TITLE: EIGHTY DAYS WHITE
AUTHOR: VINA JACKSON
Pages: 310
Date: 20/02/2013
Grade: 4.5
Details: no. 5 Eighty Days
Received from Orion Books
Through Nudge
Own
This fifth book in the “Eighty Days” series is about
Lily, the girl with the teardrop tattoo, who has been present in all of the
four previous books, be it in very small roles most of the time.
When Lily moves to London
after finishing university in Brighton she is
ready to embrace the world. She doesn’t know what she wants from life or how
exactly she fits into her surroundings though. Observing her friend submitting
to a man leaves Lily with mixed emotions. She is intrigued by the dynamic
between them, the abandon she witnesses in her friend as well as the control
the man displays, but she is not quite sure how this relates to her. Lily is on
a quest to discover exactly what it is she wants and needs and her search
starts with a passionate but somewhat detached affair with Leonard, a man about
twice her age. Although she only meets him in impersonal hotel rooms she feels
close to and safe with him. When he ends their affair, all to aware of the
problems the difference in their ages will at some point cause, he leaves Lily
bereft. She longs for Leonard with a desperate passion and while she continues
her search for what ever it may be she is looking for, it is always with the
image of Leonard in the back of her mind.
After Leonard, Lily starts an affair with Dagur, the
drummer in the Holy Criminals rock band. Although she can lose herself in
wonderful and imaginative sexual exploits with him, she knows from the start
that this isn’t and never will be a relationship. Through Dagur she meets
Grayson, a celebrity photographer and his Mistress, She, who runs a fetish
club. It is through She and her part-time job in the club that Lily discovers
her dominating tendencies, but even those don’t bring her quite the
satisfaction she is looking for. And her confusion about what it is what she
wants means that she regularly finds herself angry for no clear reason; with
herself and with the people around her.
It is only when she takes herself away from London and all the people
she knows that her eyes are opened to what it is she really wants and needs; to
what was always available to her if only she had been able to see it.
As in the previous Eighty Days books no effort has
been made to make the main character either charming or endearing; these books
portray real human beings with real doubts, fears and dark sides. Lily is only
21 years old when the story starts and has only started on her journey to who
she is and what her role in life will be. And she is layered; on the outside
she may look like a bad girl but on the inside the good girl she has been for
most of her life is still alive and kicking. It is through her various
relationships and all the different experiences she has that she slowly starts
to recognise that maybe there isn’t an either – or answer to her questions.
Maybe she doesn’t have to make a choice between being in charge and submitting;
maybe she can just be herself with the one person who never wanted her to be
anything else in the first place. This makes for an interesting character
study. And while there were times when I wanted to smack Lily and tell her to
stop being self-obsessed, her journey felt real and the outcome at the end was
very satisfying.
I loved the way in which the characters from the
previous books all play minor roles in this one. It was nice to once again get
glimpses of Summer and Dominik, Luba and Chey, Lauralynn and Viggo just as it
was interesting to see a character like Grayson developed a little bit further.
According to the “Acknowledgments” this is the last “Eighty Days” title
featuring these characters, and I have to admit that I’m sorry to say goodbye
to them. On the upside though we are promised a return of Eighty Days with a
whole host of new characters and I’m both delighted and very curious about
that.
This book, like the four prequels, is very well
written. The authors manage to make both the characters and their surroundings
vivid and real. In fact, there were times that the characters were maybe a bit
too realistic for me; their emotions and faults a bit too recognisable for
comfort. This is not the sort of book where you find yourself wishing you were
the main character, at least not until the very end of the book. The journeys
the characters in these books have to undertake in order to get to their
personal happy endings are too much like real life for that. But then these are
books about personal journeys of discovery as much as they are works of
erotica.
As for that erotica it is explicit and doesn’t always
make for comfortable reading. And again that is due to the realism. We do not
have beautifully sculpted, idolised versions of what a dream Dom would be in
these books. We get a look at everything that can be wrong about the BDSM
life-style as well as everything that can be right about it. The characters in
these books are searching for that which really works for them and it is a quest
filled with ups and downs, happiness and sadness, fulfilment as well as
disappointment. Nobody wakes up one morning knowing exactly what it is they
want and how to get it, and neither do the characters in these books. And while
that doesn’t always paint a pretty picture it does make for a realistic and
intriguing story. In fact, there were times that things were a bit too realistic and explicit for me, although that is a result of my personal likes and dislikes and not to the way in which this book is written. For example, while I'm all for spanking and flogging I can't get excited about a sub being slapped in the face, even if the sub in question thoroughly enjoys the experience. And there were one or two other descriptions that made me shudder, and not with excitement, but these incidents did not make me enjoy the book any less. I did really like the way in which the authors reflect the difference between being in love with someone and feeling a bond because of a similar sexual taste. While the first is needed for a successful relationship, the second is required for sexual play that leaves both partners satisfied and safe. What I liked most though was Lily's insecurity about what it is she actually wants and watching her experiment to find out. It made for an interesting journey with one or two eye-opening moments for me. That some of them were not quite to my taste is neither here nor there, they may be just what somebody else enjoys reading about.
This book, like the whole series, is a fascinating
look at one person’s road toward (sexual) fulfilment told in a fun, hot and
satisfying way. This is a story for grown-ups who want more than a fairy-tale.
Related reviews:
Eighty Days Yellow
Eighty Days Blue
Eighty Days Red
Eighty Days Amber
Related reviews:
Eighty Days Yellow
Eighty Days Blue
Eighty Days Red
Eighty Days Amber
