FIRST by KC Wells: An ARC Review

FIRST by K.C. Wells

 

Pages: 296

Date: September 9, 2015

Details: ARC received from Author

E-book

The blurb:

“It’s taken Tommy Newsome a while to get his head around being gay.

Growing up in a small town in Georgia, hasn’t prepared him for the more liberal life of a student at the university in Athens. Add to that the teachings of his parents and his church, and you have one shy young man who feels out of his depth. Working on his daddy’s farm hasn’t given him any chance of a social life, certainly not one like the clubs of Atlanta have on offer. Not that Tommy feels comfortable when he gets to sample it—Momma’s lectures still ring loudly inside his head.

All that changes when he goes to his first gay bar and sets eyes on Mike Scott.

When Mike’s not behind the bar at Woofs, he’s busy with his life as adult entertainer Scott Masters. Twenty years in the industry and the times, they are a-changing. Mike’s not had much luck in the relationship department, but as his mom is fond of telling him, you keep fishing in the same pond, you’re gonna reel in the same kind of fish. Maybe it’s time for a change.

And then a beautiful young man asks Mike to be his first….”

My thoughts:

This is going to be a review in two parts and I’ll start with Mike and Tommy’s story. 

As love stories go this one is sweet and mesmerizing. At first glance these two characters have little to nothing in common. Innocent, young and naive Tommy stems from a very religious family living in rural backwater. While studying away from home has more or less allowed him to come to terms with the fact he’s gay, he is not the type to go out partying and searching for new experiences.

Mike on the other hand is experience personified. Not only is he confident in who he is, he’s not ashamed of his almost twenty-year long career in porn either. If he has an issue with his chosen profession it is that the men he has dated in the past couldn’t deal with it and left him over it.

Despite the differences between them, the attraction between Mike and Tommy is instant. In fact the attraction on Tommy’s part is so strong that despite his shyness he continues to visit the club where Mike works as a bartender every Saturday night, just to be able to admire the man from a distance.

When the two men at last do come together it is a thing of beauty. The intimacy between them is as hot as it is tender. It almost makes you feel every virgin should have the opportunity to receive their introduction into sex at the hands of an older and very considerate partner.

While I wouldn’t call this an angsty book I have to admit that at times it was hard not to read this book with tiny knots in my stomach. When Tommy thinks about sex in these terms: “There are just some things you don’t talk about”, it’s impossible not to hold your breath and wait for trouble to arrive. I mean, if he can’t bring himself to talk about it, how on earth is he going to deal with Mike’s career in porn. In fact, the certainty that a crisis was awaiting these two characters I’d gotten so very attached to, kept me on a knife edge while reading. And yet when the issue of Mike’s career does explode between them, Tommy managed to surprise me. I don’t want to say too much about this because that would constitute a major and unforgivable spoiler but I would like to add that I love originality in my characters and Tommy certainly doesn’t react like the vast majority of characters in other books I’ve read.

Both Tommy and Mike were very easy characters to love. Tommy’s innocence when the book starts borders on being too much of a sweet thing. Watching him grow into himself and his relationship with Mike is a thing of beauty though and by the time the story ends he may have lost some of his innocence, he hasn’t lost any of his sweetness and his inner strength took my breath away. And before you think this makes him sound like a too good to be true character, let me reassure you; while he may be sweet he is never less than human and believable.

Mike, the more experienced person in this relationship both due to his age and his chosen career, is not always the more sensible of the two. And that gave the story a wonderful depth. It would have been so easy for Tommy to be the cause of the trouble they run into, but he isn’t. While he is younger in years, Tommy turns out to be one with the more sensible and level head on his shoulders when push comes to shove. 

And that’s it for the first part of my review; an awful lot of words to tell you how much I adored this story.  

Everything I wrote above would have been more than enough to rate this book five stars. What raises this book to the level of ‘extra-special’ is the way it deals with and the insight it gives us into the workings of the porn industry.

Gay for pay and bareback sex are not subjects I’d given a lot of thought to before reading this book. Obviously I’d heard about both, I just hadn’t paid much attention to them, other than to totally disapprove of bareback sex under almost all circumstances.

