Tag: Contemporary Erotica

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Healing Seduction by Jory Strong

Posted December 3, 2020 by Ames in Reviews | 1 Comment

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Healing Seduction by Jory StrongReviewer: Ames
Healing Seduction by Jory Strong
Series: Crime Tells #4.5
Publisher: Ellora's Cave
Publication Date: January 22, 2010
Genres: Erotica
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

For years Lucca and Quade have shared women and enjoyed games of sexual dominance. While she was married, Kiera was off-limits, even in their fantasies. Now that she’s single, guilt and loyalty keep them from acting on their desire.

At twenty-six, Kiera has been a widow for almost as long as she was a wife. Before pain and loss stripped her bare and changed her, she’d never craved the things Lucca and Quade want in the bedroom. Now she does. She knows they love her. But for them to have a future together, she needs to break through their emotional barriers.

Unknown to them, she’s got a plan. And if it works, Quade and Lucca won’t be able to resist her healing seduction.
Note: Set in the Crime Tells world, with brief cameos from Lyric (Lyric’s Cop), and Calista and Benito (Calista’s Men).

This review was originally published on February 13, 2010

I’ve never read Jory Strong before, but I think I’m going to have to check out her backlist.

Healing Seduction is short story length but it definitely packs the heat in, especially if you like threesomes with a little bit of BDSM involved. Nothing crazy, but just a little bit of dominance in the bedroom, some spanking. LOL

Kiera has been widowed for two years now and she decides enough time has passed. She’s ready to move on with her life, and there’s no one she’d rather do that with than her friends, Lucca and Quade. The problem? These men had also been friends with her husband, and there is definitely some guilty feelings on their part. But will their love for Kiera overcome the guilt?

First of all, Kiera doesn’t know how Quade and Lucca feel about her. So she decides (with the help of her friend) to set up a date with two different guys to see if Lucca and Quade would react to the sight of her between two guys. Well Lucca goes nuts with jealousy and tells her if she wants to know what its like with two guys, he and Quade will be the two to show her, no one else.

Lucca showed just the right amount of jealousy! Healing Seduction had just the right amount of emotion and sex to tie things up in a nice little bow. Knowing that these 3 people knew each other for quite a while makes the length of this story believable.

One little thing – there was some head jumping going on. This could get confusing, especially between Quade and Lucca. But that’s my only beef!

Healing Seduction gets a 4 out 5 (B) from me. Plenty of heat!

four-stars


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Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Dancing in the Dark by Jennifer Dunne

Posted July 2, 2020 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Dancing in the Dark by Jennifer DunneDancing in the Dark by Jennifer Dunne
Publisher: Ellora's Cave
Publication Date: April 19, 2010
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher
Genres: Erotica
Pages: 82
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three-half-stars

A humdrum life… Keri Montero lives a boring life. Work, TV, volunteering, and her quilting hardly make the stuff of fantasy and dreams.

A mistaken invitation… All this changes when she receives an invitation to a charity Halloween costume party to benefit the local opera house. She decides to go, even if the tickets are—gasp—$100 each.

A walk on the wild side… Her costume can be anything, and Keri decides to live on the wild side for once. Going as a submissive slave girl might invite trouble. But when she meets the man of her dreams, she decides to go even wilder. Keri wants to submit to his every…sexual…whim.

*** Every Thursday, we’ll be posting throwback reviews of our favorite and not-so-favorite books. Enjoy! ***

This review was originally posted on May 8, 2010.

So after getting the invitation to the Halloween party Keri has to decide what to be. She goes online after deciding to be a slave girl – since there are always so many in the operas – and buys a costume sight unseen. That right there would put up a big red flag for me. When she gets the costume it’s more of a bdsm costume than anything else but Keri decides to go for it. When she gets to the party she talks up many gentlemen but none of them seem to get what she was trying to do – which was a find a master. When she meets the man – who’s dressed as a sun god and is masked himself they immediately are drawn to each other and leave the party.

The sun god is truly looking for a slave and he wants to be Kerri’s Master. He takes Keri to his apartment that holds his dungeon and they proceed to get down and dirty. I don’t know too much about the bdsm lifestyle but I’d have to say that I found this to be bdsm light since Keri was completely new to the lifestyle. After 2 days of meeting with “the Master” Keri still has no idea who the man is or what he looks like but she doesn’t want to go back to her humdrum life and decides to take the bull by the horns and keep up with her slave girl position.

