Customer Reviews

Dangerous Pleasures (Pleasures Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ms. Small's latest installment in her "Pleasures" series introduces us to Annie, a widowed mother of five kids, aging from college to preschool. It is simular to the first book,Private Pleasures (Signet Eclipse) in that the protaganist is a mom on her own and fighting to keep things together for her kids. This book also brings back the Nora from book one. She acts as Annie's mentor through the changes in her life.

I was dissappointed by the lack of sexual tension in the book. While there were plenty of sex scenes there was none of the erotic pull one would expect from an erotica novel. In fact, some scenes were as short as one paragraph.

The language in the book was also off-putting for me. "Squealing," in deilight or for any other reason, brings to mind piglets, not excitement. Many passages read like bodice-rippers from 40 years ago.

I was also bothered by Annie's frequesnt reminders that she was doing everything for her children when, in fact, the book shows her pulling away from her kids. By the end of the book her most frequent contact with the children is over the phone or through updates from the nanny. Maybe that just bothers me because I'm a mom who's close to my kids, but I did find it troubling.

One thing I like about Dangerous Pleasures is that the heroine isn't the perfect 20-something with the right look, right body, right everything. She's a woman in her 40s with all the stresses that come with motherhood. Its nice to see a more realistic character in the starring role.

Overall, I don't think this book is worth the price. The story feels very superficial with no real emotional depth, The sex doesn't garner the erotic draw one would expect from erotica, and the plot is almost non-existant, with very little conflict to keep it interesting. Above all it reads like a little old lady's idea of a dirty book... granted, it's an adventurous old lady.

I'd recommend skipping it.

Since first reading Betrice Small's "Skye O'Malley" 20 years ago, I've greatly enjoyed diving into her novels. However, her latest offerings involving The Channel show such promise in the beginning, but halfway through just leave me cold.

First, the good:

1) Most women will relate to the heroine, Annie, and her struggles involving money and family. After all, who hasn't worried about how to pay for their children's college, missing work because of a vomiting child or dealing with their own aging parents?

2) I found it refreshing that Annie was in her mid-40s and a size 16 (although she later slims down to a size 12). Congrats to Ms. Small for incorporating such a realistic character. No matter our size or age, we can still be desirable and sexy.

3) The Channel. Until some brilliant woman actually invents a way to allow us to star in and control our very own porn movie, I enjoy the experience vicariously through Small's characters.

The bad:

1) All too familiar sex scenes. She's seriously running out of ideas.

2) Mr. Nicholas. Small's loyal readers already know it's going to end badly when he's involved. I sincerely hope she incorporates The Channel in upcoming novels, but please leave the devilish Mr. Nicholas out it.

3) Annie has sexual relationships with her male assistant and 2 other underlings, both at work and elsewhere. This is professional suicide and I speak as a woman/mother/wife who works full time. Simply cringeworthy.

4) The whole "I'm doing it for my kids" mantra. At the beginning, Annie is a stay-at-home mom to her 5 kids, 4 of whom still live at home. Within a year of Annie starting work, her children have a full-time nannie who is virtually raising them while their mother often spends the night at her work apartment having 3-ways. How exactly is playing with and casually discarding her boy-toys helping her kids?

Started promising, but I didn't even care what happened to Annie because she was virtually unrecognizable by the middle of the book.

This is the fourth book in the "Pleasures" series. In some ways it's the best. The main character faces decisions that appear simple and straightforward in the beginning. Just as in real life, her choices lead to more complications and difficult decisions. The story is a bit less "pat" than the others, with some genuine soul searching on the part of the heroine. Small's characters tend to go forward and not think a lot. This woman is a bit different in that she begins to learn from her choices and think more carefully about consequences of her next decisions.

The book contains explicit sexual scenes that form part of the plot. If you don't like that, don't read this book.

In Egret Pointe, fortyish Widow Annie Elizabeth Miller raises five children by herself with no social life since her husband died in London. When her mom calls whining that her dad ignores her for golf, Annie knows this is an omen. Soon the high school calls to inform her that her two oldest Nathaniel and Amy are on detention; that is followed by the middle school informing her that her twins Lily and Rose are suspended. Finally her youngest stay at home Wills rejects the nap that Annie desperately needs.

Her corporate litigator sister Lizzie who knows Annie's "strength" façade hides a depressed miserable person, submits her name to a contest sponsored by Channel, a spa catering to female desires. Annie wins a week at the spa. She has the time of her life sexually and otherwise. Shockingly she is offered a position at the spa, which would eliminate her financial woes and her sexual abstinence, which she accepts. However, her family, especially her kids who depend on her, wonder how far will success and pleasure spoil Annie Elizabeth Miller.

The sequel to PRIVATE PLEASURES is a pleasurable erotic tale starring a fortyish mother of five who has no life of her own with the only person interested in her well being her sister. The transformation of Annie from only raising five kids to sex siren works; she classically displays defense mechanisms defending herself psychologically with initially altruistic and suppression states to altruistic rationalizations. She defends her changed behavior from a stay at home mom to BDSM and multiple-partners. Fans will enjoy Bertrice Small's fine character study while pondering the wise wisdom of teenage philosopher Amy that eventually you reach an age that sex does not matter (not).

Harriet Klausner

this is the latest in the series by beatric small. of course, it is x rated and should not be read by impressionable teens. i enjoyed it and wait for the next sequel

Did I really just waste two hours of my life on this book? I loved all Small's historicals and her Hetar series, but I don't know what she was thinking with this one. At least in the Pleasure books that have had romances , there was some kind of plot. This book had no plot. It was "Life stinks" (it actually kind of did), "I won a prize!", sex, "I got a job!", sex, "I got a promotion!", sex, "I got another promotion!", sex, "Oh! I work for the devil!" WHILE she's having sex. She's a cold-hearted witch and I'm glad this wasn't a romance because I would have been disgusted if she had ended up with a permanent man. Don't waste your time with this book.

What can I say except that I enjoyed all of the pleasures books. I am waiting to read the next book coming out in August. I am hoping it will be in the Kindle format. But if it is not, I will buy it any way. Bertrice is one of my best historical romance writer, but her erotica books have grab my interest to the core. I am not one to rehash the story but I can tell you if you read them in the order that she wrote them...you will thoroughly enjoy them. She is the best in my book.
Keep writing Bertrice.....I rated this a 5 star as well as all of her erotica books.

Graphic, and once it got going the writing got better--the all-plot & no action setup at the beginning of the story was a little rough-choppy dialogue, excess adverbs, etc.

Ms. Small excels at the erotic portion for the most part, but is weak on the writing of the non-sex elements.

I'm actually starting to think there is not truly good erotica out there. Either it's a romance with sex thrown in for spice, it's just graphic sex with no plot, it's paranormal and not intended as erotica, or it's just out and out bad. Would it kill publishers to edit this stuff a little more, "Hey, your main love interest sounds like the male lead in an adult film-" "Horny and nonverbal with really bad dialogue? You mean I have to fix it?"

Ugh.

Overall a silly premise and a goofy/weird ending, but well, it is pr0n for women, not classic literature.

This book was a really great read, but to be honest, the ending was wack! This is the first I've read of this author, and I'm not sure I'd read another one of her novels. Like I said, it was a very good read up until the last two or three pages, if only the ending wasn't so vague. Hopefully she'll make a sequel. If so, I'd definately read that one!

I've read the "Pleasure Series" in Bertrice Small's previous books, and it just gets better with each one. I would definitely recommend this book. It's hot and sexy and tells a story that will keep you interested.