Review: M/M with some M/F/M thrown in (some plot spoilers)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 15, 2011
Two to two and a half stars.  While I liked the author's style of writing and the plot premise, I was waiting for the two men to fall as much in love with the woman as they were with each other.  Disappointingly, it never happened, at least not as I read it, and it seemed as though the principle relationship in this book was between the two men.  Hence part of the reason for the two star review.The two men grew up together, worked together, spent all their time together, and were best friends.  Yes, Duncan, had always been bi, and had a long term, undisclosed attraction to his best friend, Jake.  However Jake was always 100% heterosexual, and had never even been attracted to Duncan (or any other man - the book makes this very clear).  Then, out of the blue, the two men each dream of a strange woman, the same strange woman, and Emma dreams of them.  The dreams progress to daytime flashing in and out of each other's minds, and the sense of attraction to each other rises.  Jake was very attracted to Emma prior to any change in his feelings toward Duncan, which only began to come to him as the dreams and flashing in and out of each other's minds increased.  Even after meeting her, Jake was openly attracted to Emma, but was very uncomfortable with his newly emerging attraction to Duncan.As a woman reading an erotic romance set up as a M/F/M menage, I expect for the woman to be loved by both men, and to be loved on by both men, in at least equal amounts to any loving going on between the men alone.  Especially when the two men had not been in a sexual relationship with each other prior to both being sexually attracted to the woman.  This was not the case, sadly, and I kept waiting for the two men to begin treating Emma as an equal, rather than as an incidental third.  Most sex scenes were begun between the two men, even when Emma was in the room or at least the same house.  When she was present during the scene, sometimes they even concluded without her receiving any physical attention from the two men at all.  Even when she was physically involved, she appeared to be incidental, with the main focus of the scene being between the two men.  Sometimes she began a scene with Jake, then Duncan joined in only to focus far more on Jake, rather than "sharing the love" with Emma.In fact, the way the story was written, the only apparent reason for the attraction the men felt toward Emma was this "bonding."  Prior to the bonding, the men were already in a very close relationship with each other, and who knows if Jake would have ever welcomed a physical relationship with Duncan.  However, there was no justification given for the men wanting Emma as a third other than the bonding.  So much so, that even Emma raised the question of whether they would love her without the bonding.  Despite the men's claims to the contrary, the author failed to provide sufficient reasons or actions by the two men to support any other conclusion than that it was solely the bonding that held the two men to Emma.  I could only agree with Emma's suspicion that if the three-way bonding had never happened, or if it were to disappear as suddenly as it appeared, Duncan and Jake would probably continue their M/M relationship, but Emma would be out in the cold.Another big issue for me was that the storyline was based upon a sudden, significant, unearthly phenomenon that directly affected the three of them, and yet the book just ended without any hint of explanation of what this was, why it was happening, etc.  The three developed extreme magical powers that grew exponentially in a very short period of time, and they seemed to accept it with little to no questioning.  We are never given any hint as to why bonding was suddenly happening around the world, how it was happening, and why these three people were experiencing such a drastically different bonding than the relatively few other bonding pairs - all others were couples, and none with the magical powers these three had. At the end of the story, no one knew anything about the purpose, cause or source of the bonding, and it was just presented as a new phenomenon that was now going to continue to happen.  The book raised far too many unnecessary, unaddressed questions, plot-wise, which is not something I search for in an erotic romance, even if this were to be the first in a series.  As far as I know, it is not, but if it were I would not care to read any more in the series.