Review: Needed to be a little longer.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 13, 2011
With one exception ("With the Band"), I've liked all of L.A. Witt's books and, overall, I liked this one, too. Menage stories are always problematic, when the third is added to a long-standing couple, and I think Witt presents the fears and hopes of all three characters quite realistically. While Jordan is worried that if things go pear-shaped, he will be the one to be cast off, Angel and Dante also have to face up to what it means to their relationship that they fall in love with somebody, whom they initially decided to play with consensually, but not as an equal partner.And therein also lies the importance of length for me. Because the fact is that Angel and Dante have built a life together, based in large part on their mutual interests in travelling (though they don't always agree on the same destinations and for the same reasons), professions, and in that they work together. While Jordan plays a significant and complementary role in their sexual relationship, I'd have liked a little more exploration and reassurance on the non-sexual side. In the end, all accept that there are risks and no guarantees, not any more than there would be between a couple, but the point is that a threesome IS more complicated, because there are three individuals involved. Simply saying "Well, I love one as much as I love the other, and want both" is bit of a cop-out for me. Even if one loves as much, one doesn't and cannot love in the same way (and I don't only mean sexually here), and that was what I'd liked to have seen explored a bit further. Not resolved, necessarily, just more of a feeling that they all, and especially Angel and Dante, truly understood more of the risks that they were accepting.Witt does use the jump-forward-in-time device to show us that it doesn't come together easily, but even there the difficulties and tensions - aspects that would have really added more depth to the story for me - are glossed over.Still, I did like the story a lot, and the alteration between the three points of view. A couple of times I thought I'd have preferred to have stayed inside one character's head a little longer, but a couple of paragraphs later I'd see that that part really did work better told from the other's point of view, so this aspect of the writing really worked for me, as well.A good read, and I highly recommend it!