I’ve read stories set in the world of porn before but this was the first time I felt I got a real insight into that industry, where it has been, where it’s at and where it is going – and the picture isn’t always pretty. I walked away from this book feeling I had a better idea of what working in that industry is like on levels you could never get from ‘just’ watching a porn scene. The reflections on the porn industry in this book felt at times personal and that added an extra level to the reading experience. I usually rush my way through KC Wells’ books because she captivates me in the first paragraph and keeps me hooked until the very last word. And that was true for this story too; when I’ll re-read First, it will be in a reading marathon. But I forced myself to slow down for this book. I wanted to think about things and read between the lines. And that’s what made this book extra special.

Well that and Tommy and Mike and the wonderful secondary characters in their lives. Tommy’s adopted family and Mike’s colleagues were fun and enriched an already wonderful story. And then there is the cover. I rarely, if ever, remark on covers. While I like beautiful covers as much as the next person, they rarely influence whether or not I’ll take a closer look at a title. This cover speaks to my heart though. For the first time ever I may have to buy a printed copy of a book I already have on my Kindle because the image on my reader is too hidden for my liking.

VALENTINA ON THE EDGE

TITLE: VALENTINA ON THE EDGE

AUTHOR: EVIE BLAKE

Pages: 446

Date: 23/04/2013

Grade: 5-

Details: no. 2 Valentina

            Received from Headline

            Through the author

Own

“When you climax, it has been called the “little death”, and thus eroticism can actually be a celebration of life within the knowledge of our mortality.”

The first Valentina book ended with our heroine losing the man who loves her because she is unable to admit to her feelings for him. When this book starts, several months have passed and Valentina has had no contact whatsoever with Theo and no idea where he is. That doesn’t stop her from thinking about him and mourning the fact that she allowed herself to chase him away though. An opportunity to participate in a show of erotic photography in London could be just what she needs to distract herself from obsessing about the man she misses more than she could ever have expected.

Back in 1948 Maria Brzezinska leaves Venice and her two mothers for post-war London where she is to study contemporary dance. It isn’t long after arriving that Maria falls for the charming but significantly older Felix, a French filmmaker. When Felix has to return to his native Paris shortly after a rather disastrous dance performance by Maria, she begs him to take her with him. It is in Paris that Maria will discover love and passion like she never imagined, unleashing a side of her that she never knew existed. 

London in 2012 will be a place filled with revelations for Valentina. Not only does she discover that the father she hasn’t seen since she was a young girl lives there, she also finds herself face to face with Theo once again. But although all the signals he sends out seem to indicate that he still has feelings for her, the fact that he is going out with Anita, a burlesque dancer, point in a totally different direction. When Theo asks Valentina to trust him, she knows that this is her opportunity to prove to him that she does love him. Putting her trust in a man who appears to be dating somebody else may well be a demand too far for Valentina and her huge issues with commitment though. But while Anita may appear to be her adversary when it comes to Theo’s affections, she is also the means through which Valentina discovers a side to her maternal grandmother she was completely unaware of.

This is a very good sequel to the first book. Often a second book in a trilogy can feel a bit like filler material; a means for getting from the start of the story to the ending without any real value of its own. Not so in this case. This book really does further the story. Through the events in this book, both in the present and in the past, the reader gets a far better understanding of Valentina and her commitment issues. Mind you, Valentina is still a hard character to like and very insecure when it comes to men and commitment, especially for a woman who is supposed to be 30-ish. But, after what we learned about her great-grandmother (in the first book) and her grand-mother (in this book) and their passionate but doomed encounters with love, it becomes easier to understand why Valentina would be distrustful of lasting love. I’ve got a feeling that the third book will give both the reader and Valentina a closer look at Valentina’s mother. Hints in this book indicate that there is a lot Valentina doesn’t know about her mother’s life as well as her own past. I’m looking forward to finding out what exactly happened to make Valentina’s mother such a distant character and if discovering the truth will be enough to bring the two women back together and help Valentina trust her own feelings.

This book is filled with clever references. There is a tenuous link between the movies Felix makes and “The Story of O”. Also Evie Blake pays a nice tribute to the original creator of her main character when Anita dresses up to look just like Valentina:

“The angular perfection of her black wig and her heavily made-up eyes make her look like a graphic novel character more than a real woman.”

