Now, I know what you’re thinking “Fyre, you know you HATE billionaire romances!”
I know! So over done! But I love me some menage so I was willing to wade into these treacherous waters for a bargain price. I present my real time notes from this collection. This is a long review but, I hope, worth your while.
Drilled by Opal Carew
Already stilted dialog. I’ll come along. Gah. Show don’t tell.
Stop using the word glided for everything. It’s a horrible word, it sounds wrong. Traced, pushed, slid. Something else.
OK. Need to reframe. This is a bad porno set up, akin to a pizza delivery guy, it’s not supposed to be real. I’m a very pragmatic person so I even defuse my own fantasies if they become too unrealistic. I’m not boring, I promise?
Oh FFS. She’s smart enough to put on safety goggles but her long hair is flowing down, she’s wearing Daisy dukes and her shirt is tied up around her waist while she uses power tools?
Wait wait, this company is sooo green but they have a private pool?
Yes, she has heard the names of the people who own the company she is contracting with. This should not be a surprise you meathead. I hope you fuck better than you converse.
And this better not be one of those idiotic MMF where the dudes never touch.
Come for the shitty dialog, stay for the abrupt plot pacing!
Again with the gliding!
Umm, if your dad owned the construction company, the odds you learned to hammer shit are low. You should be PMing or doing deals, your dad did the office stuff you ninny.
“Glided” count is now five times, none of them good.
And the exact same paragraph has been reused. I’m not sensing a whole lot of editing here. It’s so hamfisted. I’m praying that the boom boom is good because this story has nothing else going for it (who moves from San Diego to Pittsburg?)
Glided number six, again with the hair.
Also, suckle is not a sexy word, like no. Suck, yes, suckle, ew.
7
Cajoled? That is not a word one would associate with cunnilingus. He licked and cajoled?
8
9
10 only one sentence later. Author’s favorite word. By now I’m only in this to write the review.
11, same paragraph as ten. 12
13
14
15 Roget is rolling in his grave.
Aaaaaaand total lack of consistency of characterization. Yes girl, the dude you had super magical sexy times with couldn’t possibly want to spend any more time with you. Gah.
I’m all for wish fulfillment people, but have a lick of damn sense. For me, fantasy is not an escape from logic and sense and consistency.
Oh FFS, you don’t wear a bra with a backless dress although I am reminded of this cool top I’ve been imagining, so there is that. Also, why do some people spend so much time describing women’s clothing?
16
Oh sweet Jesus. The author is trying to describe the two handsome billionaires buying the super expensive, ultra classy outfit for the woman, except oh god the author has no sense of style or grace or how to dress. You don’t match your lipstick to your dress to the gigantic ruby necklace and put jeweled butterflies in your hair. You would look like a fucking rube. The dress already sounds like waaaaay too much and now it’s like a four year old getting into the make up. Coco Chanel wept.
17
18
Oh look flogging and 19
20
The author continually describes one of the men as having or using his “big hand” so now I’m wondering is the other one small or normal sized and just smaller than the big one?
Cue unsafe anal play!
21
22. At this point I would be disappointed if “glided” didn’t show up on every page.
23
“Her consciousness melted into a golden pool of honeyed delight.” Y’all, y’all.
24. This has to be a purposeful effort. Who uses the same word this many times??? I’m not counting glide and gliding, but they are well accounted for.
Oh Danni is a pushover and just totally stuck in her head. Text your boys idiot, especially if the business meeting you cashed a chip to get them to go to didn’t go well. The fuck, girl. Orders the drinks her mother tells her to, leverages her romantic relationship because her mother asks, even though her mother looks down on her life and choices. Danni the doormat.
Ugh. At least no gliding.
Ooh, just some casual rape culture flirting presented as appealing. Vomit.
And the big conflict and resolution all comes about because between three adult people, not one text could be sent for like three days.
FTR. If you and your best friend fuck me, I expect a text. And I will text you.
Oh. Going to vomit. Danni is hot garbage and I hate her. Evan and Blake don’t exist, they have no character at all.
25. I missed glided there for about ten pages and here it is to keep me grounded in the shittyness of the vocabulary and characters.
Y’all, the safe word is stop or no.
26. That might not seem like a lot, but try working it in and see how it feels.
0/5 stars. And none of them glided.
Legally Screwed, Celia Aaron
OK. Much better. Still too much description of clothes but the woman is rational. Two men who request joint estate trust would read as gay and she interpreted then showing up places with models as having beards, I like that call out to queer culture.
So, not a total nit wit and there’s a decent set up.
