REVIEW: Afternoon Delight by Anne Calhoun
Dear Ms. Calhoun,
I’ve read and enjoyed a few of your novellas in the past, so when an ARC of your new 164 page offering, Afternoon Delight, was made available to DA’s reviewers, I requested it. Afternoon Delight is set in New York City and features a hero whom readers of your novella Breath on Embers have met before.
Tim is a paramedic with the FDNY. Racing from one rescue attempt to another, he finds it easier to live life at a fast pace because it keeps him from feeling too much. Since he sees so much aging and death at his job, he is afraid to slow down and really feel. Casual hook ups fit his life and serious relationships do not.
So it’s a good thing that Sarah, a food truck chef Tim meets in the park one day, isn’t looking for a serious relationship. Sarah used to be just like Tim, footloose and fancy-free, until she cared for her dying aunt. That experience taught her to slow down and savor the moment. Before she died, Sarah’s aunt made her promise to go back and find the carefree girl she used to be.
Tim is a New York native while Sarah has only recently relocated from San Francisco. The first time they meet, Sarah and her business partner are trying new sauces, and Tim is willing to be her tasting guinea pig. The second time they meet, Tim asks her over and at his tiny apartment, they have hot, competitive and enthusiastic sex.
Tim loses a bet that he can keep from grabbing Sarah, and Sarah issues him a new challenge—if he can keep from getting off for a whole week, he can do whatever he likes to her when they meet again. The dinner Sarah cooks for Tim on that occasion is sublime, and as for the challenge, well, I won’t spoil it.
Sarah and Tim see each other while never officially dating. Tim shows Sarah New York’s sights, sounds and tastes and helps her learn to appreciate the city despite its frenetic page. Sarah begins to realize she is developing feelings for Tim, and Tim gets a glimmer of a clue that sex with Sarah is so hot because it’s more than sex.
But can Tim keep from slowing down and feeling if he and Sarah progress to a relationship? Can he overcome his fears enough to do so? And how will Sarah handle it if he tries to prevent the connection between them from growing beyond a simple afternoon delight?
Afternoon Delight is fun and well-written. There were many things I enjoyed about it, from the New York City milieu to the sex-positive approach to the story. Sarah was never slut-shamed or judged for liking sex—not by Tim, not by her friend and business partner Trish, and I never, ever felt the author was judging her. Thank you for that.
I also really, really liked that like Tim, Sarah could be playfully bossy in the bedroom. It is so nice to come across a heroine who isn’t a “natural submissive” but rather one who can enjoy both top and bottom. I wish there were more heroines like that.
Sarah was as a good sport, someone who knew how to have fun, but she could also be gentle and compassionate when a compassionate and gentle touch was needed. She was there for Tim when that moment came.
Another aspect of Sarah I enjoyed was her love of cooking and the way it was incorporated into the novella. Sarah’s awareness of good flavors and desire to savor each bite facilitated and enhanced Tim’s journey from speeding through life to slowing down enough to smell the coffee – or the split pea soup.
I thought the chemistry between Tim and Sarah was very nice but Tim was a harder character for me to connect with. I liked his attitude toward the guys he worked with and toward Casey, a new guy whom Tim was helping train on the job. Tim was a good guy down to his bones, so I couldn’t help liking him even with his approach to getting through life, from shoving food down fast to keeping his relationships simple. But his determination to speed through everything so as to feel nothing took me a long time to empathize with.
Tim saw a lot of death and suffering at his work but I think what tripped me up was that he hadn’t raced through life the same way in earlier years at the same job. For that reason, I expected there to be a revelation about an event that had caused him to choose to change his pace. There wasn’t any one thing that had caused that, it turned out. And when I think about his job and his past, his choice makes perfect sense, but I wanted that to be something I felt in my heart and not just understood in my head.
Even so, there was so much to like in this novella, from the fun challenges Tim and Sarah set for each other, to Tim’s relationships with his fellow paramedics and an elderly couple he got to know on the job, to Sarah’s relationship with food, and of course, Tim and Sarah’s journey to coupledom. I especially liked the last few scenes and the romantic gesture near the end. B-/B.
