Review: When Grumpy Met Sunshine

I have loved some of Charlotte Stein's erotic romance work. I would go so far as say she is one of the very few erotic romance writers out there that I will even bother to read anymore. Why? She writes passion. Not an endless series of kinks supposedly there to titillate - actual passion. The kind of soul-searing passion that has the reader gripping their Kindle and screaming "OMG WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO KISS ALREADY I CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS!!!!!!!"

Ahem

Which would make one think that I'd be super anxious to read her new contemporary romance, When Grumpy Met Sunshine the minute I scored an ARC many (many) months ago. Oh gentle blog reader, let me give you a peak inside Wendy's warped reader brain:

1) Apparently the hero of this book was inspired by the Roy Kent character on Ted Lasso. I refuse to get Apple TV (I realize I've sold my soul to Google but I have an deep-seated dislike for Apple), have never seen Ted Lasso, and have no idea if the hero in this book is remotely like Roy Kent. What I do know is I loathe when authors let "inspirational" tidbits like this slip. My mind immediately goes to fan-fiction and stays there.

2) It cannot be overstated how much I hate the illustrated cover trend on EVERY. SINGLE. CONTEMPORARY. ROMANCE. being published. Stein writes sexy. I KNOW she writes sexy.  This cover is about as sexy as my elderly grandmother's cotton dressing gown.

3) While I'm at it - I kind of hate the "grumpy sunshine" thing. Hey remember when we didn't have cute names for everything in the genre?  We just called this shit Opposites Attract.

Thanks, now get off my lawn.

Anyway, the book. Reviews for this one are all over the place. Readers seem to really be loving it or really not loving it. I was firmly set on dragging my feet and probably unearthing this ARC from my Kindle three years from now (as you do), but Azteclady told me to read it, so I moved it up the queue. 

And here I am - word vomiting all over my blog. You're welcome.

Alfie Harding is a grumpy ex-footballer (soccer for us Americans...) who is getting harassed into writing his memoirs.  For that he needs a ghostwriter, of which he's scared off a good many already with his surly, uncooperative attitude.  Finally, in a last ditch effort to get this thing done, the publisher brings in Mabel Willicker, cute as cotton candy fluff, There's bickering, there's a lot of romcom-style banter, and the partnership ends up sticking. She's needling him, getting him (ever so slowly) to open up, and some progress is being made - until this business relationship gets mistaken for a new romance and is splashed all over social media and the British tabloids. There's nothing for it, to extricate themselves from the misunderstanding, and to get the book done, they have to fake it.  That is until they make it - which boy howdy...

Stein has a very particular writing style that takes some getting used to. As much as I have loved some her work, I recognize this as a hurdle not everyone will clear - so I always tell readers to try a sample first. It'll save you time. 

This one kicks off with a lot of banter and a lot of romcom style shenanigans. Unfortunately, after a while, the banter doesn't seem to go anywhere. They're talking in circles. In fact they're talking without really saying a whole lot or worse still - not saying enough.  Stein teases the reader with some really interesting character backstory (both Alfie and Mabel had alcoholic fathers and grew up in working class neighborhoods) but none of it is explored with much depth.  Alfie carries the baggage of his reputation (a brawling, bruising footballer) while Mabel carries the sting of a thousand cuts of living in a fatphobic world.  Girls that look like Mabel do not date guys like Alfie.  This is all good stuff, stuff I could sink my teeth into and yet? Endless, endless banter. Just streams of it.  And for all the talking that these two do they decide to stop talking at the end to necessitate a third act break-up (that lasts a year!) and then we get THE WORLD'S LONGEST EPILOGUE where all the heartfelt emotion comes pouring out and we get the happy ending.

Look, I'm not a monster - this one managed to hit me in the feels in a few places. Even during the THE WORLD'S LONGEST EPILOGUE. But in the end it's the lack of emotional depth (I needed more of the backstory to really root for these two as a couple) and the pacing that held this back for me. The trademark Stein tension seemed muted here (probably because I needed more character backstory...) and the sex is all backloaded in the final third of the story. I wasn't anxious for them to "do it" because the tension was so thick, I was anxious for them to "do it" because I was hoping that maybe more emotional bits would rise to the surface.  They do - in THE WORLD'S LONGEST EPILOGUE but by that point I was ready to move on. Some good parts but I never got the whole.

Final Grade = C+

Retro Wendy: Let’s Talk About Sex, or Not: Sexual Tension For the Win!

This post originally ran at Heroes & Heartbreakers on August 5, 2015

As long as the romance genre has existed, it has had unimaginative critics. Sometimes even before the word “trash” is uttered, we get “Mommy porn.” Women should know their place. If it’s something you enjoy, if it’s something you take pleasure in, it must be wrong, and nothing screams wrong quite like dismissing readers and suggesting they are “dirty” for liking something. What these critics are really reinforcing is the old adage that women shouldn’t like sex, talk about sex, and heaven help them, they shouldn’t want sex. The truth is that if these critics asked a large sample of romance readers why they enjoy the genre, “I read it for the smokin’ hot sex!” is pretty far down on the list, if it’s on the list at all. Oh dear, silly, hopeless naïve critics. We don’t read romance for the sex. We’re looking for all the delicious things that lead up to sex. The tension, the chemistry, the foreplay, two characters who are beginning to realize that taking on the world together is ever so much better than taking it on by themselves.

To illustrate this point, all three of these recent releases, of wildly varying heat levels, illustrate that it’s not the actual falling into bed we love – it’s the journey the characters take to get there.

