50 Shades Readalikes Project: A Recap

In 2013, I set myself the task of reviewing readalike suggestions for the Fifty Shades trilogy by E.L. James with the idea of coming up with some kind of consensus on what the best books to recommend to patrons might be, depending on their interests. After perusing articles, blog posts, pinboards, and lists by librarians and others, reading and reviewing double-digit books, and sitting on this information while it slowly digested like that creature in Return of the Jedi, I am here to share the results of a project I ceased updating more than a year ago.

Given the imminent release of the Fifty Shades of Grey movie and the announcement that the sequels will also be filmed, patrons are bound to return to the library for the books. As a result, they may also be casting around for similar reads, especially when it turns out all the E.L. James books are missing from the shelf. There are no doubt books that have been published in 2014 and early 2015 that also fit the description of "Fifty Shades readalike," but, as this project left me suffering from Erotic Romance Exhaustion (check your DSM-V), I haven't read them. Nevertheless, I hope that this wrap-up will help librarians think about the cycle of popular books and their readalikes--panic about which is highest at the peak of an item's popularity--as well as offering some go-to titles when constructing displays.

Methodology

Appropriately, I ended up with fifty different sources by searching online for "readalikes" and "if you liked/loved Fifty Shades," etc. I began by giving an author/work combination one point (in my fantastic Excel spreadsheet) for every mention in a source. After a while, it became clear that some series were being recommended repeatedly, so I combined all mentions of a single book in a series and the entire series. The total number of books/series recommended as readalikes was 373, but 223 (about 60%) of were mentioned only once.

To give an idea of the variety of single-mention books, they included:

The Notorious Rake, Mary Balogh
Forever..., Judy Blume
A Lick of Frost, Laurell K. Hamilton
Submitting to the Boss, Jasmine Haynes
Lolita, Nabokov
The Witness, Nora Roberts
The Dying Animal, Philip Roth
Aftermath, Zane

The sheer volume of suggestions offered--come on, Philip Roth?--gives an idea of how desperately bloggers, librarians, and industry experts were grasping at straws to find something else to give a theoretical population of enthusiastic Fifty Shades readers looking for readalikes. For the purposes of this project, I focused on books and series that were mentioned six or more times among the various sources.

Top Readalikes for 50 Shades [in 2013]:

The title and author are followed by the number of mentions. Hyperlinked titles are titles or series in which I have read and reviewed at least one book.

Crossfire series (Bared to You, Reflected in You, Entwined with You, Captivated by You, One with You), Sylvia Day (31)
Sleeping Beauty series, Anne Rice (26)
Sweet series, Maya Banks (18)
Wicked Lovers series, Shayla Black (16)
Kushiel series, Jacqueline Carey (14)
Dirty, Megan Hart (14) [DNF]
Smooth Talking Stranger, Lisa Kleypas (13)
Gabriel's Inferno, Sylvain Reynard (12)
Broken, Megan Hart (11)
Nature of Desire series, Joey W. Hill (10) [read one but didn't review]
Beautiful Disaster, Jamie McGuire (10)
Masters of the Shadowlands series, Cherise Sinclair (9)
Vampire Queen series, Joey W. Hill (8)
Bound Hearts series, Lora Leigh (8)
The Story of O, Pauline Reage (8)
Play-by-Play series, Jaci Burton (7) [read but didn't review]
Liberating Lacey, Anne Calhoun (7)
The Edge of Impropriety, Pam Rosenthal (7)
Black Dagger Brotherhood series, J.R. Ward (7)
Wild Riders series, Jaci Burton (6)
Too Much Temptation, Lori Foster (6)
Rough Riders series, Lorelei James (6)
Nauti series, Lora Leigh (6)
In the Cut, Susannah Moore (6)
The Siren, Tiffany Reisz (6)
The Lady's Tutor, Robin Schone (6)
House of Rohan series, Anne Stuart (6)

Additional titles reviewed:
The Librarian, by Logan Belle
The Dark Garden, by Eden Bradley
Beautiful Bastard and the rest of the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren

Even these most popular suggestions were all over the map in terms of tone, theme, "hotness," setting, and date of publication. Some, like The Story of O, are considered classic works. Some are e-originals that may or may not have been put into print. In my reviews, I tried to place each readalike suggestion in terms of the 50 Shades trilogy. I also found a few new favorites that I would be comfortable handing to almost anyone looking for sure-bet romances, such as Sweet Talking Stranger and Christina Lauren's Beautiful series.

Appeal Factors for the 50 Shades Trilogy

• Romantic redemption
• Alternative--“kinky”--sexual practices
• Dominant male hero
• Lifestyles of the rich and famous
• Wounded twentysomething characters
• Virginal heroine awakened
• Explicit descriptions of sex
• Writing—inner monologue, first-person perspective
• Fanfiction origin
• Epistolary communication
• “Everyone else is reading it”

The wide range of appeal factors in Fifty Shades of Grey means that there are several different kinds of books that a patron might be looking for. Many past, current, and future romance novels will fit several of these descriptors, and there will also usually be a given Book of the Moment that fits the "everyone else is reading it so I want to read it" criteria, such as Gone Girl or, more recently, The Girl on the Train. Fifty Shades of Grey fell in to this category for a lot of readers. Books like these inspire the most panic among librarians, because their popularity is their primary appeal, but ideally there was a reading population that picked up the James book and discovered the allure of erotic romance as a subgenre. Those are the people who might come back for readalikes.

