Review: What's New, Pussycat?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 13, 2012
The title of this review is a thinly-veiled reference to the Burt Bacharach-penned song, sung by both Bacharach and Tom Jones. However, the pussycat in this case refers to the lovely red-headed Iliana, the erstwhile coffee barista who has fallen hard for the mysterious Nickolas (see my review entitled "The Mating: Wild Cats Part 1").In her third installment of her "Wild Cats" trilogy, entitled "The Calling: Wild Cats Part 3," Sandra Ross has created a torrid, passion-filled romance between Nickolas and his "pussycat," Iliana. She describes some incredibly erotic and sensuous lovemaking scenes that are explicitly and deliciously defined, so as to provide her readers with some incredible fantasy fodder as they read the book."The Calling" opens with a distraught Iliana trying desperately to get Nickolas's attention while he is standing outside their car, busily chatting on the phone with his bodyguards. Suddenly she is aware of a car hurtling towards Nickolas, seemingly intent upon hitting and killing him. Without even thinking, she is jumping immediately out of the car and running towards him, seemingly spurred on by an inner sense of panic and fear that she has previously experienced (though unsure as to what this sense of unease represents). She succeeds in shoving him out of harm's way just in time, only to be struck by the unknown vehicle herself and then recuperating in the hospital for a month.Iliana's tragic accident demonstrates to Ross's readers the extent of her passion and love for Nickolas: she selflessly and instinctively sought to protect the man for whom she has developed a deep, abiding, enduring love. In that all-too-brief moment between watching the incident unfold and the time it took her to spring into action, her nickname "Pussycat" proved accurate and endearing---quick; agile; intense; fearless: adjectives that describe the feline species.Taking immediate action without considering the inevitable consequences is an everyday occurence with people; it happens without warning and can involve countless situations that call for that particular situation to be resolved as quickly as possible. Some examples involve true moments of valor: future President John Kennedy towing a fellow shipmate for four hours to the nearest spit of land while suffering an injured shoulder and back after their PT-109 boat was sunk by a Japanese torpedo during World War II; people whose surging adrenaline somehow gives them that psychological, emotional and physical impetus necessary to lift up the front/rear of a burning vehicle, or to wrench open a vehicle's door, so that they are able to rescue a loved one trapped inside; the firefighter who runs into a raging inferno to seek out a child and their pet on the second floor."The Calling" surpasses the normal, inevitable sexual interludes and provides Ross's readers with a relationship that is both complex and committed, despite the socio-economic differences and the dramatic twists and turns that seem to threaten their long-term happiness. Iliana and Nickolas seem to truly love and care for each other, which provides their characters greater depth and multifaceted personalities than most romance novels provide.