort zone due to the awkward and contrived set up. D

Honor Bound by Joey W. Hill

I am, without a doubt, a huge Joey W. Hill fan. That said, I felt that Controlled Response, the contribution to the prior anthology, was tough to swallow for a variety of reasons. Honor Bound was the complete opposite, both a strong and erotic love story combined with a woman regaining her sense of self through finding love. We’re back with the Kensington & Associates gang, and this time it’s Peter’s story, the soldier who loves breasts for those of you that read the last anthology (I really need to get my hands on Matt Kensington’s story…). But in truth, this story is just as much about Dana as it is about Peter. Dana is a Sargent, about to be shipped out to Iraq, when she decides to spend her last night at The Zone, and upscale BDSM club that has appeared in many of Ms. Hill’s other stories. Peter is able to touch Dana on a deeper level than any other Dom before. And Dana is the submissive Peter has been searching for. Peter catches her in the airport as Dana is about to ship out, and she extracts a promise that Peter will write to her, but she isn’t going to write back.

Dana is injured in combat, and when Peter returns from Afghanistan he makes it his mission to get her to realize that she can’t give up on life, or on him, as a result of her injuries. Dana’s healing odyssey is great to read. Peter is her taskmaster, her rock and her friend – whatever she needs, while still being true to his Dom self. One of the things that I had a tough time with was the introduction of a secondary character dying of AIDS. I feel that Ms. Hill uses a desperate secondary character to highlight something special about either the hero or heroine in many of her stories, and this was a totally unnecessary detour in Honor Bound. The growth of Dana and Peter’s relationship was strong enough to hold it’s own. B+

Rhio’s Dancer by Denise Rossetti

I gotta be honest here: it’s very strange to read three contemporaries and have a paranormal thrown in there at the end. It actually took me about 15 pages to get into the story, but once I managed to get past my initial hesitation, this story was delightful. Captain Rhiomard made a brief appearance in the prior anthology, and I’m happy to see him get his own story, because after reading it, he really deserved it. Rhio is the Queen’s captain of the guard, and has been a warrior for a long time. Caracole’s Queen Sikhara is in negotiations with the Trinitarian Republic and their ambassador. The Trinitarians are slavemasters that take what they want by force, and Rhio is on the lookout for a trap, which he suspects is in the form of Dancer, the woman and warrior that is the evenings entertainment. Rhio is taken with her immediately, and realizes that he will have to win her trust.

"Where were you born?"

"What has that-’?" Catching his eye, she broke off. "In the southern desert beyond the Trinitarian border."

"How long have you been a slave?"

"Fifteen years, four months and twenty days."

"How old are you now?"

"Thirty."

Rhio glanced up from his notes in time to catch the shiver she couldn't prevent. "I ask you again, Dancer. Are you cold?"

She hesitated. "A little."

Without a word, he rose and went to light the  fire. Hell, she'd walked all the way from the royal chambers barefoot without a word  of complaint. He should have done it the moment they entered the building.

Rhio is patient, honest, and recognizes Amae for the warrior and strong soul she is. Amae respects and is attracted at the most visceral level to the warrior in Rhio. I freely admit that the initial scenes of this story weren’t a huge hook for me, but once I got into it, the story was a quick and very enjoyable read. B+

~Shuzluva
This book can be purchased at Amazon
(affiliate link), Kindle (non affiliate), BN (non affiliate link due to laziness), and nook (non affiliate link).

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3. REVIEW: My Forbidden Desire by Carolyn Jewel

Dr. Brooke Magnati has come out as the face behind the prostitute Belle Du Jour. Dr. Magnati was finishing up her PhD and running low on cash and decided that having sex for money would be a way for her to keep her day job, make ends meet, and presumably have time to herself. Magnati as Belle du Jour wrote a number of bestseling books regarding her life as a prostitute and Showtime has an adaption of this series called Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Why bring this up? The social messaging of this book is that sexual commerce can be an empowered female concept. Problematically, the stories really don’t play out that way. Instead, as one person mentioned to me, this is Pretty Woman done three ways. Each story in this collection is about a high class courtesan/prostitute/call girl who leaves the empowered life of hooking when a fabulous looking guy who happens to be super rich marries her. A woman is matched with the client. The client pays a fee to the company and the woman gets paid through “tips” or other forms of compensation (jewelry, clothes, etc) if the client is happy with the “date” which is how the agency and call girls refer to the client appointments.

