Three by Lisa Andel, T.A. Chase, & Bonnie Dee

TITLE: Three
AUTHOR: Lisa Andel, T.A. Chase, Bonnie Dee
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Anthology (roughly 74k)
GENRE: Menage erotic romance
COST: $5.95

A trio of threesome novellas, from m/m/f, to m/m/m, to m/f/f. These three authors offer alternatives to traditional romantic relationships. Does love have to come in pairs?

“Tia’s Leash” by Lisa Andel is the first offering. I’m going to hope they decided to put these in order by author’s last name, because if this story is meant to convince me to continue reading, I would have stopped after the first chapter. It’s wham-bam-good-bye coherency and characterization in this one. The author might have a nice voice given the chance, but in this story about a female werewolf who is the object of obsession for her pack and every other male who encounters her, there’s no chance to experience it. Males in this story are practically interchangeable; 90% of them don’t have any personality at all. Don’t look for emotional involvement in this one. There’s no build-up, there’s virtually no plot, and the heroine spends too much time being a receptacle for every male body part around to have much of a personality. Pass.

“Two for One” by T.A. Chase isn’t quite as cringeworthy. Dr. Jack Samson is the new veterinarian in the town of Sumerset. The first night he goes out, he meets a local couple, Brady Vanderly and fire chief, Simon Wittman. Surprise, surprise, they’re looking for a potential third to make them feel “complete.” Well, Brady is. Simon is kind of going along for the ride in the beginning. Though this story is more readable than the first, and the characters a little more developed, my constant amazement that they are always having sex, in every way and every place, gets old very fast. There’s an attempt later on in the story to add some conflict, but really? This is about three boys having fun with their body parts. And that’s pretty much it.

“Awakening” by Bonnie Dee is the only story to even attempt a little bit of character complexity. Shy Melissa has had a thing for a British guy in her office, Michael, only to come home and find out that her best friend and more sexually adept roommate Rachel has picked up Michael as her latest conquest. When she learns that Melissa likes him, she suggests a weekend for the three of them, and thus commences…a weekend of threesome sex. Ms. Dee’s prose is definitely the most sophisticated of the three, and the more details she provides makes it much easier to get immersed in the characters she creates. I can’t say that I necessarily like any of them very much – Rachel’s pushiness grates after awhile, Melissa’s refusal to stand up for what she really wants is the same – but at least they’re real and not merely a means to get off. The pat ending didn’t work for me, either, in the context of the characters she created, but at least she tried. I’m still not sure the other authors did.

Readability	6/10 – There’s little technically wrong with the stories, though the simplistic styles of the first two makes for monotonous reading after awhile.
Menage	4/10 – Only 2 of the 3 menages even work a little bit for me, and one of them barely works at all.
Characterization	6/10 – Half of these points go to Bonnie Dee’s story. And 2.5 of the other points goes to the gay threesome. It’s hard to give much more than half a point to a story with interchangeable body parts.
Entertainment value	4/10 – I had to fight so hard to even finish the first story. And the other two were very put-downable.
World building	5/10 – Only the middle story had any believable world to me. Dee’s story was all about the characters and Andel’s was too wham bam to qualify for anything.
TOTAL:	25/50