Review - Seduction en Pointe by Gemma Snow

Title: Seduction en Pointe

Author: Gemma Snow

Rating: 3.5/5 

Synopsis:

When successful TV star of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Nicco Castillo, finds his boyfriend in bed with another man, he goes full-on Hollywood trainwreck that lands him in ER. Next thing he knows, the producers are shipping him off to Paris to shape up and learn to dance for the next season’s story arc. But his incredibly tempting Parisian ballet instructor, Isabelle La Croix, makes that all too difficult, especially when he learns about her decadent desires--desires Nicco is all too pleased to indulge in. Against the ballet barre, the balcon railing, and wherever and for however long Isabelle is willing to have him.   

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

My Thoughts:

Seduction en Pointe almost lost me as a reader after its very first line. Even in the romance/erotica genre I like when the action is neatly prepared… I need the metaphorical foreplay in a story as much as it is needed in sex. The in medias res beginning kinda felt as if the author wanted to assure me that there are tons of sex scenes in the book, therefore I won’t be bored. 

Perhaps I’m a strange one, but I’ve always felt erotica doesn’t work without the well-developed extras in the story – and here I mean everything that is not sex. If the plot, the characters, the relationships don’t please me, the passionate love-making won’t move me for sure.

The funny thing is, Seduction en Pointe wasn’t a bad read at all and I’m glad I brought myself to continue after my personal displeasure in the first line. It is altogether a very nice ’rich hollywood playboy meets French ballerina’ story with good character developement and well-thought-out pacing. It was a believable contemporary romance, a treat really, that I enjoyed in big chunks when I had the time to sit down to read.

I liked that the drama in it wasn’t too much, and that – despite what the first line suggested – there wasn’t a sex scene on every other page. I like when I can tingle with anticipation. 

Plus points for Miss Snow for giving me a bisexual male for main character, that was really refreshing after the bunch of heterosexual romance books I've read lately.

Neither Nicco nor Isabelle were pushy or annoying in any way (which is worth to point out as protagonists in romance/erotica book tend to irritate me). They were people who reflected on their own life and previous relationships and were able to learn from lessons that life gave them.

There was one thing that bugged me in the plot though. Nicco, who played a pirate in a tv show, Queen Ann’s Revenge, was sent to Paris to learn ballet, but it was never actually mentioned why the dance he did had to be ballet. Ball room dancing I would have understood for a pirate, but ballet… Anyway, this is just a small detail that I kept wondering about and was never explained.

I’d never read a book about dancing before, I guess I had to start somewhere and this novel was a good choice.

I would recommend this book to everyone who likes light, insightful romance and who is into voyeurism *wink wink, nudge nudge*.

 
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Review - The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

Title: The Passion

Author: Jeanette Winterson

Rating: 5/5 

Synopsis:

Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny. 

My Thoughts:

„Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.”

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson is magical realism at its best. I came across the book at the book fair under Waterloo Bridge and when I read the blurb I knew I had to own it. It was the cover that caught my eyes first of course – my edition has the most ridiculous cover ever; cocks… seriously?? – but it was the back that sold me the novel eventually and also the fact that I remembered I had another book by this author on my to-read list (Sexing the Cherry).

This short little masterpiece, which is definitely a new favourite of mine, makes a stable attempt – and succeeds – in describing passion and its different forms. One of our protagonists, Henri, the French peasant boy, looks up to Napoleon so much he is ready to dedicate his whole life to Him and his cause. With a stroke of luck(?) he becomes Bonaparte’s chicken chef and later a soldier in his army. We see him grow up throughout the novel and as he does he starts to contemplate his past decisions. At the end of his journey he is a changed man altogether.

We have a heroine too, Villanelle, the daughter of a Venetian boatman, who was born with webbed feet. She is a bit of a tomboy and she has a special relationship with her city. I especially enjoyed the parts of the novel that set in Venice; the author did a very good job bringing the city of masks and water to life on the pages. Take a look at these couple of passages for example:

***

„This is the city of mazes. You may set off from the same place to the same place every day and never go by the same route. If you do so, it will be by mistake. Your bloodhound nose will not serve you here. Your course in compass reading will fail you. Your confident instructions to passers-by will send them to squares they have never heard of, over canals not listed in the notes.

Although wherever you are going is always in front of you, there is no such thing as straight ahead. No as the crow flies short cut will help you to reach the café just over the water. The short cuts are where the cats go, through the impossible gaps, round corners that seem to take you the opposite way. But here, in this mercurial city, it is required you do awake your faith. With faith, all things are possible.”

***

Love as a topic is visited frequently too – how could it be abandoned in a book called The Passion? – and other than heterosexual affairs, it contains a lesbian romance too, along with some cross-dressing which is one of my favourite tropes ever…

Beside the linear plot, the story is littered with several curious and fantastical tales, some of which feature side characters (Henri’s one friend, Patrick has magical eye-sight and his other friend, Domino the midget, got hired by Napoleon to tame and tend to his tallest horse). There are a lot of genuinely funny lines, but there is also drama in there.

I found the whole concept of the novel incredibly human, rich and personal. I found myself in between the lines and I’m grateful for that.

I will never stop loving magical realism, because it allows a writer to use an undending set of unusual supplies to describe usual feelings and happenings. Jeanette Winterson has created magic and I am now richer for reading her lines. 

If you want to experience a completely unique journey too, hop on this train and enjoy the ride.

 

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Review – Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Title: Rebecca

Author: Daphne Du Maurier

Rating: 3/5 

Synopsis:

Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Her future looks bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Max de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding housekeeper, Mrs Danvers...

My Thoughts:

Let me just say it straight away: I didn’t care as much for Rebecca as I thought I would. I guess I had pretty high expectations, because everyone seems to adore this novel. Well, now I can say, not me. Certainly, it is a decent story with decent characters, hence I gave it three stars, but I didn’t feel the gothic atmosphere that was supposed to be there, therefore it doesn’t deserve a higher rating in my eyes.

Du Maurier’s writing is highly enjoyable, even the descriptive parts and that was what kept me reading. I also hoped that the ending would make up for what the book was lacking in the first half – I’d heard before there is a twist at the end – but unfortunately I figured out almost everything before the big ’enlightenment’.

The herorine was too naive and – frankly – dumb for my liking and I know it was necessary because of the nature of the storytelling and for plot reasons, but she made me roll my eyes so many times I’m lucky they didn’t start to hurt. She made stupid decisions and many times didn’t use her brain and was extremely timid on top of that.

Of course, she was a young thing and inexperienced, but despite that it’s hard to believe she didn’t have any natural instincts or some kind of inner alarm that would have told her it wasn’t the best idea to marry a man after two weeks of knowing him. I guess she’d never truly been loved, the poor thing.

Anyway, as I mentioned the writing was superb, the story good but not extraordinary and altogether my expectations for an unforgettable gothic novel were unfulfilled. Lesson: Never be sure that an overhyped book will affect you the same way it does everyone else. We are all different.

An additional message to you who are reading this: the fact that I didn’t adore Rebecca doesn’t mean you wouldn’t, so you might as well give it a try. It is a celebrated success after all.

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