Tag Archives: erotica

Book Review: Hadley House, by Olivia Lewin

I picked up an e-copy of Olivia Lewin‘s Hadley House as an Amazon freebie.

Life had gone to hell in a handbasket when I received news that my Uncle Felix had passed away and left me an inheritance. Fired from my dream job and days away from eviction, I took the inheritance as the blessing it was.

Unfortunately, it was only a blessing until I saw the house I now had in my name.

A falling apart hovel in the middle of a decommissioned graveyard. Bad enough, right?

It got worse.

The place is overrun by creatures that shouldn’t exist. An oversized orc. A pixie-demon with an attitude. A feral wolfman. A defective basilisk. And a ghost. Have I mentioned I’m terrified of ghosts?

I need to get the hell out of here, but it’s easier said than done when the house is keeping us all captive and the only way out is untangling a series of puzzles my uncle left for me. And the kicker; the worst part of it all?

I’m stuck in an infinite time loop that always ends in me dying and resetting the day to the beginning. I have no idea who’s killing me or why time is rewinding, but I have a bad feeling it’s an important part of the puzzle. I have an even badder feeling that the men have a lot to do with the happenings in Hadley House. The men who don’t remember who I am at the beginning of each cycle, the ones I know intimately, who don’t act like the monsters society makes them out to be.

I doubt I can make it out with both my heart and my body intact, but I’ve got to try.

This was entertaining enough; a little repetitive and padded in the plot, but I enjoyed it. I would have jumped into book two if it had been out yet. Having said that, I did feel like we (the readers) were denied the chance actually to get to know the men as characters. They remained pretty underdeveloped. And Hadley’s willingness and ability to forgive them was almost supernatural in and of itself.

I feel like I need to address the sex. I actually really loved that the men had been locked in with one another for a long time and were, therefore, just as comfortable having sex with one another as Hadley. But the orgey-level sex scenes played an odd role in the book. They were not particularly well-stitched into the plot. (They actually stood out as anomalies to the rest of the plot.) But this also isn’t erotica or porn without plot. This means it is a non-romance/non-erotic plot, shallow as it may be, and then the occasional full-on, multiple-partner sex scenes that felt strangely out of place.

All in all, I’d have read another book to find out what happens after the cliffhanger, and I enjoyed this well enough. But I didn’t love it.

Other Reviews:

https://avanorris.com/hadley-house-by-olivia-lewin/

Book Review: Den of Vipers, by K.A. Knight

I purchased an e-copy of K.A. Knight’s Den of Vipers.

Ryder, Garrett, Kenzo, and Diesel—The Vipers.

They run this town and everyone in it. Their deals are as sordid as their business, and their reputation is enough to bring a grown man to his knees, forcing him to beg for mercy. They are not people you mess with, yet my dad did. The old man ran up a debt with them and then sold me to cover his losses.

Yes, sold me.

They own me now.

I’m theirs in every sense of the word. But I’ve never been meek and compliant. These men, they look at me with longing. Their scarred, blood-stained hands holding me tight. They want everything I am, everything I have to give, and won’t stop until they get just that. They can own my body, but they will never have my heart.

The Vipers? I’m going to make them regret the day they took me.

This girl? She bites too.

I read A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor recently, and I said in my review of it, “I have no general problem with Porn Without Plot…or without much plot. It can be a lot of fun…But I think I can officially now say that almost 400 pages of it is just too much.” Well, Den of Vipers is over 650 pages and, yes, I still feel that is too much for me. It just went on and on and on and on.

I liked Roxy in the most general sense, same for the Vipers. But past the halfway mark, I was simply done with all of them. I didn’t expect a lot of plot (which is good since I didn’t get one). But I did expect the book not to become so repetitive that I simply got bored. And OMG, all the Roxy worship just made me cringe.

To take something someone said a little out of context, as I believe they were talking specifically about fantasy, fiction doesn’t have to be realistic, but it does have to be believable. Meaning believable in the context of the world the author creates. Nothing in this was. While I appreciate that Roxy met crazy with crazy, and that worked out for her and the Vipers. It just felt like there were no limits, no constraints, no borders to the story. Which just leaves a book feeling random and sloppy.

All in all, if it were half as long, I probably would have liked it twice as much. But as it is, I’ll call this a meh, middle-of-the-road read.

Other Reviews:

Den of Vipers Book Review

Review: ‘Den of Vipers’ by K.A. Knight

Book Review: A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor, by Kathryn Moon

I’d seen Kathryn Moon‘s A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor recommended several times. So, when I saw it as an Amazon freebie, I snagged a copy.

On the brink of losing her position as a maid and with no prospects to go on, the offer of a place at Rooksgrave Manor—a house of ill and unusual repute—sounds like a perfect fit for a young woman with Esther’s inclinations. Even better, the invitation comes by the hand of the handsome Dr. Underwood, a delicate gentleman with a ferocious alter ego who knows exactly what he wants from Esther.

Upon arrival, the men and the daily decadence of the manor feel too good to be true for a girl of Esther’s station. There are rules to be followed, expectations to meet, and Esther is afraid she might be too wicked even for a place like Rooksgrave.

Temptations lurk around every shadowy corner and Esther has never been a girl able to resist. But the risk of disappointing her new gentlemen isn’t all that’s threatening Esther’s new position. Rooksgrave Manor’s protections for its unusual patrons are failing, the wards are crumbling, and Esther’s new and exquisitely pleasurable life may all come tumbling down.

I have no general problem with Porn Without Plot…or without much plot. It can be a lot of fun, and I knew what kind of book I picked up. But I think I can officially now say that almost 400 pages of it is just too much. As much as I liked Ester and her men, I got booooored. Especially once everyone had made nice and become a happy family. After that, what little tension of interest there was evaporated.

I did appreciate that Esther was a woman who gleefully enjoyed sex. I mean, sure, if you want to be critical, it plays into the women can’t control their urges and are slaves to their desires narrative that has been so bad for women throughout so much of history. But I also think Moon was trying to subvert it a little bit. And honestly, I’m just not interested in delving into it. Mostly, this was a sweet kinkfest worth taking at face value.

I liked the characters. What little world there is, is interesting. The writing is perfectly readable. All in all, I enjoyed it. 400ish pages was just too much to keep me interested in it, with as little plot as there is.

Other Reviews:

Review of A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor by Kathryn Moon

Reading After Dark: A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor [Tempting Monsters Series #1]