Liquid Silver Books, $5.25, ISBN 978-1-59578-489-6
Contemporary Romance, 2008
Body Cravings is about the dance of seduction between two people. Sex is the plot of this story, simply put.
The story is familiar, in a way. We have Amara Montgomery, an ice queen of a career woman who has been hurt by a past relationship to the extent that she’s now a hardened cynic when it comes to fluffy emotions like love. We also have Jacques Falcone, the quintessential alpha lover one could find populating any Harlequin Presents stories – just replace Greek with French. She’s a lawyer, he’s the client, but seriously, what’s a little breach of professionalism when it comes to creating fireworks in the bedroom, eh?
Before I go on, how do you pronounce Jacques? I always have this impression that it’s pronounced similar to “jock” or “jack”, with the “J” being very soft, but here we have Mara going, “Jacquesssssss.” Does this mean that Mara is saying Jacques’s name in a manner comparable to “jackass”? I’m confused as well as bemused by the possibility.
There is little story to go with the Mara/However-You-Say-His-Name bed-bopping, but what little of the story here is enough to tie up any loose ends in Mara’s life. I don’t find the lack of any external conflicts in this story a problem in this case, however, because what happens between Mara and Jacques is the main story line here, and it’s one that I find a compelling read. Then again, I always have a soft spot for a spicy relationship featuring two characters on equal footing, emotionally and intellectually. Mara is definitely Jacques’s equal – she wants him as much as he wants her. I have to give Ms Crenshaw credit here because she doesn’t turn Mara into a stereotypical haughty bitch who ends up being “corrected” into a feminine archetype after having sex with Jacques. Instead, Mara is a pretty realistic character. She’s not some over-the-top frigid twit with neurotic tendencies smoking out of her eardrums. What you see in Mara is exactly what you will get, and at the end of the day, she is loved for that.
Body Cravings is a short story that sells a fantasy that exactly to my liking. I have a good time reading this no-nonsense sexy story.
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