Charlotte Stein writes erotic romance, a sub-genre that one would think would be “all about sex.” Except, of course, that it isn’t. Good erotic romance knows that it takes more than pages of kink and fetishes to make a story “hot” – to make the romance work. In Sweet Agony, Stein takes anticipation to a boiling point featuring a young woman looking to escape poverty and despair and a young man with a mountain of entitlements emotionally stunted by a past he’s unable to break free of. So haunted by a traumatic past, our hero is emotionally crippled at the mere thought of basic human touch. Which makes navigating a sexual attraction particularly tricky, but leads to a story filled with tension. That old saying about the brain being the biggest erogenous zone? Yeah, that.

He just did the equivalent of throwing everything in on a pair of jacks, so sure I would back down that he barely saw the straight flush lurking in the river. He was too explicit, too rude, too eager to say that word: spanked. He should never have said spanked. Maybe he could have to someone else, someone who cares only a little, someone less like him. But I am not nearly so closed off, nor so silly. And when he pushes, I push back.

...

I glance over my shoulder. I meet his gaze. His face is so pale it could pass for a fainting lady’s. And I say with the most relish I can muster: “Would you like me to leave my dress down, or do you prefer a bare work surface?” followed by the longest silence the world has ever known. It goes on and on and on, and the longer it does, the worse it gets. If nothing happens in the next thirty seconds I am almost definitely going to die. 

In The Fighter and the Fallen Woman, Pamela Cayne is working within a sensuality landscape that is fairly typical for the historical romance sub-genre. It’s in that middle ground between just-kisses and erotic romance. What this story features is a forbidden sexual attraction between a boxer/hired thug hero and a prostitute/mistress heroine who both happen to work for the same dangerous crime lord. The tension between the two hits a boiling point even before the reader is out of the first chapter, when our villain suggests his mistress kiss his fighter for “good luck,” something the hero, King, is reluctant to do.

“Come, King, it’s only a kiss,” Lady said, deliberately pitching her voice low. She would give the kiss and pray her trembling barriers would hold, keep her safe against the desire to close her eyes, breathe in his scent, and feel for one moment that a fighter and a fallen woman had a future together. 

…

“Lady, you should know when it comes to you, it’s never only anything,” he whispered so that only she could hear. “It’s everything.” 

…

He grabbed her hand only for an instant, but it was long enough to brand his touch on her skin before he let go. Lady pulled back and her eyes drifted open, her held breath slipping from her mouth and into his. King was right. This would never be only a kiss. 

Deeanne Gist started her career writing inspirational historical romances, but her most recent books have moved towards secular Americana. This has been a move that has not been met with enthusiasm by all of her fans, and there is criticism, in some circles, that Tiffany Girl is “pornographic.” This is laughable for the most part since the only love scene fades to black while the hero is helping the heroine out of her wedding ensemble….on their wedding night. But upon closer inspection, these critics have somewhat of a point. Gist does more with sexual tension in a “just kisses” historical romance than some erotic romance authors do with an encyclopedia of fetishes and a chest full of sex toys. Things heat up for our hero and heroine when they agree to help a photographer take a series of photographs of them dancing so he can make a phenakistascope.

Now they were cheek to cheek. Flossie’s face, nearest the camera, shielded his. Her ear lobe peeked out from beneath her coif and was within an inch of his mouth. He resisted, resisted, then could resist no more. He took a gentle tug with his lips. 

…

She closed her eyes, her lips there for the taking. He didn’t so much as breathe. “Okay. Ready?” Holliday settled himself beneath his shroud. “Just a few more shots.” Holliday took them through the rest of the dance, one step at a time. When she had her face shielded by Reeve’s, she blew across his ear.

...

The stairwell was silent. The hallway was silent. The rooms were silent. He didn’t know where everyone else was on this sunny Sunday afternoon, but he was thankful they weren’t around.  

He followed her back down to the first floor, narrowing his eyes. Were her hips swaying just a touch more than usual? Or maybe he was simply too attuned to her every move. When she began to enter her room, he grabbed her hand, hauled her to his room, shoved his door closed, pulled her against him, and took her mouth with his. 

All of these authors employ the use of tension to increase the personal stakes for their characters. Cayne introduces it to the reader from the very first chapter, in a first kiss scene the simmers and boils through the remaining early portions of the book and carry the reader to the eventual consummation. Stein and Gist both go a different route, keeping their characters apart by circumstance. Stein, with a hero who abhors anyone touching him and Gist with the social restrictions and mores of the time period. However, in the case of all of these books, something has to give. All of these characters are mere mortals, after all, and tension can only go on for so long until someone eventually snaps. It’s those delicious moments that lead up to the snapping that keep romance readers coming back for more.

Mini-Reviews: Princesses and Bullies

After my disastrous foray into reading the latest "it" book of the moment, I decided that I needed a little fun.  Brain candy. A chocolate chip cookie read. So naturally I went with a book that was written for a middle grade, juvenile audience and an erotic romance.  As you do.

Royal Wedding Disaster is the second book in Meg Cabot's From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess series.  It's a spin-off of her popular Princess Diaries series and Mia's half-sister, Olivia is the star of the show.  In this installment, the royal family is consumed with Mia's upcoming nuptials to Michael (and the fact that she's pregnant - with TWINS!), their father is consumed with renovating the summer palace, and Grandmere has her own plans for making Mia's wedding one for the ages - much to Mia's...uh, "delight."

It's only been one month since Olivia found out she's a princess but she's been busy!  She has her own pony (squee!) and like Mia once did is taking "princess lessons" from Grandmere.  She's also helping Grandmere with the wedding, in between starting a new school (ugh!), having her "first crush," and running afoul of her Mean Girl cousin.