Output

I created a readalike handout for a presentation to the New York Library Assocation--Public Libraries Section and have since added links to my reviews on this site. These books are scored 1 to 10 in terms of their readalike potential and their explicit erotic content, both of which are important to keep in mind when making suggestions to library patrons. Feel free to use the handout with attribution.

2015, the Movie, and Beyond

With the advent of the movie upon us, a new set of posts recommending books to read after Fifty Shades of Grey have emerged:

• Romance author Sarah MacLean for The Washington Post: "What to Read After Fifty Shades of Grey"
• Popsugar: "15 Books to Read for Your Fifty Shades of Grey Fix"
• Huffington Post: "Check Out These 'Fifty Shades of Grey' Readalikes"

Some of the authors listed I also encountered in my search two years ago, but the books are largely different. Publishing, and by extension reader's advisory, is a moving target. A project like the one I've discussed here takes an immense amount of time, and the results are ephemeral. Librarians can't possibly find the time to read everything that is being published in a subgenre like erotic romance, let alone all new and forthcoming fiction and nonfiction. Give up right now on the idea of reading everything and use the tools available: review blogs, articles, NoveList, Twitter librarians, and your own good sense. It's good to read the benchmark or hotspot books in a genre, which I'd argue Fifty Shades has ended up being, but for everything else there's How to Read a Book in Five Minutes. 

Helga Recommends: Patricia Veryan

My mother was a great fan of historical romance, and I happily followed her lead. There's pretty much nothing I'd rather read than a good historical--one with the right mix of historical detail and relationship-building. Ideally, a book that reflects the author's interest in and research about the historical period and not one riddled with obvious anachronisms and modern characters transposed onto historical settings. The less said about those, the better.

Let me get to the point. If you like Georgette Heyer's historical romances, you should try Patricia Veryan. If you like historical romance with elements of swashbuckling adventure (à la Scarlet Pimpernel), you should read Patricia Veryan. If you enjoy historical romances with characters that pop up in multiple books, especially series that end with rogues becoming heroes, Veryan could be a good fit for you as well. I am a Heyer fan, but I'm a Veryan fanatic. Every time I visit a new library, I go to the Vs in the fiction section to see how that library's collection measures up.* As you can see from the picture below, I am deadly earnest about this recommendation.

My personal collection includes my mother's copies as well,
hence the stack of duplicates on the right. 

From the late 1970s to the early 2000s, Veryan published more than thirty historical romances set in the Georgian and Regency periods. Most of her books are connected to four different series: the Golden Chronicles (set in 1746 in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion); the Tales of the Jewelled Men (featuring several characters from the Golden Chronicles); and the Regency-era Sanguinet Saga and Riddle series.

Why Do I Love Them?

This was surprisingly hard to quantify. To me, Veryan's books are a perfect blend of humor, romance, action, adventure, swashbuckling, and period detail. Perhaps it's because there are always interesting and life-threatening situations that put the hero and heroine in relief? There are very few books that I re-read, but these are on top of my list. I would be perfectly fine stranded on a desert island with only Veryan series and Oreos to sustain me. In short: my literary catnip.

This scene is from The Tyrant (which I was just re-reading the other day), in which the hero and heroine become engaged to hide the fact that they were aiding a fugitive. They hope to extricate themselves from the engagement once the danger is past, but in the meantime:

Carruthers swooped down and planted a kiss on her cheek.
She jumped back, saying indignantly, "I thought it was agreed there was to be none of that!"
He shook his head at her. "You'd make a poor spy, Miss Ramsay. You seem quite incapable of understanding that this is a most deadly predicament you have got me into."
"Of course I understand, but--"
"It is of vital import that we keep up the pretence if we are to come out of this alive."
She glanced around. "Certainly. But there is no one here to--"
"One of the first things I learned in my military career," he said gravely, "was that one does not fail to post sentries merely because there is no sign of the enemy."
Phoebe regarded him suspiciously, then started up the stairs. She halted on the third step and looked back. He stood there, watching her. She fancied to detect a quickly suppressed grin, but then he said "I believe we have taken sufficient precautions for tonight, ma'am. Mustn't overdo it." (68) 

Like Heyer's, Veryan's books are also "green light" reads--there are only a few (very tasteful) sex scenes to be found throughout the series. Perfect for when you've got an elderly lady at your reference desk who doesn't like those "modern" romances.

Where Do I Start?

If you're looking for a one-shot, test-the-waters book, try The Wagered Widow, Married Past Redemption, or Some Brief Folly. Both Practice to Deceive and Time's Fool are good series openers, although they aren't my favorite books in their respective series. Love Alters Not is another fun book, if you don't care about jumping in to the middle of a series.

