Review: Couldn't warm up to this book
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 25, 2014
It always makes me feel bad when I come across a book that everybody is touting as great and I simply found it as uninspiring. The premise as well as the cover of Balustrade is what initially caught my attention. I do so love dark erotica and was really in the mood for a nice juicy steamy dark read! A couple on verge of splitting up heading out to try an unorthodox marital retreat. Something dark and sinister will eventually happen. Oh yeah, that definitely perked my interest and I was excited to get started. I settled in to get wowed.However as I began to read, I found it just couldn’t keep my attention. Nothing about the characters jumped out at me screaming like me, love me, hate me fear me. I found Jack to be a bit too predictable in his actions. There were a few time I almost like Hilary (ALMOST) but then I felt her actions would eventually drift into a wishy-washy category where upon I would lose interest. Those characters that should have been dark and mysteriously evil just came off creepy to me. Not as in chills down my spine GET-OUT-OF-THERE! creepy but more of I’ll just change seats on the bus type. I know this book has been tapped as dark erotica, however I found it to be more horror than dark. There was quite a bit of sex, including voyeurism as well as F/F action and yet nothing that got my juices flowing. The plot line should have been able to drag me in but I just couldn’t get excited about what was going to happy to these people, these characters, when they can’t elicit any emotions out of me other than meh.As I struggled through the plot, I found myself 4 days in and at only 60%, I finally started skimming to see if I would warm up to Balustrade and really, I didn’t. I finally hopped to the end to see if I can work backwards hoping to perk my interest. Maybe knowing the outcome would get me curious to find out how they got to this final point. Unfortunately, know how it ends, not even the final sentence which offers up a new twist didn’t change my opinion.This is my first book by author Mark Henry and I know there will be two more books in this series. I won’t completely write off reading any more books by Mr. Henry but at this point, I have no further interesting in continuing The Carnal Staircase Trilogy.I received this book from JeepDiva for the express purposes of an honest review. The opinions and rating of this review are solely mine and in no way was I compensated.Stars– 2, Flames – 4