This was a very cute story but I have to say that I did have a couple of issues with it. First I found that what Keri was doing was completely not her. She came home and watched Charmed every day and ate microwave meals and quilted. I just couldn’t see her – even in her wildest dreams doing something like this. I saw her as more of the person who would get the costume on a whim and then decide not to wear it. IDK it just didn’t hit me right. The second would be that she fell in love with the sun god – sight unseen – knowing nothing about the man except having sex with him 3 times. Having great sex is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but a love relationship it does not make imho.

Despite the niggles I had with it I thought the story was written well and it did get my attention and didn’t let go. This is a highly sexual & erotic novella and has more sex than not, but I didn’t find myself skipping any sex scenes (which when they get tedious, I must admit I do).

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.

three-half-stars


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Guest Review: Playing Doctor by Kate Allure

Posted January 9, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: Playing Doctor by Kate AllureReviewer: Tracy
Playing Doctor by Kate Allure
Series: Meeting Men #1
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: January 6th 2015
Genres: Erotica
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two-stars
Series Rating: two-stars

THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW...

In The Intern, the temperature of Dr. Lauren Marks's office quickly rises when her new medical intern Courtney turns out to be a passionate and sexy young man.

Valerie realizes all of her fantasies when her sexy surgeon and her loving husband team up to offer her some extra-special treatment in My Doctor, My Husband, and Me.

Nikki gets more than she bargained for in Seize the Doctor when the hot guy she recently met at a bar walks into her exam room wearing a white coat. Good thing she wore her sexiest lingerie.

Tracy’s review of Playing Doctor by Kate Allure

This is a book with three short novellas in it. The first book has a doctor in a small town having a summer affair with her cute intern – who’s significantly younger than she is.

The doctor, Lauren, is lonely. She was married for 10 years and her husband was a doctor who shared her practice. She knew their marriage wasn’t perfect but she didn’t think it was that bad. She found out differently when she came home one day and he had cleared out and left her a note. Wow. What an ass. It’s been a year, I think, since he’s left and Lauren misses having a sexual closeness with another human being. She loves her town and her job but she needs a man. When Court turns up as her intern Lauren tries to keep her thoughts pure but she can’t seem to keep her thoughts, eyes and eventually her hands off of him. The summer ends up being filled with fun and frolicking until Court has to leave to go back to school. Some of the scenes were pretty sexy and it was fun.

The second story has a woman who has been married for 20 years fantasizing about her young podiatrist. She wants to take things further with him but she loves her husband. Now apparently the husband, at one point in their relationship, had an affair so Valerie thinks it’s ok to ask her hubs for a threesome – and not just one night. Her husband isn’t thrilled but he agrees. The doctor, while a bit leery, agrees as well and the three of them end up having a great time together in bed. I can’t say that I was thrilled with this story. I guess I had more of an issue with the relationship between husband and wife – knowing that the hubby had strayed at one point just made me think that the threesome relationship couldn’t last for some reason. I also felt the marriage would suffer for it. The story was sexy but I found it odd.

Story three was my least favorite of the book. This one had Nikki joining her friends for a night out on the town. She meets a guy who seems nice and they start to talk. Unfortunately her friend brings to light that the man and his three friends are posing as doctors and just getting girls numbers – a contest of who can get the most. Nikki is disappointed as she doesn’t need another jerk in her life after her last boyfriend.   When she heads to the gyno to get birth control a fill-in for her doctor arrives and guess who it is? The guy from the bar. Yes, he was really a doctor and they start to date. Besides having sex and basically moving in together afterward there wasn’t a whole lot more to the story.The premise of this book sounded great as I love erotic romance. Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of romance. IMHO stories 1 & 2 had no romance at all. Story three was supposed to have romance but nothing too deep. Overall I found the stories to be just in the OK category. I definitely put this more under straight erotica so if you like those stories then this would be a good one for you.

Rating: 2 out of 5

This title is available from Sourcebooks Casablanca. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

two-stars


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Guest Review: Captivated by You by Sylvia Day

Posted December 24, 2014 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 0 Comments

captivated by you by sylvia dayChrystal‘s review of Captivated by You (Crossfire, Book 4) by Sylvia Day

Gideon calls me his angel, but he’s the miracle in my life. My gorgeous, wounded warrior, so determined to slay my demons while refusing to face his own.

The vows we’d exchanged should have bound us tighter than blood and flesh. Instead they opened old wounds, exposed pain and insecurities, and lured bitter enemies out of the shadows. I felt him slipping from my grasp, my greatest fears becoming my reality, my love tested in ways I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to bear.