Several of my personal favorites (Sanguinet's Crown and The Mandarin of Mayfair top this long list) are many books into a series and should be read as a culmination of plots from the preceding books.

Books to avoid unless you become a die-hard fan: The Lord and the Gypsy, The Mistress of Willowvale, Give All to Love. The Riddle series was her last, and I haven't re-read it multiple times like I have the other three.

Unfortunately, Veryan's books are very hard to find. Her last new book was published in 2002. They are not easily found in used bookstores--trust me, I check every time, even though I own all but a few of them. Georgette Heyer's books have recently been reissued in lovely trade editions. Let's hope for the same for Veryan's work in the near future. In the meantime, check your local library.


Other things I've recommended:
Podcasts
Paper Books


*My own library does very well, with 16 Veryan titles on the shelf. I check them out regularly to make sure they don't get weeded.

Reading Roulette: Fifth Pick

I am starting to pick up the pace on this project, especially now that I'm not reading quite so many erotic romances for my other project. Having a week-long vacation didn't hurt, either. However, no matter how many books I read, I seem to add three to take their place. When this project started, my TBR list was at 355 books. It is now at a hopeless 459, despite my earnest attempts to reduce it. I've created a Book Hydra.

My next three picks are:

Noble Falling, Sara Gaines

Duchess Aleana Melora of Eniva, future queen of Halvaria, is resigned to the gilded cage of her life, facing a loveless marriage to Tallak, the prospective king, and struggling under the pressure to carry on the family name despite her wish to find a woman to love.

When her convoy is attacked on the journey to Tallak's palace, Aleana is saved by her guard, Ori, only to discover her people have turned against her and joined forces with the kingdom of Dakmor, Halvaria's greatest enemy. Her only hope is to reach Tallak, but she and Ori don’t make it far before another attack and an unlikely rescue by Kahira, a Dakmoran woman banished from her kingdom for reasons she is hesitant to share.

Though Kahira is marked as a criminal, Aleana’s heart makes itself known. Aleana is facing danger and betrayal at every turn, and she fears giving in to her desires will mean she will enter her marriage knowing exactly the kind of passion she will never have as the Halvarian Queen—if she survives long enough to be crowned.

I'm pretty sure this ended up on my list because of Danika's Lesbrary review. It wasn't available through any of my usual library sources, so I spent the $6.99 on the ebook, buying it directly from the publisher, who has it listed as a YA book.


A Broken Vessel, Kate Ross

No detection team was ever more mismatched: Julian Kestrel, the debonair and elegant Regency dandy, and Sally Stokes, a bold and bewitching Cockney prostitute and thief. But one night Fate throws them together, giving them the only clue that can unmask a diabolical killer. It all starts in London's notorious Haymarket district, where Sally picks up three men one after the other and nicknames them Bristles, Blue Eyes, and Blinkers. From each of them Sally steals a handkerchief - and from one she mistakenly steals a letter that contains an urgent appeal for help as well. But which man did she get the letter from? Who is the distraught young woman who wrote it? And where is she being held against her will? These questions take on a new urgency when Sally finds the writer of the letter - dead. Luckily, Sally's brother is none other than Dipper, reformed pickpocket and now valet to gifted amateur sleuth Julian Kestrel. The authorities dismiss the girl's death as suicide, but to Kestrel it looks more like murder. To prove it, he must track down Bristles, Blue Eyes, and Blinkers, and find out which of them had the dead girl's letter. Sally uses all her ingenuity and daring to help Kestrel solve this case. But she is out to solve another mystery as well: Is there a man of flesh and blood under Kestrel's impeccable clothes?

This is the second in Ross's series, added to my TBR this year after I finished Cut to the Quick for this project on the recommendation of my friend Margaret. The wonder of random selection!


Revealed, Kate Noble


Phillippa Benning is the unrivaled beauty of the Season. But when another lady challenges her for a marquis's attentions, Phillippa entices him to a secret rendezvous - only to stumble upon The Blue Raven, England's most famous spy, lurking at the site of her planned tryst.

The Blue Raven has uncovered an enemy plot directed at upcoming society functions, but he's unable to infiltrate London society. Phillippa makes an offer: in exchange for entrée among the ton, he agrees to have his true identity revealed at the Benning Ball - guaranteeing her unrivaled notoriety. As the danger draws closer, the mysterious spy and Phillippa give in to mutual desire. But when the game turns deadly, betrayal waits around the corner, and Phillippa must decide once and for all - is it the myth that captured her heart, or the man?


The random pick was actually the third book in this series, Follow My Lead, but I loathe reading series out of order, so I am going to read the first book instead. No doubt this attitude is part of the reason my TBR list keeps ballooning. I think this might be Margaret's recommendation as well. There is only one paper copy in my library system, but it's also available in ebook format--score!


Why am I doing this?

Book Reviews: Series Books and Readalikes

Consider this a corollary to my general series on 50 Shades readalikes, as most of these books were read in the course of that project. Some spoilers below.