The Girlfriend Experience. This was the weakest and least favorite of the collection primarily because Marianna was so irritating.

Thirty five year old Marianna finds herself in a financial fix when her father won’t give her a loan. Marianna has a good time blaming her problems on her father. After all, he and her mother want her to have a lifestyle that fits their image of wealthy and successful while Marianna would like to be read books to kids and do other good deeds. Unable to be successful in real estate and unable to live a less expensive lifestyle, Marianna is unable to make ends meet. Her girlfriend gives her the idea of becoming an escort. At first, Marianna is aghast, but her friend tells her that not only is it sexy, getting paid for sex, but it’s also powerful.

Okay. "Doesn’t it make you feel sleazy and dirty?" Marianna was dying to know.

The smile was slow to grow on Jewel’s lips, but when it came, it was sexy, sultry, secretive. "Getting paid for it is the hottest thing I’ve ever done, and so damn sexy. This is better than a one-night stand, and you don’t have to worry about how to get rid of him in the morning. Oh my God"-’Jewel rolled her eyes-’"if a one-nighter is looking for a relationship . . ." She punctuated with finger quotes. "If I decide I don’t like a guy, I tell my consultant not to put his calls through."

After his wife died, Chase Ramirez focused all of his attention on raising his daughter. She’s a sophomore in school now and Chase is suffering a bad case of boredom. He exhibits signs of serious depression: ” Yet as hard as it was to get up in the morning, if he didn’t have work to occupy him, he’d simply die. And he needed to stick around for Krista.” Clinically, this would be known as suicidal ideation. Anyway, Chase’s buddy convinces him that he just needs to get laid and provides a number for an exclusive call girl company (Marianna’s in fact!). The idea of buying someone for sex appeals to Chase. The anonymity of it, the immediacy of it, and of course, the transient nature.

In Marianna, Chase finds the perfect antidote for his loneliness. Bonus, even his daughter likes her.

*****

Payback. This was the best of the collection because it actually takes some time to explore both the positive and negative sides of sex and commerce.

Dominique Lowe is a long time contractor with the call girl agency.    She was once the perfect wife of a wealthy man until she found out she couldn’t have children.   Edward, her ex, cheated on her, impregnated a young woman, divorced Dominique and married the pregnant girl.   Dominique was humiliated and hurt.   Making men pay for sex was one way in which she enacted revenge against her ex.

At a party, Gabriel Price watches an interesting tableau play out across the room. A woman encounters a younger pregnant woman and an older man comes and ushers the young pregnant woman away.   The woman, Gabrielle, is hurt and vulnerable and this appeals to Gabriel.

Gabriel and Dominique engage in a torrid limo encounter after which Dominique hands him her card and suggests that he call up and ask for a date, through her agency. Dominique is encouraged to date Gabriel without the agency involvement but Dominique is adamant that she is only in control through the agency set up:

"I’m a courtesan, Isabel. I can’t go back to a normal life with a normal relationship. I like the power too much. And a man is never going to accept what I do for a living. You know it as well as I do." She snapped her purse closed as if that solidified her decision on the matter. "He pays like everyone else does."

Dominique’s post divorce identity was so strongly wrapped up in her work.

When she was with Gabriel, Edward ceased to exist. No other man had done that. Not the sheik with his thirty-thousand-dollar gift. Not Trevor with ten thousand dollars or diamonds and emeralds. No amount of money, no present, made her forget. It only gave her power when she imagined showing Edward her worth to other men.

Gabriel made her powerful without the symbol.

Unfortunately, Dominique was sure that Gabriel was just fascinated by her because she was something new and shiny to him and repeated engagements would wear down the novelty. While Gabriel would like to pursue something more meaningful, Dominique keeps trying to return it to a business transaction. She finally comes to the realization that no amount of money or perceived power will restore her and that with Gabriel, she has the opportunity to move forward.

Triple Play. This story is the most outre of the collection. Noelle St. James is kind of a sex addict. She loves sex, all kinds of it, with all kinds of people. Courtesans provides her an opportunity to get paid for doing something she craves. Lately though, something is missing. Like an adrenaline junky looking for her next fix by taking on increasingly risky adventures, Noelle is no longer satisfied by her “dates.”

Fortunately, Dax Deacon arrives on the scene. Dax has a fetish that ordinary dating can’t fulfill. He loves to watch. Recognizing that most women won’t enjoy being constantly asked to have sex with others, Dax has turned to the professional sex trade and in Noelle, he finds the perfect partner. Nearly every fantasy that he can dream up, Noelle wants to act out. In this, they find the perfect partnership.

