I can go weeks and barely find anything to buy from the usual erotic publisher’s sites. I check New Concepts, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain and Siren. First I got Tymber Dalton’s latest installment on the Triple Trouble series, then in the last 14 days I found 4 more, all ménage. Funny how things come in clumps like that.
All the books in Part One and Part Two of these reviews are technically novels, between 145 and 180 pages, but with typeface and lines per page, Kansas City Shuffle (by all appearances one of the longest based on page count) was actually much shorter. Rules of Desire was far longer at just under 80,000 words and Wolf and Total Recall longer still – even though they had fewer pages. (By comparison, Dalton’s Three Dog Night was only 42,000 words.)
Since only Siren does an actual word count, I did a rough word count per page by selecting one full page each from Wolf, Total Recall and Kansas City Shuffle. Wolf and Total Recall, both from New Concepts publishing, had over 640 words per page. Kansas City Shuffle had about 350 words per page – a HUGE difference. Doing a quick calculation, that makes KCS about less than 60,000 words while Total Recall and Wolf are closer to 90,000+ words and you got a far more complete story for your money. Keep word counts in mind when looking for ebooks and ignore the page counts as they can be VERY misleading.
First up are Kansas City Shuffle and Rules of Desire. Tomorrow I’ll post the reviews on Wolf and Total Recall.
- Title: Kansas City Shuffle
- Author: Talya Bosco
- Type: Contemporary Paranormal Romance
- Genre: Werewolf
- Sub-genre: Ménage, plus-size
- My Grade: C (3*)
- Rating: NC-17
- Length: Sold as Novel length: approx 60,000 words
- Where Available: Loose-Id as an ebook
Kansas City Shuffle is a variation on werewolves in modern society. The best part of this book is the heroine, who comes across as a real person – with a few quirks. Larissa Myles is an accountant who won a contest to visit Kansas City, the location of her favorite erotic romance author specializing in ménage werewolf stories. Little does she know the stories are based on the woman’s own life and the way the pack lives.
Part of the winning ‘package’ is dinner on three different nights with a cover model from the author’s books. The first night Larissa goes to the hotel dining room for dinner with a male model she sees a real hunk who the hostess calls “Mr Jared”. Yum – he’s as good as any of the models and she all but drools. Then she learns her model ‘date’ has a family emergency and she ends up having dinner with the husband of the publicist, Susan, who picked her up at the airport. Next day she gets a shopping spree and while modeling a dress she sees anther hunk, Devon, and he asks for a date – and she agrees. She’s here for a good time, so why not?
That night she has her next date with a model and he’s just insulting, disapproving of her size, her clothes, and her meal. She dumps him and goes to leave when the nice waiter offers a table elsewhere. And there’s Jared. She dines with him and it’s a slow seduction ending in her suite and they he invites her to the art museum next day and then goes to have dinner with Devon that night – but it’s a setup. In fact, everything is a setup, even the contest.
Devon and Jared are the alphas of the werewolf pack and Jared’s mother used the contest to find them a suitable mate. Now they have to convince Larissa to stay, preferably with both of them.
Despite the misleading page count, this was a short novel and easy to read, but entertaining with a somewhat different spin on the usual werewolf mating story, but no real depth to the characters or story.
- Title: Rules of Desire
- Author: Leah Brooke
- Type: Contemporary Romance
- Genre: Erotic, series
- Sub-genre: Ménage
- My Grade: C (3*)
- Rating: xxx
- Length: 78,906 words (per Siren)
- Where Available: Siren as an ebook
Leah Brooke has a large and loyal following in the erotic romance community and the Desire series is very popular. I liked one most of the way through, and it might have been the second most liked, until the last few chapters. This is the story of Erin Robinson, the sister of Rachel from Book 1 of the Desire series. Erin quit her job and came to help her sister when her ex-husband threatened her. Now she owns half the lingerie store in Desire and is fending off the three Preston brothers, Jared, Duncan and Reece. The Christmas party is difficult because she has to keep avoiding the mistletoe. Since Rachel is pregnant and she isn’t much of a drinker, both are having the virgin margaritas, though for some reason she feels drunk.
The three Preston brothers have been waiting as patiently as they can for Erin to come around to the idea of being with three men. They coax her to their table and while plying her with food wonder how she could be drunk on virgin margaritas. Then they realize she’s not drunk, she’s been drugged. They race her to the hospital and it turns out someone dropped GHB into the margarita mix she was drinking – but no one else’s. She was the only target.
Since Erin can’t be alone during her recovery, and her sister is in no condition to look after her, the Prestons take her to their ranch. Jared and Reece go to her apartment over the store to get some of her clothes and the stairs collapse under them. The supports were cut out. Now the three brothers are determined to keep her safe – and seduce her while they can.
Erin has no real trust in men and these ménage arrangements in Desire worry her. She’s convinced that her sister’s husbands will get jealous of each other and then she’ll need to be there for Rachel. That’s a large part of why she’s stayed. Overcoming her doubts is no easy task for the Prestons, especially under these circumstances. The story unfolds with long sex scenes that are hot, interspersed with threats to Erin’s life to give it some shred of storyline. Who’s doing it is something of a surprise – mostly because there’s no secondary character development. Not a lot of story and frankly, Erin’s big guilt trip/nightmare issue is really rather lame.
Unfortunately, after the attacker is caught and Duncan recovers from his head injury, the brothers decide Erin has to lean some discipline and Rules of Desire goes down the drain. This is where I started disliking the story. I get cross-eyed with this crap. Plenty of sex – mostly sex, but lighter on story than the other Desire books other than at the beginning. For me, Blade’s Desire remains the best in this series by far.
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