The Valentina as described in these books is, of course, based on an iconic Italian graphic novel character created by Guido Crepax. 

And then there are the names. Theo’s surname is Steen and we discover that Valentina’s father is called Rembrandt. Both names create a wonderful and inspired link between Valentina’s story and the important role art plays in these books. I am sure there are more clever references and links, but these are a few that stood out for me.

While this is still a very sensual and at times sexy story, sex plays a different role in this second book. Valentina is no longer trying to discover her boundaries, no longer driven to see how far she is willing to go. In this book it is Maria who is constantly pushing her sexual boundaries but although she does get adventurous, her experiences are beautiful and enticing rather than shocking. In fact, as much as sexual freedom was the theme for the first book, this second instalment seems to reverse direction. Relationships without boundaries may have been fun, but they are not without their problems as various characters discover.

I said it in my review of Valentina, and I’ll say it again here: Noelle Harrison, the author behind the name Evie Blake, is a wonderful writer. She weaves her stories rather than tell them. Her words are at times almost poetic, creating a tangible atmosphere which allows the reader to not just observe events as they take place but also experience them. In fact, I’m convinced that I wouldn’t have felt as strongly as I did about Valentina’s character if it hadn’t been for the life-like fashion in which she is portrayed on these pages.

It breaks my heart that I now have to wait until November before I find out how this story ends. Between the hints about Valentina’s mother and the cliff-hanger this book ends on, it is going to be hard to contain my curiosity. The title of the third book, “Valentina Unblocked”, makes me hopeful that it will all end on a positive note though.

TEMPTATION

TITLE: TEMPTATION

AUTHOR: SELENA KITT

Pages: 160

Date: 01/04/2013

Grade: 4.5

Details: No. 1 Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed

             Received from the author

Own / Kindle

The blurb:

"Lead us not into temptation..." ~Matthew 6:13

What happens when you fall in love with your best friend's father?

Leah is a good, Catholic girl, and she and Erica have been best friends since their first communion. Sure, Erica's father is handsome and charming, but Leah spends so much time at the Nolan's--just Erica and her famous, photographer father now, since Erica's mother died--that she's practically part of the family.

Both girls have led privileged, sheltered lives and are on the "good girl" track at St. Mary Magdalene's Preparatory College, Leah pursuing her love of dance and Erica sating her endless curiosity as editor of the newspaper. Neither of them could have ever imagined that one fateful discovery will not only push the boundaries of their strict, repressive upbringing, but the bonds of their friendship as well.

Leah certainly never could have imagined finding herself torn between her best friend and her best friend's father. Sure, Leah's mother had always talked about Mr. Nolan as "a catch," but Leah herself had never thought of him as anything other than just Erica's dad--until the girls discover something darkly erotic under Mr. Nolan's bed, a deep, shameful secret that will not only lead them into temptation, but will deliver them into a far greater revelation than any of them could ever have imagined.”

Set in the 1950’s this is a wonderful and imaginative story of sexual awakening and forbidden love. And, as awakenings go, this is a rather abrupt one. It takes young Leah little or no time to change from an inexperienced innocent into a wanton sex vixen. What starts of as guiltily exploring unknown pleasures soon turns into actively pursuing and creating every opportunity to be intimate with the man she has fallen in love and in lust with.

The sexual tension spills off the page. The writing is so good that you can feel the excitement yourself while reading. It is almost as if, with Leah, you are discovering your own sexuality all over again. I can’t speak for anybody else, but it brought some delightful memories back to me. In fact, I think I enjoyed those early scenes, when the whole sexual experience is still completely new to Leah more than the later ones. Reading Leah's reluctance to give in to the urge to masturbate while the pictures she is viewing get her increasingly hot, was very stimulating. And the description of how her pleasure slowly overcomes her shame was even better. It doesn't take long for young Leah to move from reluctantly giving in to her urges to seeking out situations in which to pleasure herself. The scene in which she and her friend Erica pleasure each other is beautiful and completely believable as is the description of her watching Mr. Nolan while he is masturbating. While I had a hard time believing that anyone would move from complete innocence to sexually needy and experienced almost overnight, I did enjoy watching while Mr. Nolan shows Leah all the pleasures she had up until then not even imagined. And all of these scenes are written in such a way that it is impossible not to react to them.

