Review: Could have been longer, but what's here is good.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 26, 2012
Kirsten McCurran, <strong>Stormbound: Seduced by the Neighbors</strong> (Aphrodite Omnimedia, 2011)I was going to start off this review by saying I had no idea what it was about Kirsten McCurran that caused me to download so much of her stuff with my last Amazon GC without knowing a thing about it, but I do know. There are some names that, to me, are just inherently sexy. Tara. Heather. Monica. Kirsten. You own one of those names and I'm already half in the bag before I know anything else about you. And yes, I know that every porn merchant in America from the coming of the pilgrims until today is using, has used, and will use in the future, a pen name. But I don't care. It's still Kirsten, and I still downloaded.[note: yes, this DOES cause some discomfort when I'm watching <em>Hellraiser</em>.]That aside, how's the story? I may be inclined, given the first paragraph, to allow this author a touch more leeway when reading, but I think even objectively this is a bit better than the majority of the Kindle porn I've consumed over the past month or so; the characters are closer to three-dimensional, if not all the way there, and some of the situations into which McCurran puts them are kind of inventive (and McCurran is a good enough writer to paint those situations well). Sure, the hot, sweaty monkey sex is nice, but this story is closer to a balance between the sex and the characters (though there is only the thinnest of plots as an excuse to get protagonist into the house of horny neighbors, but given the brevity of the story, do you need more?), and I like that. These characters are more than collections of measurements, and even were that the only thing distinguishing this story from others, it would be head and shoulders above the pack. But as I said, McCurran is also capable of writing a solid sentence, and that is a rare thing in porn, especially Kindle porn, as well. Looking forward to reading a novel-length piece. (Yes, I downloaded one of those, too, just haven't gotten 'round to it yet.) ***