Entwined with You, Sylvia Day (2013)

This book is the third (but NOT LAST) in the Crossfire series. As I got farther and farther in to the book, I kept thinking about how many loose ends Day seemed to be leaving and wondering how on earth she was going to bring them all to a satisfactory conclusion within the bounds of the supposed trilogy. It turns out she's not even going to try--the series will be a quintet. And I am fine with that! I enjoyed the book quite a lot, and still believe that Crossfire should be the first stop for most readers who are looking for 50 Shades readalikes.

Grade: A-

Entwined with You brings Eva and Gideon closer together, even as it increases the number of strains on their relationship, including but not limited to: exes, nosy detectives, tabloids, suggestive music videos, parental affairs of the heart, and of course FEELINGS.


Beautiful Stranger, Christina Lauren (2013)

This is a follow-up to Beautiful Bastard and has appearances by Bennett and Chloe, but the focus is on Chloe's friend Sara Dillon and the notorious British womanizer Max Stella, with whom she enjoys an heated (but anonymous) encounter at a club. Max is left with a sexy video of Sara dancing to obsess over, and only pure luck enables him to find out who she is and pursue her. Sara has recently left a cheating ex to start a new life in New York City, and forming an attachment to anyone, no matter how charming and sexy, is not on her agenda. For his part, Max is extremely gratified--at the beginning--to have found a woman who wants nothing more than to meet with him once a week and have sex in near-public locations. They also make a habit of recording their encounters with a camera. Although their original agreement might have been no-strings-attached, both Sara (determined not to be vulnerable) and Max (feeling like he wants to pursue a real relationship for the first time in a long time) know that there's something more between them than lust. But when some of their revealing photos are stolen and released to the tabloids, Sara must decide whether she can truly trust Max's intentions.

Grade: A-

This series totally has my number. Give me more! It's not a true readalike for 50 Shades, but it is a lot of fun and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.


The Red Diary, Toni Blake (2004)

As you can probably tell by the cover redesign, this book was reissued in January 2013 with an eye toward the Fifty Shades of Grey market. Unfortunately, although it's a fine romance with more strongly drawn minor characters than usual, it's not a great readalike for the EL James series. The Red Diary is the story of Lauren Ash, a wealthy accountant who will someday inherit the lucrative family business. Nick is a working-class painter whose father once owned half of the Ash company. Nick blames Lauren and her family for all the pain and heartache his family has gone through since his mother's death, including his father's alcoholism and its tragic consequences. When he stumbles upon a journal of her private sexual fantasies during a job painting her house, Nick thinks he's found the perfect way to take revenge. But Nick finds that being intimate with Lauren leads to pesky FEELINGS about Lauren as well as dimming his desire for revenge. Soon he has to decide whether to come clean about violating her privacy and risk their fledgling relationship. For her part, Lauren believes that she and Nick have a spiritual connection that allows him to bring her fantasies to life, and she tries to draw him out about his life and experiences. Can she recover when it turns out that he's not really the man she thought she fell in love with?

Grade: B-

There's some wealth and there's a lot of sex, a little of it kinky, and the hero does have a tragic past, but to me it just didn't feel like a 50 Shades readalike. Perhaps because the social positions are reversed and she is the wealthy and powerful one?


The Revenge of Lord Eberlin, Julia London

This is the follow up to The Year of Living Scandalously, which so aggravated me by not resolving the mystery that it set out in its first pages. Guess what? The Revenge of Lord Eberlin doesn't solve the mystery of the missing Ashwood jewels either, although it does advance the solution somewhat. Lord Eberlin, AKA Tobin Scott, returns to Hadley Green to get revenge on Lily Boudine, who is now the Countess at Ashwood. Tobin believes that Lily, who was eight at the time of the jewels' theft, is responsible for his innocent father's death--and he's determined to take the entire Ashwood estate down with the wealth and power that he's gained as a weapons dealer. As in The Red Diary, Tobin and Lily fall in love and she must decide whether it's worth being shunned by Society to be with a man who purchased a Danish title (*gasp*). London portrays Lily as primly self-conscious of Society at some times, and blithely uncaring at others, such as when she--an unmarried woman of quality--goes to dine with Tobin alone at his house. Inconsistencies like these, in addition to all the mentions of the "mud" inside Tobin's soul, AND THE FACT THAT THE DAMN MYSTERY IS STILL UNSOLVED, left me unsatisfied.

Grade: C+

I didn't realize before I put them next to each other that The Red Diary and The Revenge of Lord Eberlin were so similar, despite their settings. WEIRD. So let's call them readalikes.

It remains to be seen whether I'll be reading the next book. Someone please read it first and tell me if the missing jewels mystery is finally solved.

Book Review: The Year of Living Scandalously [2010]

Julia London's (real name Dinah Dinwiddie) The Year of Living Scandalously is the first book in her Secrets of Hadley Green series. It came up in my third Reading Roulette selection, and I read it with blazing speed. Warning: spoilers abound in this review.

