Marcy Paget’s ex-husband, Trent Berger, is a complete and total jerk. Not only did he leave her for a younger, prettier, more docile second wife the moment he finished the expensive education she’d paid for, but he can’t even spare a minute or a dollar of support for their daughter Katie. Still, Marcy can cope, and when she is suddenly faced with a test of her integrity, she passes with flying colors, winning the attention of Andre Chevalier, a wealthy and warmhearted Frenchman who offers her a job.
Chevalier, a sex therapist who specializes in BDSM, hopes to fix Marcy up with another employee of his, Mike Thompson, a lonely widower, and indeed sparks fly between the two immediately. Meanwhile, Trent’s new wife is finding out precisely what sort of person her husband is.Will both Marcy and Trent get exactly what they deserve? Can Marcy overcome her past hesitations and find a brighter future?
This is something of a Victorian morality tale, except with a great deal of unashamed, joyous sex and sensuality. There are good guys who get rewarded in the end, and bad guys who get punished, and a reader can freely cheer for the former and hiss at the latter without a qualm. The interested reader can also get some useful advice on sex from the book, which may be more or less helpful depending on one’s own individual quirks.
The book is a bit too easily black-and-white in places – there’s no major conflict, no moral grey areas, no reason to feel uneasy about Trent’s fate, since has no redeeming character traits whatsoever. Chevalier in particular comes across as rather a deus ex machina, with the ability to remedy painful situations with a wave of his magic…um, wand, and to love all women, everywhere, with equal tenderness. Frequently, too, the book didactically “tells” what it should “show,” taking some of the immediacy and force from both the emotional and the physical feelings – the reader feels lectured rather than seduced.
If what you’re looking for is a story without complex moral choices or difficult emotional conflicts, just a simple and straightforward fairy tale with sex, then you might enjoy this book.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader