AUTHOR: Wynter Daniels
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 15k)
GENRE: Contemporary erotic romance
COST: $2.49
At the funeral of her much older husband, Macy meets his oldest son for the first time, the biracial Alex. Attraction sparks between them, and both think sleeping together is the perfect way to get back at the man who did wrong by both of them…
Though she left her husband a month before his death, Macy Halstead must still attend his funeral for the sake of appearances. There, she has to sit and watch all his mistresses mourn for the man. The only person who attracts her attention in a positive way is Alex, her husband’s oldest son. The product of an affair, Alex has always believed he wasn’t as good in his father’s eyes as his half-brothers because of the color of his skin, and has resented the man his entire life. He’s attracted to the latest widow, as well as intrigued by how young she is. They come to agree almost at the same time – albeit to themselves at first – that sleeping with the other is the perfect revenge on Warren. If they get fantastic sex out of it, too, all the better.
And that’s what a good part of this story is. Sex comprises almost half of its word count, with conflict generated out of the blue and then disregarded paragraphs later. If that’s all you’re looking for, I suppose it works, but for me, I need to at least feel the attraction first. I didn’t here. I could see why Macy was attracted to Alex – from his description, he sounds hot – but she lacks any kind of personality or enticing description to make me understand why he feels so connected to her so quickly. Without feeling that connection myself, it became a chore to read sex scene after sex scene, in a voice that, while clean and rather unobtrusive, didn’t engage me either. This sex should’ve been charged with so much emotion – his anger, her anger, their sublimated desires – and it fell far short of reaching that. It’s a victim of too much. In this case, too much sex completely obliterated any impact the story might have generated because it didn’t give the characters enough time to come to life outside of their orgasms.
| Readability | 7/10 – Nothing wrong with it, but never really engaged me either, it felt a lot longer than 15k |
| Hero | 4/10 – By the numbers and flat |
| Heroine | 4/10 – Other than her disdain for her dead husband’s philandering, I never understood what was so special about her |
| Entertainment value | 3/10 – Without being able to engage in either leads, it was just one sex scene after another |
| World building | 4/10 – No attempts are made, and since when do cameramen have secretaries? |
| TOTAL: | 22/50 |
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