Review: Had a love/hate relationship with this book
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
I'm so torn on how to write this review because I loved parts of this book and I really hated other parts of it.  This is the first book I've read by the author and I know I have another downloaded -- I'm really curious to read it now to see how it compares.Basically:  Emily loves Paul.  Paul doesn't see her as anything besides a "little sister" type friend.  So, after not seeing him for three years, she arranges to meet him and seduce him as "Candy," the sexier version of herself.Loved:  I loved Emily's spunk and that she wasn't the typical sub doormat you see in so many BDSM books.  She takes her life and her pleasure into her own hands -- I loved that she went to explore the club on her own to see if the lifestyle was interesting to her instead of just taking Paul's word for it.  And I enjoyed that she allowed herself to get angry at Paul, even while acknowledging that she'd done things wrong.  She was brave and interesting and I wish I'd had a chance to meet her in another type of plot.  I also enjoyed Andre . . . some of the time (more details later).  The flogging scene he shares with Emily was incredibly enjoyable.Didn't love:  Paul felt so generic, just a typical damaged dom.  And the fact that he couldn't tell Emily and Candy apart was incredibly puzzling.  I don't care if you haven't seen someone for three years, if they're one of your best friends, it is going to take more than contacts, breast augmentation, and hair dye to trick them into thinking you're someone else.  I swallowed this though, only to be punched in the face with bewilderment when he -- after falling in love with "Candy" -- meets with Emily . . . and doesn't even recognize her.  This doesn't make sense.  It just doesn't.  It doesn't make sense for a normal man and it doesn't make sense for a man with the dom "super perception" we're told again and again that Paul has.  Which brings me to the next point -- I really enjoyed Andre's character, but the whole "super dom" thing was just over the top.  He swoops in to save the day and he just seemed too good to be true.Finally, for a sexually explicit novel, the author seems to hold the act itself at arm's length.  We have many scenes where the characters remember sex or look forward to it, but very, very, very few scenes where the characters are actually doing it.  With the exception of the flogging scene, most scenes just fade out when the action starts.As I said above, I want to read another work by the author because I liked a lot of what I read in this book.  There was just some stuff that really irked me within an enjoyable story.