This is a children's book so there's not a lot for me to say here except it's cute, the characters are delightful, and I loved returning to the world that Cabot has created.  I appreciate that while Cabot has returned to this world, Olivia isn't a cookie-cutter of Mia (for one thing, Olivia is more "sure of herself" than Mia was as a teen) and that the author has moved the series out of New York City to the fictional Genovia.  I also don't think it can be overstated that Olivia is biracial - the product of an affair her father had with her pilot mother (now deceased).  I know the "princess thing" is fairly loaded (thank you Disney...) but little brown girls deserve fairy tales as much as little white girls and Cabot has created a pretty sweet one.

Final Grade = B

There have been a ton of glowing, squee'ing reviews for Never Sweeter by Charlotte Stein.  Brace yourself, Wendy won't be squee'ing.  Oh, I liked it.  But given the obscene amount of hype I read about this book I expected to love it beyond all reason and....I didn't.

Letty Carmichael graduated high school two years ago and is just now starting college.  She had an accident thanks to a group of meat head jocks who were her high school tormentors (nothing involving sexual assault).  Imagine her horror when she looks up in her film class to see one of those tormentors, Tate Sullivan, sitting in the lecture hall.

Despite Letty's initial terror (and really, who could blame the girl!), what follows is this slow unfolding romance between her and Tate...her former bully.

I will give Stein credit - this concept is inspired and could have been a dumpster fire.  Given the severity of Letty's accident, and Tate's involvement, the fact she doesn't explore options to get the hell away from him (oh, a restraining order?) or that her parents have zero role in this story (your kid has a horrible accident thanks to a group of bullies and one of them shows up at your daughter's small college and they aren't on the page at all outside of a mentioned phone call early on - and not mentioned AT ALL once Letty and Tate hook up.  Maybe it's just me - but my parents would have had PLENTY to say about that....).  So even though Letty's mental struggle is evident on the page, it really, truly didn't feel like enough to me.  Also, as far as guy's go - Tate oftentimes read like Wish Fulfillment Guy.  He says the things women readers want to hear, but his personal growth (seemingly all on his own - it's like the light magically dawns one day) weren't always convincing for me.

But Wish Fulfillment is a powerful thing (I'm not immune), I liked Letty, I even liked Tate (who is totally smitten with her).  There's lots of dirty talk, a lot of Sexy Times outside of Insert Tab A Into Slot B, and Stein writes the tap dance just about as well as anyone.  But (and you knew there was a but...) - there's a shortcut written into the Black Moment that just smacked me with incredulity.  I kid you not...it involves the mob.  Yes, the mob.  It's borderline absurd and, in my opinion, totally unnecessary.  There's enough baggage between the couple (boy howdy!), enough emotional turmoil that honestly?  THE MOB?!?!?!  It's like someone putting a warm, gooey cinnamon roll in front of you, dripping with decadent cream cheese icing, and when you take a big bite?  Ick.  They put nasty, shriveled up raisins in it.

So while this is good - no, it's not great.  You want great?  Read Stein's Sweet Agony instead.

Final Grade = B

Novella Mini-Reviews: An Autobuy and Time Travel

So anybody who has been around the Bat Cave for more than a week knows that I love me some Charlotte Stein.  Her writing "voice" is a little eccentric, but she always delivers in the passion department and isn't prone to relying too much on Kinky Trends of the Moment.  That being said, readers - we are a fickle lot.  I have yet to have one author whose books I universally have loved across the board.  Because, you know, readers.  We're wacky.  Taken ended up just being OK for me - mostly because I had a hard time with the set-up.

Rosie and her friend are in the hero's rare bookstore up to no good.  I'm not sure why, other than they're young, impulsive and for some reason they think the hero is weird or mean or whatever.  The friend is literally going to start a fire.  In a bookstore.  I found this....horrifying.  Naturally the hero catches them in the act, they take off running - but not before the hero snags Rosie - drags her back to his shop and proceeds to handcuff her to the bed in his basement apartment.

He handcuffs her to keep her in one place until he can call the police.  But then they start talking.  And talking.  And honestly this hero talks entirely too much.  And Rosie flusters him and eventually they work out the whole handcuffing "to do," he never calls the cops, and yada yada yada.

Stein doesn't write "meet cutes," she writes "meet awkwards."  That said, nothing about this set-up worked for me.  1) The heroine is in a bookstore with her BFF who plans to commit ARSON (!!!!!), 2) There's the whole contrived handcuffing to the bed thing and 3) They talk entirely too much, in circles and it made my head hurt. 

Things did get better though the more I read though.  Stein finishes strong and the sex scenes are Whoa Baby!  But the set-up.  It just really didn't work for me.  It's obviously worked for other readers I know (I've read reviews) - but everything about it rubbed me the wrong way.  Hey, they can't all be winners.

Final Grade = C+

Mine Tomorrow by Jackie Braun is a super-short novella (88 pages) that I bought because 1) I've liked Jackie Braun's category romances in the past and 2) World War II setting.  Short, I've like the author's work in the past and WWII was more than enough for me to overlook that time travel stories aren't my usual jam.

The heroine owns an vintage clothing store and since college has been having really vivid dreams about a man, dressed in 1940s military garb trying to reach her in a crowd of people, or while the bus she's on is driving away etc.  She wakes up before they can ever connect.  Then one day she buys some clothes at an estate sale, falls in love with a 1940s style coat, and finds a vintage time piece in the pocket.  Before you can say bippity-boppty-boo, she's in Time Square on V-J Day 1945.  There she meets our hero, just home from the war, who turns out to be her husband.

Complications ensue.  Is this just another dream?  Is she really in 1945?  And if this really is 1945, what of her sister back in present day?  Literally all her sister has is the heroine (their parents died several years ago in a car accident).