Sincerely,
Janine
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I liked this one too! And I pretty much agree with all you said. I got the impression that Tim was just older and maybe even jaded, so that’s why he slowed down a bit. His relationship with Casey showed just how he was in a different place, even though he kept telling himself he was just going to speed through life, so to me, the story showed us that he was fooling himself and that’s what made it easier for me to believe –and feel– that he was ready for a change.
And I really, really liked Sarah ;-)
For me it wasn’t bad, but it lacked the intensity of some of Calhoun’s past work, and felt a bit by the numbers. I agree with Brie’s take on Tim, and felt that both he and Sarah read older than the ages given for them. The details of their professional lives, and how they were affected by their work in other contexts, was great. I expect sex-positive writing from Calhoun, though I think it might be more challenging to write a heroine like Rachel from Uncommon Passion than Sarah. So I didn’t dislike it, but I feel that Calhoun is capable of more.
I really dislike the cover, which has nothing to do with the story, the setting or the characters.
@Rose: Great points! Wasn’t Tim in his late 30’s, though? If he was younger and I just remember him older, that just proves your point. Calhoun usually writes confident, self-aware heroines, and they always have good reasons to be that way, regardless of their age, so I don’t mind if they read a bit older. But Rachel is definitely her most challenging heroine so far, not just as a writer (although I’m not a writer, so I wouldn’t know) but also for the reader, because that book doesn’t have an easy premise.
@Brie:
I agree that the story showed he was fooling himself. I also didn’t have any difficulty believing he was ready for a change. My frustration was centered around wanting to understand better why he preferred to speed through life–and I don’t mean just with relationships, but also with food and it seemed, other things. Maybe that shows that like Rose, I wanted more intensity in the story sooner? I’m not sure.
@Rose: I think I liked it better than you, a lot because I liked Sarah so much, as well as the work life details. And I’m always happy to see a story set in New York, although I feel Calhoun could bring the city to life even better. While I too expect sex-positive stories from Calhoun by now, I still think it’s worth noting. I haven’t read the Uncommon books or any of her full-length novels, just a handful of her novellas.
Interesting comment about wanting more intensity–I’m inclined to agree, but really I feel that it isn’t necessarily intensity I needed so much as for the novella to dig a little deeper into Tim’s issues and maybe for the relationship conflict to come to a head sooner. That would have likely brought a little more intensity though. Maybe another way is saying it is that the beginning was delightful and I loved the end, but in the middle there things were in a bit of a holding pattern. Still, I liked this one and think it’s worth reading.
@Brie: He’s 32. Sarah’s in her mid twenties, I think.
@Janine: I’ve mostly read her full-length novels, and would definitely recommend Uncommon Passion. This one just kind of read like things she’s done before – Tim was a bit of a repeat of Hunter from Liberating Lacey, though without Hunter’s trust issues, and for that matter Trish was rather like Lacey’s friend who coaches her on hookups. I could also see similarities to some of her other work. It’s not bad, I just wanted more.
@Rose: I’m currently on my…3rd re-read of Liberating Lacey and I was thinking that the review descriptions really reminded me a lot of Liberating Lacey.
@ MrsJoseph: I haven’t read Liberating Lacey (though I have it in the TBR pile) so I can’t weigh in on the similarities. I did like this novella but I agree with Rose on the cover. It has nothing to do with the contents.
I loved Liberating Lacey but didn’t love Uncommon Passion. I’ve been looking for another non-menage book from her to try. This sounds good.
Totally agree about the cover–maybe for a billionaire and burlesque dancer. I’d never have known it was about a paramedic and a chef.
@Jill Sorenson: I hope you enjoy it!
LOL. Exactly!
@Jill Sorenson: Well, I guess either the billionaire or the dancer could be moonlighting. But not in this book :)
I agree that Liberating Lacey is really good. I actually liked it better on reread then the first time I read it.