This is definitely an erotic story rather than a romance with erotic overtones. The scenes are well written, descriptive and very easy to visualise. In fact, the whole book is well written. The story is told from Leah’s point of view and it is especially easy to get a good picture of her character. The one thing I did question in this story is the confidence with which Leah interprets Mr. Nolan’s thoughts and feelings. It just doesn’t seem realistic that she would have such a well developed intuition or insight into his emotions. Not only do I not quite believe an inexperienced 18 year old would be so insightful, I have a hard time believing anybody could.

I actually went so far as to google the average age people start college at, and that turns out to be 17 or 18. The fact that these girls seem younger than that is due to the story being set in 1953 when young people were supposed to stay innocent longer – I would love to say when the world was a more innocent place but I don’t think that would be true -. The fact that the two girls in this story are as young as they are and that Leah falls for and gets intimate with her friend’s father may be a step too far for some readers. Just as I’m sure that some people will take offence at some descriptions relating to the Catholic Church and the two priests in the book. I didn’t feel offended or embarrassed at anything described in this book, but I have been told that I’m a bit more liberal than a lot of people around me.

This book is a re-written version of both “Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed” and “Plaid Skirt Confessions”. Since I’ve read neither of those two earlier stories I can’t say how they compare to this one. What I can say is that I enjoyed this book so much that I’m delighted that I already have a copy of the sequel on my Kindle. I’m not entirely sure where this story may be going next but I do know that I’m going to enjoy finding out.

THE FETISH BOX: WHAT ESCAPES

TITLE: THE FETISH BOX; WHAT ESCAPES

AUTHOR: NICOLE CAMDEN

Pages: 75

Date: 05/03/2013

Grade: 3.5

Details: no. 2 The Fetish Box

Own / Kindle

Warning: This is the second part in a serialised novel that will be published in three instalments. These stories should be read in order since they won’t make sense otherwise.

When the first instalment of The Fetish Box, Open All Night, ended we left Mary just after she’d been told by John to take all her clothes off. What follows is a sensual introduction into the world of intimacy and sexual vulnerability; a journey which scares Mary a bit but excites her far more and leaves her with deep feelings for John.

Mary isn’t allowed a lot of time to reflect on her night of passion though. She and John are woken up by a phone call informing them that Mary’s shop has been trashed leaving Max and Kaylee injured and on their way to hospital. Mary’s seemingly idyllic introduction to her new life is well and truly over, especially once she discovers that this is not the only threat her shop is facing. And when danger finds Mary again, but this time closer to home, she finds herself running to safety.

But even in the midst of violence and threats Mary can’t deny her sexual curiosity. And while she feels a connection with John, she can’t help being curious about the beautiful Max.

In my review of “Open All Night” I reflected on the fact that it was not a complete book; the story ended abruptly in the middle of a story-line. The fact that this instalment starts with Chapter Nine (and finishes at the end of Chapter Sixteen) confirms the fact that here we’re dealing with a novel being released in instalments. And I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I’m quite aware of the fact that Nicole Camden is not alone in presenting her work like this and that this way of publishing is nothing new. After all Charles Dickens’ books were routinely published in instalments, to name one very famous example. On the other hand, I personally don’t much like it. When I start a story I want to be able to finish it. I don’t like having difficulties remembering who exactly all the characters in the book are or what exactly has been happening earlier on. So there is a big part of me that wants to say that this is enough for me and that I won’t continue reading this story.

But… I do enjoy this story. It seems a bit far-fetched at times, especially when it comes to Mary’s sudden and rather drastic conversion from virgin in to sex-vixen, but I do like other parts of it a lot. The interaction between the characters is fun, the writing is smooth and the sex is hot. The attack on the shop adds an exciting edge to this story and ensures that it is about more than just sex. And all of that is good and all of that makes me curious about what is going to happen next. 

Now for that far-fetched introduction to sex Mary experiences. Don't get me wrong, it made for exciting reading but you have to wonder how likely it is that a man, no matter what his sexual desires are, introduces a virgin to clamps even before doing the deed. And would a woman really be willing to experiment with anal sex the day after losing her virginity? Would that same woman be thinking about having sex with another man just hours after having all these new experiences? My answers to all those questions is: very unlikely. But, while it all seems to be a long way away from reality, it was great fun to read. I guess my feelings with regard to the sex are the same as those regarding the whole story and the way in which it is presented; ambivalent.