For such a short word count I thought this story felt surprisingly complete, although there are short-cuts.  The author doesn't have time to unravel any complicated time-travel theories (probably for the best - most time travel books fall apart for me during the "explanation phase") and gets right down to business.  However the short word count also means we don't have a slow build on the romance and we're jumping in feet first.  There are moments when too much telling comes into play, or weird historical factoids crop up that I felt were totally unnecessary (yes, I know more people smoked in 1945 because people didn't realize that smoking could kill you back then!).  It's also the kind of novella where if you start pulling at loose threads things will begin to unravel as you question "What about..." and "What if..."  Remember, it's only 88 pages long!

You know what this story is perfect for?  Those moments when you're stuck in line at the DMV or the baby FINALLY went down for a nap after fighting one for the past 2 hours and you don't have the time or inclination to get sucked into a long, drawn-out novel and you just want something quick to unwind and pass the time.  This short story is perfect for that.  It's like having a Hershey Kiss instead of dunking your whole face into a chocolate fountain (not that I've ever done such a thing...)

For that reason?  I wouldn't say you should drop your life and download this right now - but if it ends up on sale or you need a quick read when you literally have precious time to spare?  It's ideal.

Final Grade = B-

#TBRChallenge 2016: Curveball

The Book: Curveball by Charlotte Stein

The Particulars: Contemporary erotic romance novella, digital-only, 2013 w/ Xcite (edition I have), 2015 Self-Published

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: At some point this was a freebie, and having just discovered Charlotte Stein, I immediately snapped it up.  These days, Stein is now an autobuy.

The Review: One of my personal goals for the TBR Challenge is to focus on my print TBR.  So much so that when I was traveling last weekend I actually packed a print book to read.  I got 100 pages into that book before admitting I was bored out of my skull and DNF'ed it. I wasn't home, so the print TBR was off limits which meant it was the Kindle or nothing.  So I went scouring through my non-review pile and found this short (roughly 80 pages) by Stein. And I loved every single word of it.

Judy has just split from her boyfriend so when her brother offers her a vacation aboard his "yacht" (OK, small boat), she says yes - expecting it just to be her brother and his wife and a nice chance to get away.  She did not expect Steven Stark, her brother's BFF to also be on board.  Judy and Steven grew up together.  He was always around dragging her brother into various scraps and was there to tease her and give her noogies.  Judy is...well let's call her festively plump and Steven is also a big guy, with a body builder-like physique.  He's also a playboy, jumping from one girl to the next, skipping over Judy who nursed a serious crush on him back in the day.  But something inside her snaps on this trip.  It's probably the "funny" story that Steven tells about falling into bed with a "big girl," while Judy's brother and sister-in-law laugh uproariously.  That story, Judy's reaction to it, set off a chain of events that, naturally, lead to something more between Judy and Steven.

I am convinced that Stein is almost single-handedly saving erotic romance from its trend-chasing self.  I know this is only a short story (which will likely be the biggest gripe for most readers), but the tension in this book!  The steamy sexual tension!  It's the kind of book where I was gripping my Kindle saying to myself, "Dear Lord when are they going to kiss already?!?!?!"  And when we finally get to the first actual sexual shenanigans scene?  Skinny-dipping in the Antarctic would have been welcomed.  Literally that's why you should read this story.  Yes, I know it's first person, present tense, we don't get the hero's point-of-view and it's a 80-page novella but DEAR LORD THE TENSION!!!!!!!

Minor quibbles come in at the end.  The I-love-yous may have been a touch fast, but at least these two people have a shared history.  Although there is no marriage proposal - so it's not like the author completely lost her mind.  The hero is - well, still slightly problematic.  He's kind of a jerk at times, but in the grand scheme of Romance Novel Jerk "Heroes," I'm not sure he'd even register on the scale in the genre world we're currently residing in.  He's more of a jerk from the "doesn't always think things through before he says them out loud" school.

Did this change my life?  OK, probably not.  But it's so well done.  It's textbook on what erotic romance really should be but sadly isn't always.  In fact I think it needs to be downloaded immediately and put in a "Break Glass In Case of Emergency" folder.  Read it after you slog through another book that confuses kink for tension or one that tries to convince you that the wannabe Dom "hero" isn't really a psycho stalker.

Final Grade = A-

The Sweetest Agony

At The Day Job I have a librarian who is in charge of purchasing all of our ebooks.  As a former fiction buyer, when I took my new job I was cognizant of the fact that I didn't want to lurk over anyone's shoulder like a gargoyle and micromanage them half to death.  So while I'll toss out the (very) occasional purchasing inquiry, I sit back and let them do their jobs.  And let me tell you, color me impressed with what they've been buying.  That's right, my ebook buyer picked up Sweet Agony by Charlotte Stein for the library system.  Quite possibly the hottest erotic romance I've read in a long time.  Why so hot?  Because Stein "gets" what makes the sub-genre work.  Throwing in kink and fetishes alone does not make a book "hot."  It's the tension.  It's the characterization.  Holy mother of sweet baby Jeebus, it's the foreplay.  And in the instance of Sweet Agony, it's the tension and foreplay that just about killed me D-E-A-D dead.  Let me put it this way - reading this book in public was uncomfortable.  But I mean that in the best possible way.

Molly Parker is a young woman one step away from slipping completely off the grid.  Desperate to escape a less-than-ideal home situation, and living below the poverty level, she answers an ad for a live-in housekeeper and has the strangest interview of her life.  Cyrian Harcroft has read too much Dickens and his house is straight out of Jane Eyre.  He's standoffish, aloof, and has a series of bizarre rules.  However none of this is off-putting to Molly, who recognizes something in Cyrian immediately, to the point where she's a swooning mess of hormones almost from the get-go.  The fly in the ointment?  Cyrian has "issues."  Quite a lot of them. Cyrian's upbringing, a past that still haunts him, has left him so emotionally stunted that he lives a virtual recluse and abhors human touch.  The mere thought of Molly invading his space and putting her hand anywhere on his person is enough to send him straight from bad mood into indignant rage.  But our hero?  He doth protest too much.  Because even while he abhors touch, and is emotionally stunted?  Molly scares the crap out of him and he can't get enough of being around her.