One aspect of most super rich dude romances (please someone for the love of God write the woman as the CEO you fucks). Is that they are always rapey. There is this massive power imbalance already and then the guy or guys in this book are so overbearing. It’s little things that add up and I’m tired of it being presented and consumed as romantic.
The two big handsome rich guys want you to sit between them in the booth? No thank you, I’d prefer to sit on the end and have a viable escape option.
And the woman now has the internal dialog of a 19 year old. Women are allowed to say no and still be desirable. Giving way to the will of powerful men is not what I want to read.
Uh it’s date rapey. They pressure her to drink and then force themselves on her and don’t listen when she objects based on the extremely sound justification that she could lose her job and be disbarred. Of course this is glossed over and she loves it.
OK so being rapey was OK but she draws a line at them telling her what to do with her career on their second date. And queue the rapey dickmatizing. Please please stop writing men who can’t accept a woman’s no and who just start manhandling her when she tries to stand up for herself.
0/5 I am filled with rage that this is even a thing. Author is on my Do Not Buy list.
Possession, Calista Fox
Off to the races, nice. Some stilted dialog (will these people never read this out loud to themselves?)
If you are ever noticing my softly defined muscles during sex, delete your account. Ditto for the color and material of the headboard.
Oh, once again a woman says no, a man insists and that’s hunky dory!! Because someone non consensually inserting themselves into your anus is actually a turn on, right?
Ugh. This makes no sense. There are geographical issues ( how long it takes to get to the mountains from the ocean in central California. ). And like just no. Be reasonable, people. I am just not into this fantasy. Starting a day spa is not a corporate venture. And if you have been bouncing around for most of your adult life, how do you get the funds to start a day spa for the super rich? Asking for a friend…
I do not give a shit what they are wearing!!!
Did you have a word count you needed to hit so you went Edith Wharton by way of Kim Kardashian?
I’m so upset. This book started with promise. Two people getting it on, right away! But this collection is all menage so a third person has to some into it somehow. How does that work? But now it’s so shitty that I don’t know if I care to get there.
Oh wait, everyone is perfect and psychic! I swear to godtopus, get people to read your dialog out loud!
OK y’all, it’s the last page but my dream life does not include a two hour drive to work each way.
Ugh.
0/5 for starting with good potential and still verging into rape as romance. And dear lord, the dialog.
Y’all, five threesome stories, all MMF and one tiny bit of man on man action. Are we that society? Two guys can’t brush skin while they are with a woman? Two women couldn’t get it on with one man? And there’s one person of color out of nine main characters so far. The rainbow is painfully absent from this collection. I admit there are people who want that. They are not me. And heaven forfend a woman be a billionaire, that’s just not realistic.
Three’s Temptation, Sheryl Nantus
I have zero hope or expectations for book four here.
Aaand skilled criminal lawyer five years out of undergrad? You’re stretching. Oh and your long term boyfriend is a millionaire five years out of college and so is your former best friend and erstwhile fuckfriend. Mmmhmmm.
So, cool. We start with the threesome at the end of college and then skip ahead to the three parties dealing with the aftermath. A lot of people are good at posing questions. How do you go forward from a one time three way with two best friends who grow apart but we are going to get back to menage? That’s a decent set up, it’s the knocking them down that so many people fail at.
I don’t know how to tell you this, but it isn’t sucking. It’s not amazing, but it’s alright. The three MCs are genuinely talking through their issues and feelings.
Short, straight forward. Nothing amazing but given the shit show this collection has been it was relaxing. Loses a point for someone wearing motorcycle boots with a tux. Fucking heathens.
2/5 for not being utterly horrible but also not being in any way memorable or remarkable. It was non-offensive rather than actively pleasurable.
Not Safe for Work, Charlotte Stein
Book five. Oh, jackpot, oh my tingling fingertips. Why does he know the rules? Who is number three?
Hartford is the CEO and he is cold and strict and mean and that is not hot, it’s abusive. But it has something under it. Abel is his friend he has brought in as the new CFO, who laughs off Hartford’s rules. Or does he get off, on breaking them?
Amy is Hartford’s assistant. Abel pretty much seduces her from day one, but who is he really after, Amy or Hartford?
Grade A+ dirty pillow talk.
Yay!! Yes yes, a bi male POC. And another bi male. And he’s masc. Praise be to godtopus!! Now I won’t have to unfollow the author on Twitter.
OK party people, book five is worth the price of admission. You have an interesting set up, great dialog, class A boning, and diverse representation.
Whew.
5/5 fucking. Amazing. Be still my beating…. heart, yeah, heart. :p