TLC Book Tours Book Review: S.E.C.R.E.T.

Author: L. Marie Adeline
Title: S.E.C.R.E.T.
Publisher: Broadway
Publish Date: Feb 5, 2013
Buy: Amazon

Review Copy Provided By: TLC Book Tours & the publisher

Book Blurb: 

Cassie Robichaud’s life has been filled with regret and loneliness since the death of her husband. She waits tables at the rundown Café Rose in New Orleans, and every night she heads home to her solitary one-bedroom apartment. But when she discovers a notebook left behind by a mysterious woman at the café, Cassie’s world is forever changed. The notebook’s stunningly explicit confessions shock and fascinate Cassie, and eventually lead her to S∙E∙C∙R∙E∙T, an underground society dedicated to helping women realize their wildest, most intimate sexual fantasies. Cassie soon immerses herself in an electrifying journey through a series of ten rapturous fantasies with gorgeous men who awaken and satisfy her like never before. As she is set free from her inhibitions, she discovers a new confidence that transforms her, giving her the courage to live passionately. Equal parts enticing, liberating and emotionally powerful, S∙E∙C∙R∙E∙T is a world where fantasy becomes reality.

Review: You might want to classify this book as erotica, but it is so much more than that. Cassie is a woman whose senses have been dulled by a bad marriage. She's been widowed for several years and hasn't had sex in much longer.

She's sexually dormant.

Then she meets Pauline and Matilda and enters into the world of S.E.C.R.E.T. It is an organization that helps women awaken their sexuality through a series of steps.

As Cassie goes through each step, living out her wildest sexual fantasies you watch her grow, and become more open and confident. She's more at peace with herself and the world around her. The Cassie you meet at the beginning of the story is very different. She's blah, and she knows it.

This is the kind of book that makes you wish there were such a society. I'm not ashamed to say, I wouldn't mind being part of S.E.C.R.E.T.

Cassie's fantasies weren't anything most women don't fantasize about at some point, and if they don't they've thought about it; sex in public, with a celebrity, being rescued, taken by surprise. Experiencing them through Cassie, can almost make the reader a little jealous. There were several places in this book, where I wished I could step into the pages and take over for Cassie.

So yes, there was a lot of sex in this book, but it was beautifully written and very erotic. The thing that did it for me was the language. L. Marie Adeline didn't feel the need to dirty up a fantastic story by throwing in vulgar language.

Maybe I'm a prude, but language is one of the things that really bugs me about current erotic novels. This one is a "step" above that.

This book is a wonderful indulgence!

Rating: 5 flowers

Book Review: Jemima J

Author: Jane Green
Title: Jemima J
Publisher: Broadway
Publish Date: June 5, 2001
Buy: Amazon

Book Blurb: Jemima Jones is overweight. About one hundred pounds overweight. Treated like a maid by her thin and social-climbing roommates, and lorded over by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented but better paid) at the Kilburn Herald, Jemima finds that her only consolation is food. Add to this her passion for her charming, sexy, and unobtainable colleague Ben, and Jemima knows her life is in need of a serious change. When she meets Brad, an eligible California hunk, over the Internet, she has the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself–as JJ, the slim, beautiful, gym-obsessed glamour girl. But when her long-distance Romeo demands that they meet, she must conquer her food addiction to become the bone-thin model of her e-mails–no small feat. With a fast-paced plot that never quits and a surprise ending no reader will see coming, Jemima J is the chronicle of one woman's quest to become the woman she's always wanted to be, learning along the way a host of lessons about attraction, addiction, the meaning of true love, and, ultimately, who she really is.

Review: This book was exceedingly frustrating to read. Let me count the ways.

Things that annoyed me.

1. Jemima's weight loss. 100 pounds in a few months. It could happen, but most of us only wish it were that easy.

2. The narration over the first person telling of the story. OMG! This made me nuts and detracted from otherwise decent storytelling.

3. While I along with a bazillion other women in the world could identify with Jemima and though we all loved her when she became a skinny girl, I didn't like her much.

4. I wasn't keen on the when you lose weight love, happiness, promotions etc will come to you. That kind of feeds the whole crappy way the media makes women feel about their bodies. (Even though Jemima didn't stay 121 lbs)

5. The whole Brad/Jenny thing that blows up near the end of the book. OMG this was just PATHETIC!

6. Companies just going on the web in 2000? Really? I graduated college in 1996 and though I didn't have a PC of my own, just about everyone else did.

7. Brad's friendship growing into love only after Jemima lost weight and got hot! Oh and he didn't notice a significant weight loss at his going away party? HUH?

8. I'm so sick of books where the Mother is some nasty women that doesn't care about or is ashamed of her child.

Ok so there was a lot that I found off about this book. Was there any good?

1. I did like Jemima the fat chick. I especially loved her fondness for BACON!

2. Geraldine was the kind of friend we all want. I liked the friendship that grew between her and Jemima and as a result between Jemima and Ben.

Truthfully, I can't find much more to like in this book. It was fast paced and funny at times, and yes, it reads like a fairy tale for grown up little girls, but for me it fell flat. I have a few of Jane Green's books on my TBR pile, after this one, I'm not sure if I want to try them.

Rating: 3 flowers