Cyrian and Molly both have baggage, and it's that baggage that actually feeds the sexual tension in the story.  Molly because she's so desperate to get close to Cyrian, but is frightened that she'll make a horrible mistake and blow any shot she has in reaching him.  Cyrian is so hung up in his anxieties and fears, and yet he cannot let Molly go.  On one hand he wants to pull her close, but on the other he's completely incapable of making that move.  So they tap-dance around each other, and take baby steps towards consummating their relationship in the traditional Insert-Tab-A-Into-Slot-B sense.  I'm talking foreplay folks. Reindeer games. Pretty much everything other than "traditional sex" wrapped around the fact that you have one character who doesn't like to be touched.

Words cannot express how well the tension of this conflict translates into the sexual relationship between the characters. In a sub-genre that can so easily lose it's way, Stein reminds us with this book that erotic romance is the hottest when the characters are doing everything other than getting naked with each other.

That being said, it's not a perfect book nor do I think it will be a book universally loved by everybody.  Stein works very well for me, but she does have writing ticks.  First person (which I personally enjoy), and lots of internal monologues.  I've loved many of her books, but I always walk away wishing there had been more dialogue.  Also, I felt like the author probably could have spent more time on the baggage.  You get the flavor, but not a full course meal of the angst.  Which is kind of good thing, but I wanted a bit more to make the happy ending a bit heftier.  You also need to go into this book with your Erotic Romance As Fantasy Goggles on, given the Gothic vibe that permeates much of the story.

But, quibbles.  I have not had the most stellar reading year thus far, so any book that elicits a strong emotional reaction out of me is worth it's weight in gold.  There were long stretches of this book where I was literally gripped by the text and I couldn't pull my eyes away from my Kindle screen.  The tension, the glorious delicious tension!  In the grand scheme of things this isn't even my favorite Stein offering to date, but it further illustrates what she does so well and why she works for so many erotic romance fans.  Yes, the writing quirks are there, but she's currently saving the genre for me.

Final Grade = A-

Under the Skin: Forbidden

I just finished The Thorn Birds on audiobook.  18 CDs of epic Australian saga centered around an illicit affair between an older priest and a younger woman.  So what book do I pluck from the depths of my Kindle after finishing that?  Forbidden by Charlotte Stein, of course!  Another romance about a priest (well, sort of) and an exorcism (of all things).  Dude. That's so kooky for a romance novel, how could I not want to read it?  Plus I tend to love Stein's work and the last book in this sorta-kinda series flipped a major switch for me back in December.

Forbidden tells the story of Dorothy (Dot) who has been a prisoner to her mother's delusions for the past 20 years.  Dot is a "bad girl," evil, possessed, which leads her mother to tying her to a bed and summoning the help of the Church.   Dot is prepared to come face-to-face with a priest who will likely pat her mother on the head and condone all her superstitious nonsense.  Instead it is Killian who comes to her rescue.

Killian is almost done with seminary and is very close to taking his vows.  He convinces his old mentor/teacher to let him inquire about Dot.  Naturally when he arrives at her mother's house he is horrified and rescues the girl.  Then he decides he will take her back to Boston, to a home for girls run by the Church, so she can acclimate to having a life outside of horrifying abuse.  The fly in the ointment?  Killian and Dot are powerfully attracted to each other.  The naive sheltered young woman and the almost priest.

This story could have been a disaster, and yet somehow Stein makes it work.  It helps that Killian is kind, decent and one gets the impression he chose the priesthood out of his desire to help people.  An attraction to Dot is a complication for him, but not one he brushes aside to hide behind the priesthood.  What I really liked here is that once he develops feelings for her, recognizes them as more than just a passing attraction, taking his vows are immediately reconsidered.  And post-Thorn Birds?  Let me tell you how refreshing that was!

Reading about Dot is almost like reading about an adolescent.  I liked that she wasn't a eunuch and didn't think of her attraction to Killian as "dirty" or "shameful."  However she's just spent her entire life with a woman who preached nothing but evil and possession - so Dot learning that having sexual feelings will not automatically lead to punishment or condemnation is very new to her. 

The sticking point for me in stories with these sorts of themes is that I get squirked out by the hero being attracted to the naive heroine.  Like he's "turned on" by the fact that he has to teach her about a lot of things - not just sex.  Stein completely avoided this pitfall.  Killian struggles with the attraction because he fears Dot is projecting her feelings on the man who "rescued" her.  Would Dot still be attracted to him if he hadn't of saved her from her mother?  Likewise, while Dot is somewhat of an innocent, I never felt like she was child-like in her behavior.  She's more of a dried sponge, thirsty for knowledge and soaking up every scrap that comes her way.

Stein has a very unique voice and her narrative style is very stream of consciousness.  That style is reined in considerably in this novella.  I would say it's probably the most restrained thing I've ever read by her (although I'm still working through her backlist).  That said, it's very heavy on internal monologues and I would have loved more dialogue.  Even factoring in my giant dialogue-ho tendencies, this novella was really light in the pants on that score.  I wanted more.

This one didn't have the same gut-punch effect as the first novella in the series had on me, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.  I liked how the author handled the religious elements, and skated around my usual reservations with naive, innocent heroines in contemporary romances.  Stein rarely disappoints (if ever!) for me and I'm looking forward to the final novella in this trilogy.

