Lunch [Hardcover]

Karen Moline (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1994

Despite her fiance+a7 and repulsion at her surrender, talented painter Olivia Morgan finds herself being seduced by Nick Muncie, a famous actor who is consumed by his own sexual perversions. A first novel. 50,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

First-novelist Moline huffs and puffs through a soft-core scorcher that gilds a handful of sadomasochistic fantasies with celebrity trappings. Renowned London painter Olivia Morgan is lunching with her dealer when her eyes lock with those of Nick Muncie, Hollywood's sexy bad boy flavor-of-the-day who, though dismissed as beefcake, is playing the title role in a movie about Faust. Soon the words and machinations of narrator "M," Nick's muscular, scarred "majordomo," lure Olivia into Nick's bed, where she's drawn into violent games. M watches the increasingly destructive affair through a peephole, waxes poetic and hints at a shared, horrific past to explain the dark compulsions that drive Nick--and, through him, the pliable Olivia, who is risking reputation, limb and a loving fiance for her demon lover. With gorgeously appointed assignations sweetening the requisite whips, black leather and videotapes, the edgy, showy titillation filling these pages will draw fans of the bestseller Damage . But Olivia's apparent suicide-wish goes annoyingly unexplained, and the portentous musings of M--who sees all despite blind corners--dip into parody.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Nick Muncie's sojourn in London to star in a film version of Faust coincides with a personal pursuit of pleasure that turns to obsession. His companion, M, procures women for Nick and then videotapes the couplings. A chance encounter in a restaurant bring them into contact with Olivia, a renowned artist. The intense physical magnetism between Olivia and Nick develops into a powerful sexual relationship in which pain and pleasure overlap. But Olivia is different from the other women Nick and M have used and abandoned; her feelings are more complex than unsatiated lust. Beyond the descriptions of sadomasochistic encounter lie characters with lives glimpsed only in fragments. The reader joins as a voyeuristic witness of pain that dissolves into sexual release. One's tolerance for that role will ultimately determine whether one will stay for Lunch or pick another novel from the contemporary menu.
Kathy Piehl, Mankato State Univ., Minn.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 287 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688133207
• ISBN-13: 978-0688133207
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Get it at the library, February 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lunch (Mass Market Paperback)

Although I found some of the sex scenes repetitive and somewhat repellent, I continued reading in hopes that the past of "M" would be revealed. This hope was disappointed, only brief glimpses were allowed. I think this is part of the reason I didn't make a deep connection with the characters, I didn't know them well enough.

The story line was interesting, as was the obsessive downward spiral of the relationship. The ending was ambiguous, but certainly fit the scope of the novel.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Silly and sick, but fun, February 11, 2000

By 

Amy D. Smith "amydeaton" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lunch (Hardcover)

This is no feminist manifesto. It's clumsily written and the "shocking" sexual situations are the most common that you could imagine. Still, it's a lot of fun, a guilty pleasure with some mystery and grace- just not much. I enjoyed it thoroughly and would read anything this author wrote even though I might hide it under the bed if I had dinner guests.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars In a word..., March 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Lunch (Mass Market Paperback)

Tedious. It's rare that I speed through a book solely for the purpose of getting to the end of it so I can throw it down and get to a better book, but this was certainly the case with "Lunch". This formula has been done before, more engagingly and intricately, by better writers. The author's attempt at provocation fails miserably and the book reads like an over-dramatized romance novel with a buffoon for a central character. The author also has a tendency to build up to nothing which I first noticed in "Belladonna", (which was, nevertheless, better written and more engaging than "Lunch", due to the narrator's viewpoint of the story and a more developed plot and central characters). This novel may have been quite the scandal if it were written in 1940, but it certainly doesn't cut it today. Lunch? No thanks.