Indiscretions by Elayne S. Venton

TITLE: Indiscretions
AUTHOR: Elayne S. Venton
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 61k)
GENRE: Historical menage erotic romance
COST: $5.95

Bow Street Runners Trent and William have denied their feeling for each other too long when a smuggling case forces their true passions to come to the surface. The main problem is, Trent also loves his mistress Anna, and when she is kicked from her home due to her dalliance and upcoming pregnancy, he refuses to sacrifice his honor or his affection for her in favor of giving up William. A temporary arrangement is agreed upon, where the three of them all live together, but jealousy is a wicked lover.

I bought this when it was first released in anticipation of reviewing it for last week, but because I didn’t want two stories with Regency and gay elements in it in the same review period, I chose to read J.L. Langley’s My Fair Captain first and this one, this week. I really wish I’d never bothered with this one at all. If anything, this makes me appreciate the other one even more.

The story is pitched as a ménage, but for the first ¾’s of the book, William is so hateful and jealous about Anna, I despised him in ways I haven’t despised a character in a long time. He says time and time again that women don’t do it for him, which is fine and good, but then when the author forces the three to come together, all of a sudden, one does. I don’t think so. I especially don’t think that the woman he has spent the entire book hating and hoping gets kicked out of the house is all of a sudden the only female to ever arouse him. His thoughts toward her have been nasty and vitriolic throughout most of the story; this sudden shift stretches and shatters every inch of credibility.

Add into that some very unfortunate writing in portions, usually the sex scenes. Maybe one of the most unfortunate – and humorous – examples comes in a rimming scene between the two guys. William, the more experienced of the two, is rimming Trent for the first time.

Daringly, Will leaned in and flicked his tongue around it again. The sphincter puckered. A long hiss broke the silence in the room.

Now, I know she means that Trent hissed, but that’s sure as hell not the image she presented. And it sure makes the rest of the rimming scene very ew-worthy to read. But this is just one example of a whole story of unfortunate phrasing. I could spend far too much time citing other passages, which actually, would be more fun than reading the book. Suffice it to say, it suffers drastically. Where was the editor on this book?

Maybe I’ll go back and re-read My Fair Captain to get this one scrubbed from my brain. In fact, so should you. Don’t bother buying this book. Get Langley’s instead.

Readability	5/10 – Too many cringeworthy words and phrases make this hard to take seriously
Menage	2/10 – I didn’t believe it for a second. A few moments of hot sex does not make up for a book’s worth of set-up in the other direction
Characterization	6/10 – Trent was the only well-rounded, believable character of the bunch.
Entertainment value	3/10 – How can I enjoy myself when I vehemently hate one of the three in the romance?
World building	6/10 – An odd juxtaposition of too many examples of modern speech interspersed with great period detail makes the story falter.
TOTAL:	22/50