The primary mystery of Hadley Green is the disappearance of the Ashwood jewels, for which a talented carpenter named Mr. Scott was tried and executed in 1793. Miss Lily Boudine, upon whose testimony the conviction largely rested, has felt troubled ever since, although she left Ashwood and England soon after to be raised by her Irish relations. The jewels were never recovered.

Now, the year is 1808. Lily has inherited Ashwood and its mysteries, but is unwilling to disrupt her Continental travel plans to assume her responsibilities, sending her cousin Keira in her stead to look after things. Lily and Keira look enough alike to be mistaken for one another, which is just what the Ashwood servants do upon her arrival. An impulsive Keira allows the misapprehension to continue in order to make herself useful around the estate, which is close to financial ruin and requires an active manager. In the process of auctioning off some of the estate's horseflesh, she encounters Declan O'Connor, Earl of Donnelly. Keira and Declan have their own history of attraction and heartache in Ireland; while he trusts Keira's judgment not at all, Declan also does not reveal her charade.

After some persuasion, Keira actively enlists Declan's help in solving the mystery of the missing jewels and clearing Mr. Scott's name, as she has uncovered evidence that he was the former Lady Ashwood's lover. At the same time, Keira finds herself weighed down more and more by her deception as she grows close to the people of Hadley Green and works with them to plan a gala event for the benefit of the orphanage. Questions abound: When will Lily return and bring everything crashing down on Keira's head? Who is the mysterious and threatening Lord Eberlin who seems bent on destroying the estate? Will Keira and Declan's growing intimacy overwhelm their good sense and plunge them into a sexual relationship? (Yes.) What happened to the missing jewels?

Grade: B-

What The Year of Living Scandalously suffers from is a surfeit of everything. Not only is there a central mystery that is unresolved by the end of the book, but Keira and Declan have their own past to resolve and her current difficulties to untangle as best as possible. Since it's the first book of a romance series, characters are introduced who will clearly be featured in subsequent books, but in this one they don't have all that much to do. Scenes of Keira and Declan methodically investigating the mystery outweighed those with them giving in to desire, which was refreshing on one hand--but on the other, confusing. The payoff didn't seem to reward the investment.

Let's say that you're given a book which promises a mystery. The characters are all invested in solving that mystery, and it's the reason given by the heroine for involving the hero and for continuing to impersonate her cousin. All your energy as a reader is directed at two things: getting the hero and heroine together, and solving the mystery. But London leaves readers with a huge cliffhanger when she ends the book with Lily under threat from Lord Eberlin and the jewels still missing. While this made me request The Revenge of Lord Eberlin because I WANT TO KNOW what happened, it also left me grumpy.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Release [2010]

Despite not having an individual book or series that cracked the top 30 (books that were mentioned six times or more) in my online examination of 50 Shades readalikes, Beth Kery's name came up a combined ten times. The most popular readalike mentioned was Wicked Burn, but my library happened to have a mass market copy of Release on the shelf--ordered by me--so I checked it out and read it in one afternoon. A variety of spoilers below.

Genevieve's husband Max, a security firm honcho and professional secret-keeper, was murdered over three years ago. Now someone seems to think that Genevieve has something to hide--her house has burned down, her business has been burgled, her storage unit ransacked--and her life may be in danger. Genevieve seeks refuge in the penthouse apartment attached the the firm and finds it unexpectedly occupied by Sean Kennedy. Although her marriage to Max was functional, Sean was the man who attracted her, and it was with him (at Max's instigation, and with his participation) that she spent a night of breathtaking pleasure . . . shortly before her husband's death. Seeing Sean again stirs up all sorts of feelings in Genevieve, especially desire. The trouble is, she's always assumed that Sean was the one who killed Max.

Sean still has feelings for Genevieve, even though they haven't spoken for years. When she arrives at the penthouse in the midst of a Chicago blizzard, he's determined not to let her go until they work through the past and make a fresh start together. The trouble is, he's pretty sure that Genny killed her husband. I'm not a fan of romance novels in which a fundamental misunderstanding persists between the protagonists, particularly when it could be resolved by a simple conversation, and this one lingers until page 268 of a 312 page book. By the time I hit that page, I was actively rooting for one of them to have committed the murder and turn out to be a psychopath, but I suppose that might have interfered with the Happily Ever After. Despite the obfuscation around the circumstances of Max's death, the identity of his killer--suspected by Sean from the beginning of the novel--is a complete non-surprise. Kery does throw in a last-minute twist, but the "tension" is so drawn out that it falls flat when everything is finally revealed.

So, you've got a woman who thinks her husband was killed by a man she was in love with at the time. She interrupts him with a bound and naked woman in the midst of a sexual scene, and he promptly escorts the woman out and locks Genny in the penthouse with him. Rather than call him out on any of his behavior or question him about Max's death, she consistently says she doesn't want to talk about it and quickly becomes intimate with him instead. While I understand that this behavior might be an indication that she doesn't want to hear Sean confirm he committed murder for her, it's not as if he's taken any real steps in the past three years to connect with her, or that she has used her position of power as co-owner of the firm to do anything at all, such as have him fired or sent elsewhere. Rather than address any of this, they have sex. Lots of sex. And she refuses to believe that she might be in danger, despite the fact that all signs point that direction.

