Nikki Price, $0.99, ISBN 979-8215558065
Contemporary Romance, 2023
Once upon a time, Xhosa Green was sure that her dreams had all come true when she married Elijah “Jack” Abernathy.
No, I have no idea why we need a Jack for the hero. What’s wrong with Elijah? That’s the name of a famous hobbit, right?
Alas, he was a doctor from a wealthy family, and his father made sure to tell Xhosa that she ain’t worthy of his spawn.
“ELIJAH NEEDS TO BE married to a woman who has this family in mind. Not some fly by night who wishes to be a pop star!”
“I love him, and he loves me!”
“Love is a fairytale! You need more than that to succeed in this world, girl. You are below the Abernathy name! You bewitched my boy, and it has to stop!”
“Elijah is more than just a name to me!”
“He’s going to be a doctor and having you in the way will be an obstacle. I allowed this relationship for too long. It is now time that you both let go of this childhood fantasy and go about living separate lives.”
“Us being together won’t harm his chances!”
“You will never be good enough for my son.”
“No! He …he…would never—”
“He sent me to tell you that he wants you to go.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“He would and he did. Now, I suggest you pack your things up and get out. I have a check here for you from him.”
Firstly, the above makes me laugh. All the exclamation marks! The whole thing feels as melodramatic as a movie from Mumbai.
Secondly, instead of checking with her husband, she of course fled the coop.
So now he thinks that she’s a gold digging ho and she’s wringing her hands because she doesn’t get why nobody is giving her a medal for valiantly sacrificing her happiness for the perceived noble act of setting her husband free to find a worthy beloved.
Yes, that’s Nikki Prince’s Love’s Wicked Requiem.
Of course, if Xhosa really wanted to set him free to fly high like a butterfly, she would have filed for divorce. No, she didn’t. Don’t ask me why. My suspicion is that she’s just a disingenuous attention seeker hurt that her husband didn’t come running to her and begging her to stay. I mean, why else she becomes a pop star? I bet you she secretly loves the thought of her face and voice plastered everywhere so that Elijack can’t escape her no matter what.
Well, that hussy gets her wish because Elijack Baggernathy stops by at her concert and after some hot sex, they decide to get back together.
See, I told you, this is just some kind of twisted and long-drawn foreplay between two people that clearly have too much time on their hands and not much else to fill up all that time with.
As an erotic piece of work, there isn’t much here to set off the mood, much less light up the room. As a romance… do I even have to say anything?
This is one of those stories marketed as “erotic” and “romance” and it makes me sad inside, because I can’t help feeling that those two words have lost all meaning these days.
For a quick brush with the saucy stuff, one may as well listen to a Prince song. Gett Off is five and a half minutes of pure raunch in lyrics as well as musicality, and the dear dead fellow didn’t even have to utter a single cuss word to drive home his, er, point.
Oh yes, back to this thing. Whatever, let’s just move along, everyone.
