REVIEW: A Touch of Confidence by Jess Dee
WARNING: This review, like A Touch of Confidence, contains lots of sexually explicit language.
Dear Ms. Dee,
For readers who don’t want to spend their time reading a review of a novella I found weak, here’s a quick summary:
[spoiler]
Sex on the floor–he’s sure she’ll be receptive to back door loving later.
Discussion about a lease.
More sex.
Lease signed.
Backdoor sex.
True love.
[/spoiler]
For readers who would like a bit more explanation, here goes.
For a romance novel to work, there must be a conflict, something that prevents the hero and heroine from easily finding regular raunchy and/or restful joy in one another’s arms. This book, A Touch of Confidence, begins with a fairly straightforward if dull conflict–the hero has leased a store the heroine thought was leased to her. This conflict is essentially resolved a little less than half-way through the book.
So what’s left? Well, we have the two leads, Jack Wilson, Jr. and Claire Jones, and a lot of crazy monkey sex. Claire and Jack meet and immediately are consumed by lust. Claire thinks,
If she’d been forced to describe him, she’d have to invent a hot Avenger concoction. Like a mixture of Captain America, Thor, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark all rolled into one heart-stopping, sexy guy.
Jack’s equally struck,
Jack stared at the Amazonian warrior standing before him. With her hazel eyes flashing, her mouth set in a serious expression and her honey-blond hair tumbling over her shoulders, he thought he’d never seen a more fascinating woman….
She was… enchanting, with a voluptuousness Mother Earth herself would envy.
“Unless you want me to strip you naked and fuck you in this car, right here, in the middle of Mosman,” he rasped, “I suggest you climb out very quickly.”
They check out an unsuitable store, then drive to the one Jack really wants Claire to accept. Within moments of entering that store the two are naked and having wild monkey sex. Let me add, it’s wild monkey sex interspersed with Jack quoting Shakespeare.
He was so turned on, so hot, his cock ached like the devil. If he could, he’d unzip his pants, free his cock and palm himself, just to get some relief. But this wasn’t about him. This was about Claire. About making her feel as beautiful as he thought she was.
“Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou growest.”He dragged his tongue from her clit, over her pussy and down, almost reaching her hidden rosette.
She froze. Her soft moans quieted. Even her breath was silenced. But she didn’t object.
Jack grinned to himself, and wrapped that observation safely away for another time. Then he repeated the action, over and over and over, waiting for her breath to catch again and for her cries of pleasure to fill the room.
There are some non-sex moments in the book. Claire thinks she’s fat, Jack shows her she’s not. Jack’s grandfather is dying, Claire comforts Jack. It’s set in Australia. But mostly, it’s about sex. I guess it’s hot although it all began to run together for me. I was taken aback however by this paragraph.
Tonight he would make Claire his—in every possible way. Starting with her pussy, then claiming her ass, and after, demanding her heart. She had his. Absolutely and completely. It was only fair she give him hers.
I’ve never thought of winning one’s true love in quite this order. (For those hoping for more kink, I must let you know, in this book, she doesn’t get his ass.)
This novella bored me. There was too much crazy monkey sex and too little real connection between the main characters. If you’ve been craving a book where the guy quotes Shakespearean sonnets during cunnilingus, I can recommend this book. To the rest of the romance reading world, I can’t. I give it a C-.
~Dabney
Mental note: no Shakespeare in the middle of oral sex. Got it!
Makes me so glad that I’m out of my twenties (and thirties) now that anal sex appears to be on the menu.
@Deb: I’d say whatever floats your boat re. quoting Shakespeare during oral, but since the gist of these particular lines is “you’ll live on in my immortal verse even after death,” I’d be a bit disconcerted, to say the least, if a guy said that to me. Why’s he thinking about my death right now? Especially if he is not, in fact, a poet? How is he planning to immortalize me?
If she’d been forced to describe him, she’d have to invent a hot Avenger concoction. Like a mixture of Captain America, Thor, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark all rolled into one heart-stopping, sexy guy.
I’m pretty sure I read that fanfic…
Ok I admit it, I’m confused. If he’d already gotten to her clit, what the heck is a hidden rosette? They’re not one and the same? And to think, I thought I knew everything! :>)
Sounds like a case file for the ever-growing redundancy of erotic novellas.
@Liz Mc2: I looked up immortality through cunnilingus in my big ol’ Tricky Book of Romance Rules and was told that it requires some form of paranormal activity. This not helping much, I then looked up Shakespeare quoting during cunnilingus and received the more probable answers of (a) your hero is a douche; or (b) your author is affected. Being bored, I also cross-referenced immortality through fellatio and it said “every single time, baby.” If I hadn’t made the whole thing up, I’d think the rule book was written by a guy.
@Sandypo: Unless I’m missing some area of the female anatomy, I believe “hidden rosette” is a euphemism for your anus.