Why was this book set three-plus years after Max's death if none of the characters have done anything to advance their lives in the intervening time? Genevieve has a boyfriend who is addressed so little by the text that she constantly forgets about him, until Sean forces their breakup by bringing her to orgasm on speakerphone. Super classy, right? As with many of these erotic romances that try to incorporate suspenseful elements, the plot always seems secondary to the sex, and neither of them make a ton of sense when examined in the light of day.

Grade: D+

It's probably very clear by now that I was not a fan of the book, despite the fact that it edged into "so bad it's good" territory--the "toast porn" scene being the most salient example of this. It has less in common with the EL James trilogy than it does with books like Forbidden Pleasure and, especially, Mine to Hold, which has a similar husband-initiated threesome and adheres to the concept that it's perfectly fine for men to force women into admitting their feelings through sexual intercourse/withholding. Plus, Sean is from New Orleans and spends a lot of the book calling her "girl." The annoying nickname at least is in line with 50 Shades, and many of the other books I've read for this project.

I wouldn't class it as a good readalike for 50 Shades, and not only because both Christian and Ana have a great deal more sense than Sean and Genevieve. I know that I can't judge Kery's oeuvre based on this example, but--despite the sexual content--the book just doesn't work very well and doesn't have the same appeal factors. However, it does seem like Kery might be a great fit for fans of Lora Leigh and Shayla Black.


Book Review Index

Book Review: Beautiful Disaster [2011]

Jamie McGuire's Beautiful Disaster was mentioned twenty percent of the time in the sources I consulted about readalikes for the 50 Shades trilogy. It was one of the few books that I was actually able to find on the shelf at my library. Some spoilers follow.

The book told from the perspective of Abby Abernathy, a college freshman who is trying to make a fresh start and leave her troubled past behind. Through her best friend America, she meets the heavily tattooed Travis Maddox. A serial womanizer, fight club champion, and heavy drinker,Travis is everything that Abby is trying to escape from, yet she finds herself drawn to him. Abby is the only girl who has ever encountered Travis and not immediately succumbed to his charms. Although she's attracted, she manages to do an excellent job of avoiding falling into a romantic relationship with him.

After they become friends, Abby and Travis make a bet that results in her moving in to his apartment for a month and drastically increasing the intimacy between them, despite the fact that she begins to date someone else. Despite his protestations of disinterest, Travis has great difficulty seeing her with anyone else, and eventually the simmering attraction between them is addressed.

I don't want to say too much about what happens and spoil the rest of the book. If she had stopped with Abby and Travis getting together, McGuire would have had herself a garden-variety romance. However, the plot continues through revelations about Abby's past, a breakup, a trip to Vegas, and a fight club disaster before it reaches its conclusion.

Grade: B-

Beautiful Disaster was one of the least sexually explicit books I've reviewed for this project. However, it has such an emotional roller coaster ride in the relationship depicted that it still qualifies, in my opinion, as a very good readalike for 50 Shades of Grey. It's told from Abby's first-person perspective, and her emotions and reactions are always in the foreground. Like Ana, she's a virgin, although she is far from naive. Travis is troubled, violent, aggressive, and absolutely obsessive about Abby, in the grand tradition of Christian Grey and countless other alpha males. McGuire does a good job of establishing Abby and Travis as believable friends before they become lovers. Once they're together, their level of obsessive need for one another feels similar to that described in 50 Shades and the Crossfire books.

The focus on eighteen and nineteen-year old characters in their first years of college, however, suggests that this title might be best described as (deep breath) New Adult. Given that, I wouldn't hesitate to give this book to teens who might be interested in the emotional content of a contemporary romance but not quite ready for an onslaught of sexual description. In that way, it might best be described as a more mature (and not at all paranormal) Twilight.

All that said, I had some issues with the plot. For example, Abby's father precipitates a particular plot twist, and then disappears for the rest of the book. The "will they-won't they" dragged on too long for my taste. There are probably those that feel a violently possessive friend/boyfriend is an attractive character, but that's just not my cup of tea. I also wish that characters in these books would stop calling each other by stupid nicknames; Travis calls Abby "Pigeon" or "Pidge" about a hundred times, and it made me want to scream by the time I was done.

McGuire just published Walking Disaster, which apparently tells the same story from Travis's perspective. This recalls Stephenie Meyer's abortive Midnight Sun, which re-told Twilight from Edward's point of view. The story at the time was that it had been so soundly mocked online that Meyer vowed never to finish it, but it seems it was the movies that interfered with her creative vision. But for those that want to experience the story again from a new perspective, Walking Disaster seems like a good bet.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Too Much Temptation [2002]

Lori Foster's Too Much Temptation was a less-recommended 50 Shades readalike than some I've discussed here, but it was available and came in through ILL! Sometimes you take what you can get.

