ZANE (Pleasure Extraordinaire: Part 1)

I was really surprised by this book. I read the opening of the first chapter and thought, "Oh, here we go". I was given a very quick impression of what seemed to be a truly cliche main character and then, boom, we were pretty straight into a sex scene which startled me a little but reinforced what I thought about Zane. In addition, as soon as I read that he had a female assistant, I thought I knew where everything was heading. Hmmm... It was all a bit more complicated than that, as it turns out. I knew nothing about the original series that this book is a spin-off from, but the backstory that started to come out across the course of the book was the saving grace. There was enough shared that I didn't feel at too much of a loss, and it made the characters more compelling than they might otherwise have been. Zane was not just the person he appeared to be at the beginning of the book; we began to see some of why he is the way he is and also how he feels about himself and his past. That bit of introspection and self-reflection, while not exceptionally deep, at least showed a man beginning to grow up and take stock, even if he did pick up and drop his self-improvement efforts at the slightest provocation. The switch to Julie's pov for some of the later chapters was another surprise and I felt both profoundly sorry for her but also bothered by her manipulation. She seemed to be sending out messages that were at odds with what she claimed, to herself at least, to want and then having to do all this other dancing around in order to shoot down what she had set up. I'm going to give her a pass on this one and say I can only put it down to how messed up things got for her in the past, leaving her messed up in the here and now, even if she's not always super conscious of how it's dictating her actions. I would really want to hear more from her in part 2, because she has just as much healing to do as he does. There are a few small typos in the book, the odd missing word here or there, and some inconsistencies when it comes to the spelling of a couple of character names, but they weren't overly distracting, merely things I noticed. I don't tend to recommend romance novels to people, particularly those that have explicit sex scenes in them, because I see that as a very personal choice. Having said that, if this kind of book is your cup of tea, then this is not an intense, demanding read, but has a little more to it than your usual romp in the hay.

This book kept me on the edge of my seat with mystery, excitement, arousals, and sometimes an emotional here and there. Overall I'd read this book again, I even bought part 2.

I was a little leery about a free book but I must admit this book was great. I read it in one sitting!!! Can't wait to see what happens with Zane.