Review: A great book with a very dark subject matter
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2013
REVIEWED BY LIZFirst of all, I'd like to say that the blurb is a teensy bit misleading. Shelly, our heroine, hasn't REALLY escaped her life as a high-class escort. She THINKS she has, but she's brought right back in, early in the book.In the opening scene, Shelly, thinking she's out, tries to apply for a job at a bookstore. As you can imagine, it doesn't go so well. But right from that very first encounter, you're hooked on her (ugh, pardon the pun, please!). Shelly's life story is a horrible tragedy--a mix of crappy coincidences, awful fate and the trajectory of life destined for darkness. But here she is, crawling her way up to the light any way she can. That is why I loved Shelly. She's had a hard, nasty life, but it hasn't rotted her soul. She still has the capacity for love and still has a need for it, a need for acceptance, like all of us. I feel like I saw a lot of myself in Shelly: using humor to deflect emotionally charged situations, using sex or sexual innuendo to release the pressure of expectations from friends, strangers. OK, maybe not the second one but certainly the first! ☺  And when Shelly and her hero cop, Luke, get together, the sparks may fly but so do the awkward and emotionally charged situations!Luke, Luke. What can I say about Luke? We don't get to know him quite as well as we know Shelly, but this book is told from Shelly's POV so that's to be expected. Luke is a Chicago cop and has played a role in Shelly's recent past: she was his informant when he was taking down a bad guy. When we first meet him in this book, he's such a stickler for doing things by the book, following all of the regulations. Shelly feels like he's untouchable and `uncorruptable' and you really feel that from him. But as the story progresses, we learn more and more about Luke and what drives him. His past surprised me and I found that I liked that he wasn't as perfect as he seemed.A cop and a prostitute. Even Shelly finds this laughable and a little cliché. But damn, it works! I love them together. They are so raw emotionally. I mean, Shelly just cannot let go. She always has this shield around her so that she can never get attached, never get hurt. And Luke tries to get through that but it's next to impossible. Luke has his own quirks to deal with and it's just like a 747 cargo hold full of baggage with these two! I don't want to tell you all of the details of how things get better or how they end up. I really want you to give this book a shot and go on this ride with them. I didn't know if I'd like this story because I thought a prostitute was not a very likeable character. And to be honest, Shelly isn't always likeable. But she's a work in progress, making her way from darkness back into the light, searching for something, someone to hold on to. And at the end of the day, isn't that something we're all reaching for?BOTTOM LINEErotica, romance, whatever this book is, I can tell you what it isn't: it isn't for the faint of heart. I'm not sure I would even call this erotica, since the sex didn't seem too explicit or freaky, even if it was for money. I would say for sure that SELLING OUT is a great book with a very dark subject matter. But if you can handle the darkness, you'll be richly rewarded. This is a little book that seems more epic than you would imagine. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to take a walk on the dark side!RATING: A- (4 stars)Note: I received a review copy of this title courtesy of the author in exchange for an honest review.