After Noah Harper discovers his bride-to-be in bed with another man, he's too much of a gentleman to explain the reason for his broken engagement to his high-society grandmother, Agatha. When she promptly disinherits Noah in an attempt to change his mind, her personal assistant, Grace Jenkins, leaps to his defense. Grace has always had a soft spot for the scarred, streetwise kid who made himself into an entrepreneurial success after Agatha adopted him. She's been in love with him for years, but is accustomed to men viewing her plus-size body as friend material rather than fodder for sexual fantasies.

After caring for a drunk Noah and waking up in his bed, Grace finds herself agreeing to a no-strings sexual relationship with him, in which--while they are in the bedroom only--she will accede to his every desire. But Noah soon finds that despite his stated wish for an attachment-free relationship, he's getting serious about being with Grace. Plagued by insecurity and determined not to invest her heart, Grace nonetheless throws herself into the opportunity to be intimate with the man she loves. There are some shenanigans with a family-owned restaurant and Noah's ex, but those are pretty much beside the point.

Grade: B

I understand why it only got six mentions out of fifty sources in terms of being a 50 Shades readalike. Too Much Temptation is essentially a traditional romance novel that plays a little bit with kink (the theoretical bedroom "slave" scenario) and is distinguished by its dominant male protagonist. However, there are several similarities. Like Ana, Grace is a virgin. Noah does have the tormented foster kid backstory that 50 Shades fans will be familiar with, and perhaps drawn to. The story takes place in a setting of wealth and privilege.

The parts I liked about this book had no bearing on its relationship with the E.L. James books. I liked that Noah talked with Grace about her body and how she saw herself, and how she slowly gained confidence, especially sexually. I liked that the relationship between Noah, Grace, and Agatha was thorny and complicated. I liked that Grace actually had to find a new job, and that she pursued it even though she knew it would make Noah frustrated. It was an enjoyable read, and I'd definitely read the sequel featuring Noah's half-brother.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Corralled [2010]

Two series of Lorelei James books were recommended as potential 50 Shades of Grey readalikes: Rough Riders and Blacktop Cowboys. Perhaps due to the raciness of the covers, the libraries in my system have only one of the former and most of the latter series, so I checked out Corralled, which is the first of the Blacktop Cowboys series (and yes, the entire series features shirtless cowboy covers).

The daughter of a famous bull rider who died tragically, Lainie Capshaw works as a sports therapist on two different rodeo circuits, and finds herself drawn to--and sleeping with--one man from each tour. When both bullfighter Hank and bull rider Kyle appear at the same bar at the same time, she knows the jig is up. What she doesn't expect is for Hank and Kyle to approach her with a proposition: she will travel with both of them for three weeks during "Cowboy Christmas." They propose to share her bed at the same time, launching the three of them on a voyage of erotic discovery.

The men are hoping that she'll be forced to choose between them, which she declares she won't do when she accepts their offer. But after several weeks on the road with both Hank and Kyle, she finds herself drawn to one of them more than the other . . .

Grade: A-

I wouldn't class this as a great readalike for the 50 Shades trilogy, but it was an excellent erotic romance. I would give it to someone who loves western romances and Jaci Burton fans. James has a skillful way of handling the dynamics of a three-person relationship in a hypermasculine world like rodeo, and uses plenty of detail to make the setting believable. The book is as much about rodeo politics and genuine friendships as it is about hot sex (of which there is plenty). As seems to be customary for these books, there is an attempted rape.

Corralled ended up being one of my favorite books read for this project, so much so that I just voluntarily read another book in the series, One Night Rodeo, to find out what happened to some of the characters in Corralled.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Smooth Talking Stranger [2009]

Smooth Talking Stranger is the third book in a series about the Travis siblings by Lisa Kleypas. While another book in the series, Blue Eyed Devil, was mentioned once as a potential 50 Shades readalike, Smooth Talking Stranger was mentioned about 25% of the time in the sources I consulted. I listened to the audio version of this book, and found it quite addictive. It ended up being one of my favorites of the books I read for this project. Some spoilers below.

Jack Travis is a millionaire playboy who is rarely seen with the same woman twice. When Ella Varner appears in his office with a baby she claims is his, he's taken aback . . . and intrigued. Although he claims he hasn't slept with Ella's sister, Tara, he is willing to go through DNA testing. In the meantime, relationship advice columnist Ella is finding her carefully ordered life turned upside down by the nephew that has been thrust upon her by her brittle, uncaring mother and rehab-bound sister. At the beginning of the story, Ella is in a relationship with a man who doesn't believe in marriage or commitment, and she has come to espouse those ideals as well. When Jack challenges her preconceived notions, she finds it hard to ignore the points he makes, even as she stubbornly tries to maintain her independence.