Final Grade = B

Under The Skin: Intrusion

You start a book.  You read a few chapters and think, "Hmmmm, this is OK. Maybe."  You're not quite sure if it's your thing or not, but you keep reading.  Then the author gut-punches you.  You swoon under the sheer weight of the emotion.  You wonder, how is she going to tie it all up?  And then?  AND THEN?!?!?!  You get to the finish line and you're thinking, "Wait. Is what I think is happening REALLY happening?!"

The answer would be yes.  And yes, the above is an exact moment by moment account of what my reading of Intrusion by Charlotte Stein was like.  It was one hell of a roller coaster ride.  I cannot remember the last time a story put me through these kinds of paces and for that?  Yep, my second A grade in a matter of days.

This is going to be a hard review to write, mostly because I think it's the sort of story one needs to go into "blind."  But I'm going to try.  Stein's latest follows the lives of two damaged people who have been touched by violence - Beth and Noah.  They meet when Beth, still picking up the pieces, thinks Noah has dog-napped her dog.  So even though his house looks like something out of a horror movie, she goes over there to confront him.  Naturally he did not, in fact, dog-nap her dog - but she soon realizes that her sleepwalking neighbor is also living in fear.  What follows is them tentatively forging a friendship, and succumbing to their mutual attraction for each other - which is, hello, complicated.

First things first - Stein has a very unique writing style.  She writes the way some of us think.  It's very stream of consciousness and can be a little jarring.  I like Stein's writing, but even so it still took me a few chapters to wrap my head around it.  So I always recommend that new readers download a sample before ponying up for the whole book.

Also, as much as I don't want to give too much away, given that both characters have been exposed to violence?  Expect some thriller elements at play here.  I have a hard time classifying it as romantic suspense - but if you're a reader who prefers to not read romantic suspense?  That's all I'm saying.

Now, on to the good stuff.  Of which there is so much in this story.  I read an exorbitant amount of romance, and of that?  I read my fair share of what can be classified as "erotic romance."  You would think this wouldn't be so hard to come by, but erotic romance with real passion?  With real intensity?  Not always easy to find or pull off and Stein does it with Beth and Noah.  The tension, the sizzle, these two tap-dancing around each other?  I'm getting heart palpitations just thinking about it.  This is a very common pitfall in the sub genre.  Authors get so hung up on writing about kink or fetish thinking that's going to make the book "hot" - when in reality?  No.  No it doesn't.  It just makes it kinky.  What makes a book "hot" is that intensity between the characters.  You know that saying about the brain being the biggest erogenous zone?  Yeah, Stein gets that.

She gets it because she excels at awkward.  People are people.  We like to think we're cool and suave and will say all the right things - but in reality?  No.  No we won't.  We're not cool.  We're not suave.  And for most of us, when we meet a person who gives us that zing of attraction?  We turn into blithering idiots who can't string a full sentence together.  Stein gets that.  She really, really gets that.

Instead of "meet cute" it's more like "meet holy crap did I just make an ass out of myself?  Of course I did."

Beth and Noah are the types of characters who aren't comfortable in their own skin.  They're damaged goods.  Damaged goods who are wildly attracted to each other but also frightfully scared.  With good reason.  These are people who need each other so desperately and yet you wonder if they're going to be able to get past the scared.  This is a romance, so they do - and those moments?  Oh happy sigh!

The ending is - well the ending is where this book is going to divide or conquer the reader.  I'll be honest - I can poke holes in it all day long.  Hell, I could drive a truck through the holes.  And yet?  I don't care.  Because by this point Stein had grabbed a hold of my hand and was dragging me along for the ride.  I was swept up in it.  The intensity.  The emotion.  I had ALL THE FEELS!!!  So yes.  Will the ending work for everybody?  No.  And I can respect that.

I read a lot and I've read a lot of good books this year.  But it's the amazing book, the cut above book, that sticks with me and sends me on a journey like Stein does here.  It's not going to be for everybody, but it totally was everything for me.

Final Grade = A

Telling Tales

What I enjoy about Charlotte Stein's erotic writing is that she's very capable in conveying all sorts of moods.  She's probably best known for the humor she infuses in her work (which I love!), but she can also write gut-wrenching and angsty when the mood strikes her.  Telling Tales features some of her trademark humor, but there are moments of emotional tug-of-war here between the heroine and the primary hero that really made me swoon.  Yes, technically, this is a menage story - but at the end of the day, it's all about Allie and Cameron.

When they were in college, Allie, Kitty, Wade and Cameron spent a lot of time at their writing professor's home.  Now the professor is dead and he's left all four of them his house - with the stipulation they spend one month living there.  Granted that sort of thing wouldn't hold up in court, but they're all tempted and can take the month away from their real lives to relive the past.  Walking through the door also means finally addressing old baggage - most notable being that Allie is hopelessly, desperately in love with Wade.  In college he spent all his time being "friends" with her while shagging every other girl within a 50 mile radius.  Allie isn't the most sexually adventurous person on the planet (she's considered a bit of a prude) but she sees this month-long forced proximity experiment as her chance to finally get Wade to open his eyes and see her.  Instead what she gets is an eyeful of Cameron.  Turns out while she was pining for Wade, Cam was pining for her.  Gee, what do you think is going to happen next?

I love Stein's voice, but her writing style does take some getting used to.  She's a bit stream-of-consciousness and it usually takes me a chapter or so to really sink into her world-building.  The plot here is a little on the thin side (it's never really explained to my satisfaction the professor's involvement in all of this), but if you're a sucker for house-party tropes, this one scratches that itch all while giving you debauched sexual shenanigans.  Dude, how peanut-butter-and-chocolate can you get?