One thing I did like was that all the characters are older. The heroes are in their forties and the heroines are late 30s to late 40s. There aren’t too many books that feature protagonists over forty and this collection makes a good case that older doesn’t mean less sexy.

The sex scenes in the story are well done and the book is as hot as you’ve ever written. So long as the reader totally focuses on the fantasy, these stories are both romantic and sexy. I never did, however, buy into the idea that getting paid for sex, particularly in the manner that these women were paid, was empowering at all. Being a courtesan in the historical time period was empowering because it was one of the only ways a woman could be truly independent. In modern times, however, I have a hard time believing in this fantasy, no matter how convincing the pen of the storyteller. C+

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Show and Tell by Jasmine Haynes
2. REVIEW: Fair Game by Jasmine Haynes
3. REVIEW: Unlaced by Jaci Burton, Jasmine Haynes, Joey Hill, Denise Rossetti

I hadn’t read you before and honestly, I didn’t think I would like this book. The reason for this isn’t grounded in any good reason, but a fairly superficial one, but I’ll articulate it in case other readers make these snap judgments.

I had started the book Fortune Hunter and read about three pages. It featured an ugly duckling of a heroine who was fat. I skimmed through it and found that the heroine wore a size 8 and decided that the book wasn’t worth reading. I also think these covers don’t help. There’s a huge difference between embarassing and bland, Penguin Art Deptartment, and these covers and the hideous new Joey Hill cover, fall into the bland.

Sorry, back from the cover tangent. In any event, because I received this book for free, I started to page through it and by the end of the second chapter, I was hooked. The story starts out a bit ordinary and predictable. Heroine (rich girl Trinity) comes home and finds her husband of six months in a shower going down on a big chested bimbo. She is enraged, not just because her husband is cheating on her, but because the way in which he’s going about cheating on her, encouraging the blonde bimbo to be wild and noisy and into it.

Trinity leaves, goes to her Daddy to get him to start the divorce proceedings and beds down in a hotel room wherein she decides to pleasure herself. Scott Sinclair is in the neighboring room and can hear the moans from next door. He’s half amused and half turned on. When he doesn’t hear any corresponding male noises, he susses out that Trinity is by herself and proceeds to knock on her door to ask if he could just watch her.

Trinity acquiesces after some convincing and proceeds to have a mind blowing orgasm. Instead of falling all over each other, though, Trinity shows Sinclair the door and they both believe that this is it – a chance encounter. It’s at this point that I realize that I might be reading something I just can’t predict.

The story evolves as Trinity and Scott begin a sexual relationship which is comprised initially of mostly phone sex and other public encounters. There’s a real build up to intercourse which serves as kind of a metaphor for the relationship. Scott wants to have a relationship with Trinity. She’s the most exciting thing in his life for years. Trinity, on the other hand, enjoys calling the shots and doesn’t reveal her true identity to him because she’s in love with this person she’s created when she is with Scott. Trinity is trying to find herself, although she really doesn’t recognize it early on.

As Trinity and Scott continue to see each other, it is in increasingly risky circumstances. Risk of being caught. Risk of getting in trouble for allowing their sexual addiction to each other to overcome boundaries. Their sexual escapades become a struggle for control. Trinity controls by keeping her identity a secret. Scott by keeping Trinity from the sexual release that she seems to need.

The story crescendoes with a tinge of desperation on both sides as each tries to show the other who has the power. This story relies on the characters and their relationship to provide the suspense.

The story is much more than about the sexual relationship of the two, although that is the primary focus of what contact the two have. But more and more Trinity and Scott recognize that the other has something that has been missing in their lives. With Trinity, Scott begins to let go of his devotion to his job that had caused problems in his previous marriage. With Scott, Trinity lets go of her inhibitions and starts to recognize her need for independence and her previous worthless lifestyle.

One other thing I should mention is that Scott is the CFO of a company and he sounded like a CFO. I figure you must have some accountancy background because both characters are involved in the financial aspects of the company and the details of the financial work sounded very accurate. (Okay, I also make this assumption because I looked up your backlist and it seems to feature alot of CFOs).

The eroticism was inextricably intertwined with the story, both of the character arcs and the relationship arc. It was a great surprise and I am anxious to read the backlist of Jasmine Haynes, including the previously passed up The Fortune Hunter.

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon or Powells. No ebook format at this time.

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