Megan Hart "Broken"

Megan Hart writes dirty books. True statement. Even my very free thinking girlfriend gets a we're-being-bad smile on her face when I hand her a new one. But Megan Hart does so much more. There's always an exploration of some subject that is just downright interesting, funeral directors in Dirty and in Broken it's the life of a paraplegic. But there's also exploration of the human psyche, often the human sexual psyche, granted, but that's inherently fascinating so count me in.

Our heroine is married to a paraplegic, she works, and on her lunch hour she shares a bench with a guy who, over the last year, has started sharing the stories of his one night stands with her. She fantasizes about being the one he's with. She loves her husband but over the years his depression and guilt over her care of him have done significant damage to their relationship.

Her bench partner is extremely promiscuous. He loves women, enjoys sex, and is giving about his sexual encounters but he feels they only see a possible mate, not a person, so he refuses to engage in a relationship with any of these women.

Which leads me to my tangent of the hour. Promiscuity. Is it possible to have a healthy self image and be promiscuous? Is this an entirely different question for men than for women. Since having children this question has become more than academic to me. Are men promiscuous simply because of evolutionary biology or (as Ms. Hart explores) can there be more to it. Can women be promiscuous simply because they enjoy the pleasures of sex and be otherwise healthy psychologically. Obviously some small percentage of women can be promiscuous and be perfectly well adjusted and certainly men are more prone to promiscuity because of their role in human evolution, but beyond that where do we go.

Thanks Ms. Hart for making me think. Always a bonus when I'm reading a dirty book.

Contemporary Erotica 2007: 4.5 of 5 one night stands.

Megan Hart 'Stranger'

Can I say that I loved a book if I skipped about 80 pages in the middle. I suppose if I'm worth my salt as a reviewer I'm going to have to analyze it. I will apologize slightly for the fact that my reading choices lately have felt like catch-up with the rest of romancelandia (or the small part of it I allow myself to follow so as not to neglect my family entirely.) I apologize only because as Jessica discussed lately, it feels like I'm just following and not really adding anything new or interesting to the romance review world out there. So here I go again with the "following" thing.

I love, love, love the premise of Stranger. The heroine has decided that she doesn't want to put out the effort for a real relationship (for a lot of reasons) and so has developed the habit of paying for her dates and her sex. She has a reliable service, she's had some reliable providers from that service so why mess with a good thing. But one night she mistakes Sam for her latest 'date' and the convenience of what she's doing comes into question. If she's doing this, it doesn't just take the place of a conventional relationship, it acts in many ways to prevent her from having a conventional relationship.

I skipped the Sam chasing her part. I have to guess that there were some important moments in there since the author is definitely a character driven writer/thinker. But I came back in where they get together and with the characters' discussions of their relationship, I didn't feel like I needed to go back to fill things in. Am I a very bad, bad, reader or should I conclude that the author could tighten up the book a bit. I suppose a little of both (like on most moral dilemmas I come down in the boring middle).

I read all the rest of the book, I loved them together, I loved the author's strong actualized woman throw ins and I liked Sam a lot. Their struggle felt basically realistic and I was glad they got together in the end. :) This author can write some awesome sex and the characters really jump off the page. If I had to nitpick, I'd say the character flaws are a little simple. Interesting and thought out, but what stops this from being a work of literature (which is not usually a standard I even bring up) besides the genre rules, is slightly simplistic character flaws. Overall, awesome book if you don't mind having to hide it from your kids.

Contemporary Erotic Novel 2009: 4.5 out of 5 embalmed bodies.