Yes, erotic writers need to write "good sex" - but the very best erotic writers excel at writing "longing."  Stein pulls out all the stops here, especially with Cameron, who you practically bleed for on the page.  I didn't know whether I wanted to lick him from head to toe, hug him or take him home to meet Mom.  He's that delicious.  There are some S&M elements at play here (Cam would be in the M role), but the author doesn't drop the reader exclusively and extensively into that "world."  This is more like two people enjoying each other and finding out what flips their respective switches.  Honestly with the proliferation of "lifestyle" and "sex club" stories, it's really nice to read about two people just having some fun and experimenting on their own.  Because, you know, isn't that usually how this sort of thing plays out in real life, or is everybody a member of an exclusive BDSM club and they just haven't told me yet?

Naturally Wade and Kitty get in on the act, but even with two more partners added to the mix I never felt like the focus was taken away from the growing attraction between Cam and Allie.  Yes, Wade and Kitty are fun - but at the end of the day, Cam and Allie need to man-up and admit what they have with each other.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending (I wanted more blood on the page), but it ends with a lovely happy-for-now and it's entirely believable, in my own imagination, that these two are going to make it.  Cam certainly has some issues (he's not exactly emotionally open), but him and Allie together are better than him and Allie apart.

Final Grade = B

TBR Challenge 2013: The Things That Make Me Give In

The Book: The Things That Make Me Give In by Charlotte Stein

The Particulars: Erotica single author anthology, Black Lace, 2010, In Print

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I was so blown away by Stein's short story in the multi-author anthology Obsessed: Erotic Romance For Women that I immediately went looking for more of her work.  This anthology was already on my wish list, so I bought it brand-spankin'-new.

The Review:  After reading and loving Restraint last November, I've been itching to go on a Stein binge - but alas, pesky review books waiting for me.  Luckily this anthology worked well with this month's TBR Challenge theme, so I could kill two birds as it were.  Read more Stein and complete my January challenge to read "short."  This anthology features 15 short stories that read like vignettes.  Yeah, if you're looking for deep character development, it just doesn't happen here.  Stein introduces her characters via their sexual identities, and given the short word count on all of these stories that's essentially as far as the reader gets to know them.  This sort of thing works for me as an erotica reader, although admittedly I can understand how it won't for others.  Here's a brief rundown of what's featured between the covers....

Because I Made You So features a female college student and a male professor who teaches a course on Romantic Literature.  She starts spinning fantasies, jotting down a purple-prose-bodice-ripper style story featuring herself and her professor as the "hero."  And naturally, she ends up turning it in to fulfill a class assignment.  Gee, wonder what will happen next?  A really sexy story that nicely tweaks old school romance conventions.

Spying is a voyeuristic story featuring a heroine who ends up spying on the hero in the building next door.  They enter into a "relationship" of sorts, putting on shows for one another.  A solid voyeuristic story, but albeit, kinda sad.  I felt sorry for these two people at the end.  They seemed incapable of moving forward.  Melancholy erotica.

Lessons is a role reversal story featuring a smarty-smart heroine tutoring two big dumb jocks.  I can see some readers having issues with the heroine "using" the two guys, and essentially not thinking very highly of them - but I liked it.  I like when erotica explores role reversals, and allows the heroines to be "just as bad" as the heroes.  On that score, this one works.

Yes/ is the first story in a duet featuring a married couple.  As per an agreement, the heroine gets a day where she's calling the shots.  Whatever she wants to do in bed?  Yeah, the hero does it.  Spicy, sexy, featuring a dominant heroine who is dominant without being tricked out in latex and leather.

Dirty Disgusting You features an unsatisfied married woman who enters into an affair with a friend of her hubby's.  Hubby ain't interested in her, BFF very much is - and the two men couldn't be more opposite from each other.  The woman screwing around with a guy who is "beneath" her is a theme Stein has explored before, and this story manages to be funny, sexy and sad all at the same time.  It also features this epic line, where the heroine describes her life while "dropping off files" to the BFF as a favor to hubby (which is how the affair begins): "I often drop things off.  This is my life - files, dry cleaning, my dignity."

Her Father Disapproves features a heroine hot for one of her father's associates, and now that they're all at Daddy's country house together?  Yeah, she's going to take the bull by the horns.  This is another story that is sexy and funny (she's pushing, he's resisting), although the ending strained a little for me.

For You is a really interesting, brave story that as a nurse's daughter I found really captivating.  Heroine is a nurse.  Hero is a patient, essentially near death hoping his number is called for a transplant.  He starts telling her naughty stories, and while she knows she shouldn't - she can't help listening.  Another story that was sweet and sad at the same time.  Might be my favorite in the anthology.

Just Be Good features a porn plot but is still interesting in the aspect that the heroine is in the driver's seat.  Starla is probably late teens and likes to get caught smoking pot by the local law.  There's a new sheriff in town that she's really hoping will punish her - uh, repeatedly.  The fly in the ointment?  The sheriff is a wee bit Beta and needs some coaxing....

Phoned In features a couple who have a "phone friendship," until one day when the heroine starts reading the hero naughty stories she's writing for a magazine.  A bit like the earlier Spying story in the respect that this one is kind of sad.  It features two people who seem afraid or incapable of having a tangible "in person" relationship.  However, unlike Spying, this one ended on a more hopeful note for me.

/Yes finds our married couple back in action, this time with the hero calling the shots.  His plan is to get the heroine really, really worked up.  A nice bookend story that compliments the couples' earlier appearance.

Sometime Soon is another story that is borderline sad.  "Plain" heroine gets her rocks off with a "grease monkey" mechanic.  She likes the whole use-me-baby-dirty-girl thing, and he's more than happy to oblige.  Again we have a heroine really going after what she wants, and taking control of her fantasies and sexuality.  It's the ending here.....it gives me pause.  It makes me worry that maybe she has "issues."

