Ellora’s Cave, $3.99, ISBN 978-1419913532
Contemporary Erotica, 2007
Hmm, from what I can find during my online research, All Work and No Play is the only title written by Lila Duprés. Of course, it is entirely possible that the author has since written under another name, but it’s kind of sad that this limp little thing is all that will come up the next time someone inserts “Lila Duprés” into a search engine. Still, it could be worse. For a long time, inserting my name into a search engine would yield news reports of someone with my name, in Singapore, convicted of driving under the influence, ugh.
Julie Preston is a familiar heroine. She and her sister lost their parents a while back, so she spends all her time since then working non-stop. Her stereotypical outgoing friend, who is also into tarot as an excuse to justify the author’s pitching of this title to the Torrid Tarot acquisition editor, drags her to a singles bar. You know what they say about women like Julie—it doesn’t take long for her to happily spread her legs from east to west for hot Douglas Dean.
Oh dear, this isn’t a long story, but the sex happens so early into things that the author now has to pad the pages so that what she has can be considered to be of sale-able length. What ensues is Julie coming up with all kinds of excuses to continue convincing me that she is not a ho to put out on what is loosely defined as a “first date”. Oh no, she can’t do it again? I have no idea why she can’t, since she is supposed to be this independent, strong, modern woman in charge of her body and destiny, snort. Me, I’d be happy to shag that bloke but I may think twice about telling people that I actually slept with a bloke named Douglas Dean, but maybe that’s why I am not worthy of starring in a Torrid Tarot masterpiece. Julie also whines that she knows nothing of Douglas, wah wah wah. Who cares! He has a working pee-pee and a flat stomach, plus he is financially stable and hot. What’s not to warrant another ride on that rodeo?
One’s enjoyment of this thing will hinge greatly on how that person can tolerate Julie’s self-inflicted whining while sitting on a hot tin roof act. Her pointless, vapid whining and complaining fuels the story all the way to the finish line, and unless one really likes that kind of thing, this one would be a ghastly ride indeed. The sex scene isn’t even detailed or hot enough to make up for the eye-rolling wheezy-whiner windbag antics of the heroine.
Maybe if the author had made Julie fat or ugly, the heroine’s incessant neurotic antics would be more understandable. No, instead, we have another hot woman acting like her face resembled the rear end of a mastiff with diarrhea because the author can’t think of a better plot for her story.
All Work and No Play can just go away.