So, where does that leave me? If there were still an undetermined amount of instalments to come I would stop reading this story right now. But since it seems that there is only one more instalment to come I am tempted to just read it in order to find out what happens next. After all, I’ve come this far and have mostly enjoyed myself so it would be a shame not to finish the story. I’ve learnt a valuable lesson though; in the future I will be making very sure that the books I order are actually the complete work. I have no problems with proper trilogies but have to draw the line at receiving a story in this chopped up way.

I also feel that I’m probably not doing this story justice with my ratings; I’m fairly sure that the rating would be higher if it was based on the whole book rather than a just a few chapters. I guess the jury is still out as far as The Fetish Box is concerned.

THE FETISH BOX: OPEN ALL NIGHT

TITLE: THE FETISH BOX: Open All Night

AUTHOR: NICOLE CAMDEN

Pages: 74

Date: 13/02/2013

Grade: 3

Details: no. 1 Fetish Box

            Received from Gallery Threshold Pocket

  Books through NetGalley

Own/Kindle

Twenty-two year old Mary Deupree has inherited a sex-shop from the mother she never knew. Having been raised by her strict and religious father and grandmother she has no experience when it comes to sex or sex shops, but enough curiosity to make the journey from California to Florida. Shortly after arriving in Hollywood, Florida, Mary meets the two men who played important parts in her mother’s life. John, a scarred veteran from Afghanistan lives in the apartment over the Fetish Box and Max the Irish bartender with whom Mary now co-owns a bar. Much to her surprise Mary discovers that she reacts strongly and sexually to both men. But while Max seems to promise a night of wild abandon, John offers Mary the opportunity to experience everything she’s been fantasising about as well as learn all she needs to know to successfully run the business she has just inherited.

Before I go off on what will sound like a bit of a rant let me say that I did enjoy reading this story. It is written in a nice and easy, at times chatty, way. I enjoyed that the reader gets to see the story from Mary, Mike and John’s perspective. And I liked what I saw of the main characters so far, even if the two men seem to be stereotypes; exactly what an Irish man and a wounded veteran are supposed to be in romance novels.

I have a few issues with this book though. The biggest one being that this isn’t actually a book. It is the start of a story and it stops before it really begins. All we have here is an introduction of the main characters and hints of potentially interesting and sexy things to come. I don’t know or understand why it is suddenly okay to publish instalments and call them books, but it seems to be wide-spread these days. This is, of course, a review copy so I didn’t pay for it. But I don’t think I would want to pay for it either. I don’t mind paying for short books provided they give me a completed story. And that is not what I found here.

The rest of my issues are much smaller. First of all, Irish men don’t really sound the way Nicole Camden writes it. They do not use “yer” instead of “you” all the time. And I should know; after living in Ireland for 15 years and having been married to an Irish man for even longer, I’ve got a pretty good idea what they sound like. In fact, this particular Irishman sounded more like a Scot a lot of the time. Secondly, how likely is it that a girl who has stayed a virgin for 22 years would suddenly decide that she wants to sleep with not one, but two men she’s only met for the first time that day? And if that seems unlikely, don’t even get me started about the fact that she willingly agrees to have one of them introduce her to the ins and outs of BDSM. I mean; really? Finally there was one wardrobe malfunction that bothered me; Mary went from wearing a skirt to wearing jeans and back to wearing a skirt without ever changing her clothes.

This book didn’t contain a lot of explicit sex. There is some breast play, some masturbation including a toy and a quick and casual encounter in a bar. Other than that the reader only gets hints at what may be to come. I really don’t think there is a lot, if anything, in this book to offend anybody although the story seems to suggest that that may change in future instalments.

And that leads me to the big question; will I be reading the next book in this series. As I stated above, I don’t like paying money for what I feel are unfinished books. On the other hand I did like this story and the characters enough to want to know what might be happening next. There were enough hints about future events in this story to make me curious about how it will all play out. So I guess the jury is still out on this one. I will have to wait and see if my curiosity is stronger than my opposition to books published in this way. Only time will tell.