Different On The Inside is about a heroine who hangs out with a yuppie sort of crowd but doesn't really fit in.  It's while she's away with "the group" for a weekend that she has encounter with the hero, a slightly awkward geeky sort who totally has her pegged.  Lucky for them that someone in the group suggests a rousing game of hide and seek. 

All Ways is by far the most romantic story in the bunch.  Former military hero comes home damaged goods and reunites with the heroine, who was a girl he messed around with slash dated in high school.  Sexy, yet tender.  Also, it's very sweet in parts.  Could easily see a story of this nature being developed into a full-length erotic romance.

Toby Hood Tastes Candy was the weirdest story in the bunch, and probably my least favorite.  Hero is going to his grandmother's house when his car breaks down.  He encounters the heroine in the woods, and then later....in grandma's bed.  I suspect the author was shooting for Twisted Fairy Tale, but it just was a little too odd for me.

The Things That Make Me Give In is a meditation on the part of the narrator, looking back at past lover's and recalling what it was about each of them that made her "give in."  That moment when she knew, "Yes, I'm going to have sex with you."  Very good writing, but yes - very much a meditation.  There's not a lot of meat and potatoes to this particular story, but it does an excellent job of exploring one woman's sexual past.

A lot of folks who don't read erotica often say (incorrectly) that it's nothing more than sex.  It's not a "real story" - it's smut on the page.  In this instance, yes all of Stein's stories are very heavy on the sex, but that's pretty much the point.  It's about exploring sexual identity and fantasy.  It's about women who, even if they might be playing a submissive role in some cases, are "in charge" of their sexuality.  Every woman in this anthology is calling the shots, in some form or another.  Which at the end of the day?  Is pretty much why I read erotica.  It flips a feminist switch for me.  I also loved that Stein managed to convey many different moods here - funny, sexy, sad, sweet, it's all over the map.  While my enjoyment level for each story varied anywhere from "OK" (C) to really, really good (B+) - as a whole this anthology was extremely well done, well thought out, interesting and challenging.  Damn, Stein is talented.

Final Grade = B

Digital Reviews: Three Steamy Short Stories

Thanks to the Scheduling Gods, I had a glorious four-day weekend where I gorged myself at the reading trough.  In between a binge of category romance, I found the time to zip through three digital short stories, all of which had something to recommend them.

The Mermaid's Tale by Grace D'Otare is an Amazon exclusive that continues on with a series she first started publishing with Harlequin Spice.

Maeve and Devlin are a married couple who 1) still like to have sex with each other and 2) tell each other naughty stories.  This time around Devlin spins Maeve his own version of The Little Mermaid, set against the backdrop of the French Resistance during World War II.  Lorie is a former nurse now singing in a night club.  David and Alex are both owners of said nightclub, with David working undercover as the stage manager/costume/make-up guy and Alex as the mysteriously hunky spy who is gone for stretches of time.  One thing leads to another and the trio find themselves hiding out in a secret tunnel to avoid detection by enemy troops.  Gee, whatever shall they do to pass the time?

I still like the idea of this series (the married couple telling stories angle just flat-out works for me) and the setting is great.  D'Otare does a good job of delivering an actual story here, although I think I would have liked a little more Sexy Times and the writing could have been a little smoother in spots.  But it has great atmosphere, interesting characters, and I'm happy to see the series is still alive.

Final Grade = B-

I tend to really like Saskia Walker's voice, and on that score Forbidden does not disappoint.  It still has her trademark sense of longing (the author writes "yearning" very well) and the Sexy Times are nice, steamy, and blessedly BDSM-free.  Too bad the plot didn't work as well for me.

Emmanuelle Forsythe is 21-years-old and has the hots for her father's estate manager.  Jacob Finch returns those feelings but has already been warned away by Emmanuelle's stepmother.  Turns out Daddy and Step-Mummy have plans for the girl to marry money.

This is a plot that just works better for me in a historical.  I "get" that the rich are different and yes, probably do still marry for reasons other than twu wuv, but the girl is 21.  I mean, she's got options assuming she's willing to toss off the yoke of monied privilege and oh....get a job.  So yeah, it just doesn't work as well for me in the 21st century.  But it's hot, steamy, and if you go for the Romeo & Juliet plot and prefer it when the idiot kids don't end up dead?  This one is worth a look.

Final Grade = C

I don't know where Charlotte Stein has been all of my erotica reading life, but I'm ready to take the "Gone Fishin'" sign off my ovaries and have this woman's babies - that's how much I was blown away by Restraint.  With this, just the second bit of work I've read by Stein, she's managed to knock the wind out of me....again!

Mallory is getting ready to go on holiday with friends when she finds out Artie is tagging along.  Given that Artie treats her like something he stepped in, this is not welcome news.  He flat-out seems to despise her, and Mallory has no clue why.  So imagine her shock when she learns what Artie's problem with her really is.

I've been whining a bit (OK, a lot) lately about how over BDSM I am and how bored I am with every erotic author on the planet playing in that landscape.  What Stein does is so different, so refreshing, that I'm probably grading on a curve but ask me if I care?  A repressed hero.  Truly....A. Repressed. Hero.  A heroine who likes to talk dirty and isn't afraid to make the first move.  Hot, Sexy Times with nary a whip, chain, rope or sex toy in sight.

Dare I say it?  Could this be love?

Stein's writing style here is a wee bit rambling, which fits with the first person narration - but it all works so well in this story.  Especially since, like Mallory, the reader is fairly clueless from the get-go on what Artie's deal is.  There's enough of a positive ending here that I think romance fans will be pleased and now I want to drop everything and read nothing but Charlotte Stein books.  Seriously.  I can't do that, but I soooooo want to.

Final Grade = A