The Younger Man by Lauren Hawkeye

TITLE: The Younger Man
AUTHOR: Lauren Hawkeye
PUBLISHER: Whispers Publishing
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 10k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotica
COST: $2.95

A recent break-up after a five-year relationship has a woman deciding to seek sexual release with her co-worker, a man nine years her junior.

I suppose I could expand that summary a little, but you know what? It’s a short story, and honestly, nothing else happens. The heroine – unnamed, and the story is told in 1^st person – picks up her co-worker dressed to kill, they go out, and then they have sex. All night. And that’s it. Seriously.

Not naming either character in this is most likely meant to portray the universality of the emotions involved. The woman is feeling unwanted and unattractive, and seeks to remedy that. The man is practically perfect, which is nice enough, but there’s never any more personality presented than the prowess he displays in bed and everyplace else they have sex. There’s brief mentions of him looking like a bad boy at the very start of the story, but that never pans out. He’s too sweet, through and through, and never developed into a character in his own right. It’s all meant to show how sex is a natural thing, desire is normal, and it’s possible to heal from bad break-ups with the right experiences.

The lack of setting detail also adds to the whole sense of everywhere/everywhen. I was never sure if this was in the US, the UK, or someplace else entirely. Without characters to sink into, I need setting, and this didn’t provide that, either.

The story itself isn’t bad. It’s just boring. It’s act after act of sex with little to nothing inspiring about the prose, and no way for me to connect emotionally with either principles as characters. Archetypes, maybe. But then, I’m not reading erotica to study archetypes. There. I said it. I wouldn’t have even bought this one if it had been billed as erotica. It’s not. It’s billed as erotic romance, so I fully expected it to have a little more romantic depth than it did.

Readability	7/10 – Technically competent, but mostly uninspired
Hero	5/10 – Sweet enough, but he’s a device more than a character
Heroine	6/10 – Very everywoman
Entertainment value	3/10 – The same over and over and over again makes for a very boring read.
World building	4/10 – I have no idea where this was set. Mentions of a pub and a few other terms made me initially think England, but it’s not consistent.
TOTAL:	25/50