Hotbed (Black Lace) [Paperback]

Portia Da Costa (Author)

Book Description

Series: Black Lace | Publication Date: June 4, 2010

Pride comes before a fall—but what if that descent becomes the wildest ride of your life? Two sisters, Natalie and Patti, become rivals when they challenge each other's daring and begin a dark, downward spiral where nobody is quite who or what they seem, and transgressing sexual boundaries is the norm.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"the novels that set hearts beating and pulses racing" - Sunday Mirror"

About the Author

Portia Da Costa is the author of Continuum, Devil Inside, Gothic Blue, Kiss It Better, Magic and Desire, Shadowplay, and The Tutor.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Virgin Books; paperback / softback edition (June 4, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0352336145
• ISBN-13: 978-0352336149
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 4.2 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,463,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pass on this one., May 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Hotbed (Black Lace) (Paperback)

I've been buying and reading every Black Lace book as they come out each month for the past five + years. In all that time there have only been three books I did not finish. This is one of them. I read half of it and then tossed it. Why?

The heroine, Natalie, is not somebody I found I could empathize or identify with. I just plain didn't like her and didn't care what happened to her. None of the other characters are interesting because their personalities are not developed. The plot is not very compelling. Natalie is a reporter hoping to expose a local businessman's hidden illicit activities, but she's actually quite a hypocrite on this score. Most of the erotic activity falls into the kinky category, with lots of men in leather masks, beatings, and the like. Perhaps if a female reader is fascinated with the idea of having a sexual relationship with a transvestite this would be just the book to read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Portia's best..., June 7, 2004

By 

CoffeeGurl - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Hotbed (Black Lace) (Paperback)

I loved Portia Da Costa's The Tutor and Continuum and looked forward to reading Hotbed. This is one of the most shocking Black Lace novels I've ever read. And that's the problem with this novel. I think Ms. Portia Da Costa was more preoccupied with supplying a vast amount of shock value than she was of developing the characters and situations. Natalie is one of the weakest characters Portia's ever written. A London journalist, Natalie returns to her hometown of Redwych to do an expose on a clean-cut, moralist businessman. She suspects that he lives an illicit lifestyle that could ruin his golden boy image. In doing so she discovers a world of dark, lurid and kinky games she's never before witnessed. She also discovers that her half-sister and her new crop of sexual comrades have set her up. I don't know if it's the dominant transvestite, the attraction between the two sisters or what, but Hotbed is more about perversion than sensuality. The part in which Natalie has a rather steamy encounter on a train with a pseudo-academic is the only good erotic scene in this novel. The rest just isn't worth reading. It's a shame. The Tutor was such a great novel -- what happened to this author? I sure hope that the other novel I have of hers, Shadowplay, is better than this one.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sizzler from Portia Da Costa more than comes our way ...., February 21, 2002

By 

Rudolf Spoerer "dowadiddi" (Weston, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hotbed (Black Lace) (Paperback)

Certainly way up there in the Black Lace vein we find our heroine, Natalie in a very very dark novel entering into a new relationship with her very much liberated half sister, Patti.

And what a relationship it is as Natalie finds Patti is now the exclusive seamstress of leather and spice for the somewhat beutifull transvestite social leader of a group of very very horny people led by Stella Fontayne....

What is great about the writings of this author is that she is able to take the impossible and make it delicious as Alex Hendry, one of our happy little characters soon finds out as he submits to Stella .....

Taking outwardly normal working folk and stripping them of their mostly false modesty while they not only submit but partake in sins of the flesh is what make this book really great .....