Thursday, July 17, 2008

Lauren Dane "Fire and Rain"

Um, wow. This was my first e-book. And my first book from Ellora's Cave. And my first book with a menage a trois. The phrase triple virgin definitely leaps to mind. Wow.......

Um, I'm sort of speechless and a bit mortified, so where to start? Laurent is the third highest ranking werewolf in the Cherchez Clan. Rain is a budding artist who is also the daughter of a crime boss out east. She ran away from her family and an arranged marriage and is in hiding in Seattle.

Laurent is an typical muscled alpha hero (although technically in the pack he'd be a Gamma hero). The interaction between the boys in this book reminded me both of the lame frat boys in college and the Vampires in JR Ward books, whom I found sort of endearing when with each other. Saving Laurent from being a complete jerk is this 'fated mate' phenomenon which makes him completely devoted to Rain's health and happiness.

I liked Rain's character, her independence but reasonable fear of her father's retribution struck me as realistic. I loved her first date outfit, where typically I skim over fashion descriptions. There were definite moments of awkward dialog, but most of it worked.

The sex. Well, Ellora's Cave publishes erotica, let's just say it was often, and quite explicit. And I won't be leaving a copy sitting on my desktop for my kids to accidently stumble upon. Yikes. Normally I would sort of evaluate aspects of the sexual representation in a romance novel but I'm out of my depth here. So to speak. I know you might not believe me but I haven't read enough erotica to be able to say this one's sex scenes were well written, this one's sex scenes weren't as good. So obviously I need to read more.

Paranormal Contemporary Romantica 2008: 3.5 of 5 angry jilted fiancees.

Disclaimer, rightly or wrongly I rated this book slightly higher than if it had been a full length mass market romance novel, sort of like I did with the Harlequin. I think it's in it's own category and while I don't know yet if all e-books are really well written, it's my guess they are not. Does that make sense?

2 comments:

The Bookworm said...

sounds like a good one :)
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/

Kate said...

giggling over here...I haven't read any erotica, mainly because I'd probably just giggle my way through it anyway, so I completely respect your review!

And interesting too how you decided to hold it to a different standard. I think about that a lot when I'm reviewing since sometimes I feel like I'm really tough on some romance novels - but then there are quality ones out there, and I've more or less decided to stick to my guns and try to hold everything to if not the same then at least really damn similar standards...so yes, I know your quandary!