At the brightest time in our lives, the darkness of his past encroached and threatened everything we’d worked so hard for. We faced a terrible choice: the familiar safety of the lives we’d had before each other or the fight for a future that suddenly seemed an impossible and hopeless dream….

Captivated by you is the fourth book in the Crossfire series by Sylvia Day. It is an aptly named book as both Gideon Cross and Eva Tramell have held us captivated from the beginning of Bared to You, the first book in the series.

It picks up not far from where Entwined with You left off, but…. from Gideon’s point of view!  Can we pause for a fan girl squee?! We’ve all wanted into the head of that mega mogul super hottie since we first read about him. How he made Eva melt right then and there in the lobby of the Crossfire Building!

Well, inside that head is a past as dark as the gorgeous hair that crowns it. One thing I absolutely love about this book was that we were able to get into Gideon. His fears and pains were opened up to us. Not just through the eyes of Eva but through his own thoughts and fears; His needs and wants.

Sylvia Day also kept a good balance when jumping from Eva to Gideon. We were able to feel with her as she picked up the pieces of Gideon after he confessed everything to his stepfather.  Our hearts broke right along with hers.There isn’t much more I can say without giving away all the wonderful details, but I can say this:

Sylvia Day is an amazing author. She is talented in ways not many writers are.

She has an ability to make a person feel. To take some of the most taboo subjects, pains and experiences most people try not to even think about, and write them. She gives hope for people who feel so damaged they don’t believe there’s someone out there for them. She let’s us all know and believe there is someone to slay our dragons. There will always be someone to help us fight our demons and chase away the darkness.

I loved everything about this book and can not wait to read the next one!

5 out of 5

This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it from here or here in e-format.


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Guest Review: Taking It All by Maya Banks

Posted August 20, 2014 by Natalia S in Reviews | 0 Comments

Taking it AllNatalia’s review of Taking It All (Surrender Trilogy, #3) by Maya Banks

Chessy and Tate have been married for several years. In the beginning, their relationship was everything she wanted. Passionate. All consuming. She offered her submission freely and Tate cherished her gift with a tenderness that made her feel safe. Content. Wanted. And loved beyond all measure. But as the years have gone by, Tate has become more immersed in making his business the success it has become, and Chessy has taken a back seat to his business obligations. Growing unhappier with the status of their once blissful marriage, Chessy knows that something has to give. Or they stand to lose it all

Tate loves his wife. Has always loved her. Providing for her has always been his number one priority. But lately she’s seemed unhappy, and he’s worried. Worried enough that he arranges for a night together that he hopes will reignite the fire that once burned like an inferno between them.

But a business call at the wrong time threatens everything. Chessy’s safety, his concentration, his wife’s faith in him as her husband, a man sworn to love and protect her above all else. Gutted with the realization that he’s going to lose her—has already lost her—he readies for the fight of his life. Whatever it takes, he’ll get her back. And prove to her that nothing is more important than her love. And that if she’ll allow him to prove himself one more time, he’ll take it all. Everything. But he’ll give far more back. Himself. His undying love.

As a whole, I enjoyed this series well enough. I thought it was a different outlook on the dominant submissive type of relationship where all parties involved were happy and respected. We always see happily ever after in romances, but rarely do we see what happens afterwords. Where does a marriage go, and how do they overcome their fazes?

Because of this, when I finished the second book, Letting Go, I’ve been looking forward to this release. I must say that sadly, it didn’t fulfill my expectations.

It was nice to revisit the old Characters Kiley, Joss, Nash, and Jenson. I wanted to see how happily they ended up. However for the most part, I felt that this was a pointless book.  First off. Chessy’s unhappiness in her marriage. It seems that she grew unhappy as time passed, but didn’t do anything about it. She never had any kind of conversation with Tate, expressing her feelings. When she finally did, it seemed to me that Tate was willing to listen and change. The entire thing felt at least to me, that it could’ve been avoided with good communication and compromise.

One of the things I love most about romance novels are devoted heroes. Every hero in this trilogy is absolutely devoted to his heroin. Still, while the story line of each book was different, the personalities of each hero and heroine were exactly the same. It felt as though I was reading the same book for the third time in a row with a different plot.

In spite of my nit picking, I did enjoy this series, and liked how everyone ended up. I hear that this author has a romantic suspense series. I’m looking forward to her take on that genre!

Grade: 3 out of 5

The Series:
Book Cover Book Cover Book Cover

This book is available from Berkley.  You can purchase the book here or here in e-format.  This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


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