Tagged: masquerade reader round-up
Electrify Me by Bibi Rizer
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
All Gloria Falcon wants is to have a nice New Year’s Eve with a nice man. Is that so much to ask? But after seven disastrous New Years in a row, this year she’s trying something different. Committed to spending her New Year’s Eve manning the phones at a suicide crisis phone line, Gloria is sure the karma she earns will break her New Year’s curse. But when a blackout cancels her night of philanthropy, rather than spend the night moping in the dark, she goes on a ride along with the cute electric company lineman who failed to fix the power.
Charlie Zhang is not much of a New Year believer either. He’s coasting through life after being discharged from the army and trying not to let his cynicism of pretty much everything define him. When Gloria Falcon climbs into Charlie’s life, and his repair truck, neither of them expect this to be the New Year’s Eve that changes their minds, and their fate, forever.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through Masquerade Tours’ Reader Round-Up program in exchange for an honest review.]
I picked Electrify Me because I was looking for some light-hearted reading. I didn’t really expect much and unfortunately the book didn’t deliver all that much.
The characters are okay. Gloria herself is much more realistic than Charlie. She’s a down on her luck 24 year old woman who was born on New Years and seems to be cursed to have bad things happen to her. In the beginning of the novella you can really feel her exasperation with her situation but also her sense of humour about the whole thing. She has a “How could it possibly get worse?” attitude that sees her through some pretty awful mishaps on that cursed day. What I really didn’t like about her character was that she was volunteering to man a suicide crisis phone in order to help her karma. That’s rather a glib attitude to take toward suicidal people and their problems; it really didn’t feel like her heart was in it. However, it was a part of her character and didn’t really affect my enjoyment of her character.
Charlie, however, was rather dull. You could exchange him for pretty much any other romantic interest in any other erotica or romance novel and you wouldn’t notice a difference. (But to be fair this is a little more multicultural than usual because he is Asian.) He’s boring and polite and although he’s physically attractive he has the sort of personality that induces drowsiness because he’s so boring and perfect. He’s hot because he’s training to be a fireman, he volunteers for shifts on New Years for extra pay and credit at work and he always helps out whenever he can. Those are awesome traits and would be kind of refreshing because I hate the whole ‘bad boy’ trope but at the same time, he doesn’t have much in the way of anything interesting. His conversations with Gloria are pretty predictable and he really just comes off as bland. Nothing really stands out about his character.
The writing was generally okay but some of the sex scenes caused me to laugh out loud because sometimes Bibi Rizer gets a little creative with her descriptions and strays into purple prose territory. Most notably: “Kissing Charlie feels healthy. Nutritious even. As though I’m getting vitamins and minerals and will wake up with thicker, shinier hair and skin that’s twenty-five percent more luminous.” It kind of killed the mood for me. But the rest of the sex scenes were generally okay, if a little boring.
As for the plot, well, it was a little predictable. Usually awesome writing would make up for that but since the writing was ‘meh’ the plot came across as ‘meh’ as well. From the time Gloria and Charlie meet you pretty much know what’s going to happen but the other plot events are just as predictable. I know you don’t generally read romance or erotica for the plot but it just left me bored.
Basically, this book was ‘meh’. It wasn’t terrible but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
Curing Doctor Vincent by Renea Mason
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
One kinky doctor + one indecent proposal = one life-changing week in Paris
Elaine Watkins, Public Relations Advisor, is surprised when she receives a summons from the very attractive and enigmatic Dr. Xavier Vincent. She worships the talented physician and company icon responsible for developing the cure that saved her sister’s life and isn’t immune to his charm. Even though puzzled by his request, she is excited and eager to get started on his latest project.
But Dr. Vincent has other ideas. Instead of discussing cures, drugs and marketing strategies, he asks Elaine to join him in Paris to indulge his unique sexual appetites.
Torn between gratitude for saving her sister, her attraction for the powerful man and compromising her pre-conceived notions of sexuality, she must decide if it’s easier to feed his desires or walk away. Until she devises a plan of her own.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through Masquerade Tours’ Reader Round-Up in exchange for an honest review.]
When I read erotica, I generally don’t review it because most of it isn’t really worth reviewing. When I read Dr. Vincent I knew I’d have to do a review but my expectations were still very low. I certainly didn’t expect to find anything resembling a story, let alone an interesting story with a decent plot, plot twists and realistic characters.
Elaine Watkins is a complicated woman. She hasn’t had an easy life what with her sister nearly dying of cancer and her love life not exactly being great. Elaine feels that she owes a great deal to Dr. Xavier for developing the cure that actually saved her sister’s life but that’s not really why she accepts his ethically questionable proposal. (You do have to ignore the ethical dilemma of a client asking for an employee from the company he’s dealing with.) She does it in part because of her attraction to the man but also out of curiosity because of her previously boring love life. What she doesn’t expect is that throughout the week in Paris she actually begins to fall in love with the enigmatic yet damaged man.
This is where I was kind of surprised because Curing Doctor Vincent has a plot. As Elaine begins to fall in love with Dr. Xavier she realizes that he has reasons for being very secretive about his childhood and his first marriage and that maybe he isn’t all that he appears to be. No one is perfect and even an insanely rich and powerful man has his own insecurities. I don’t want to give anything away but let’s just say that the good doctor’s first wife was far from the angel he makes her out to be. Some of the plot twists surrounding his mysterious past and personality I saw coming but a lot of them were fairly unpredictable.
What impressed me the most was Renea Mason’s writing. Some erotica just makes you laugh out loud with how cheesy it is even before you get to the sex scenes. But Curing Doctor Vincent was surprisingly well-written. I thought some of the secondary characters were just a little too perfect to believe but on the whole I never really had an “Are you kidding me?” moment. The sex scenes were quite steamy and they were balanced out with the regular scenes where Elaine and Xavier’s attraction to each other grows as they spend time together touring Paris or just talking. It was a perfect balance, really.
So while this wasn’t the greatest, most believable book I’ve ever read it was surprisingly good and I think Renea Mason definitely deserves credit for that. If the blurb has intrigued you, go ahead and buy it!
I give this book 4/5 stars.
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