I’ve seen Emily Rath’s Pucking Around mentioned a lot in my romance circles, so I took a look. I love a high heat romance, and Why choose? can be a fun trope. I am dnfing at 47%. It has a couple of issues that bother me, and I’ve read a version of this I liked better so I’ve lost interest in finishing it. I’m trading in Rachel, Jake, Caleb and Ilmari for a reread of Rachel, Ace, Cruz and the horny denizens of the Sector 4. If you are looking for high heat, angsty, Why choose? give Beyond Jealousy by Kit Rocha a look.
So what was my complaint about Pucking Around? It’s got a lot of words in it – 750 pages of words. It’s too long and filled with too many things that didn’t need to be there. I love a disaster character, but Rachel is less disaster and more toxic swamp. She is a physician who engages in sexual and romantic relationships with her patients before transferring them from her care. In a few of the emotionally charged scenes, Rachel’s behavior towards her lovers felt more like crossing boundaries of respect and consent than asking for emotional honesty.
Reading Pucking Around felt like reading an alternate universe fanfiction of Beyond Jealousy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but in this case, the characters and their emotional relationship feels simplistic. Rath’s characters are cut and paste. They could be plopped into any world because they are not grounded and have no depth. Rachel, Jake, Caleb and Ilmari have thin bits of plot that tie sex scenes with various participants together. I’ve been spoiled and I want characters in high heat, angsty, Why Choose? romances to be distinctly of the world in which they exist. I’d also like the author to really think about the characters’ actions as something more than to get them to the next blow job. It would be nice if the characters had some emotional intelligence too. Kinky sex only works with respect and consent, otherwise it’s just abuse.