Grade: A

There's so much to like in this well-rounded book, in which women have conversations with each other that aren't about men, there are some truly unlikable people but no true villains, and a baby is a plot device but isn't just used and then never seen again. Luke requires housing, feeding, and energy from both Ella and Jack, and he ends up feeling like more than a convenient trope. The progression of Jack and Ella's relationship was very well-developed, and included a lot of moments among his and her family members that made it seem much more grounded in reality than many of the books I've been reading recently.

As for its similarity to 50 Shades, Jack is definitely a dominant male, and the setting is, once again, among the  one percent. Unlike the James books, however, Ella is the one with the traumatic past (trigger warning for attempted rape, as is true of many of these books), although like Eva of the Crossfire trilogy she has taken steps to care for herself and move forward. If someone came to the reference desk and asked me for a good contemporary romance, I wouldn't hesitate to hand this one over, 50 Shades or no 50 Shades.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Caught in Amber [2013]

I am a big fan of Cathy Pegau’s book Rulebreaker, which came out in 2011. I was very pleased when Cathy asked earlier this year if I would be interested in reading the next two books in the series--thankfully, she didn’t stop at just one! However, for some reason she refuses to send me the ones she hasn’t written yet...



Caught in Amber is the story of Nathan Sterling (the mining authority agent introduced in Rulebreaker) and Sasha James, the woman whose help he needs to rescue his sister from the clutches of a dangerous drug dealer. Sasha has recently been released from prison, where she was serving a sentence and recovering from her addiction to the drug known as amber. Once the lover of Guy Christiansen, the colony’s notorious amber dealer, Sasha is determined to stay clean and finish her parole as far away from him as possible.

Nathan has other ideas, however. His sister Kylie has disappeared into Christiansen’s compound and he fears that her fate will be the same as Sasha’s--or worse. He has reason to suspect that Christiansen still harbors feelings for Sasha, and wants her assistance getting into the dealer’s compound. In exchange, he promises her freedom from the system and the regulatory chip implanted in her neck. Unfortunately, he’s working alone and not authorized to promise Sasha anything, especially when it’s not clear whether either of them will make it out of their encounters with Christiansen alive.

Growing attraction and sympathy between Nathan and Sasha complicate things further as Sasha risks her recovery and her life in order to befriend Kylie and help Nathan under the eyes of Christiansen and the enigmatic Genevieve Caine, his lieutenant. But will she be able to resist the lure of amber when she’s back where it all began?

Grade: A

My favorite part of these books is the carefully constructed world that Cathy has imagined, which includes meticulous details of religion, food, culture, mining(!), and climate. The setting is a consistent background character that is carried through all of what I have read so far. The books have an appealing blend of science fiction, romance, and thriller--with a dash of mystery--and Caught in Amber is no exception. Cathy also gets points from me for naming one of her secondary characters Mickelson, even if she did use an “-on”...

I can feel a little nervous when I am asked to look at the work of someone I know, because although I am an easy grader, I do try to review things honestly. However, I wasn’t worried about reviewing Cathy’s work, and I liked Caught in Amber enough to buy myself a copy, even though I’ve already read the book. I want to be able to re-read the whole (hopefully long) series when the time comes!

ETA: My review of the next book in the series, Deep Deception, is now up at the Lesbrary.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Sweet Surrender [2008]

Maya Banks' Sweet series was often recommended as a readalike for the 50 Shades trilogy in the sources I consulted, coming in third behind Sylvia Day's Crossfire trilogy and the Anne Rice Beauty trilogy. Much like the Wicked Lovers series, the stories revolve around a set of friends and co-workers, with each book featuring a different pairing. The series was originally published from 2008-2012, but all six books were redesigned and released again at the end of 2012, I suspect in response to the popularity of 50 Shades.

Sweet Surrender is the first book in the series. I read the mass market paperback version (pictured above), which I had the foresight to purchase for my library before I had any idea I would want to read it. Go me! Mild spoilers below.

At the instigation of his partner's father, Dallas cop Grayson Montgomery comes to Houston looking for leads on his partner's unsolved murder. He begins by getting a job at a local security firm in order to get close to Faith Malone. He believes that Faith's mother is connected to his partner's killer, and expects Faith to provide the connection he needs to crack the case. Faith works at the security firm for her adoptive father and has only recently severed her relationship with her neglectful mother. She's also beginning to realize some things about her personal life, especially about her sexual desires. Faith wants a man to take control of all aspects of her life, not just sexually. More than anything else, she wants to be taken care of. Meanwhile, Gray is a man who wants to be in complete control. The spark between them is strong and instantaneous, but Gray doesn't want to be distracted from his goal by starting a relationship with Faith, especially when he's in her life under false pretenses.

However, Faith's natural curiosity about submission and her mother's sudden reappearance in her life combine to throw the couple together so often that they are unable to deny their attraction. The only questions are whether their burgeoning relationship will be able to survive Gray's duplicity . . . or the killer that is hot on her trail.

Grade: B-

Like Forbidden Pleasure and Mine to Hold, Sweet Surrender features a male protagonist in law enforcement. And, as with those, the "thriller" plot doesn't hold together as well as the development of the romantic relationship. Unlike the heroines of those books, however, Faith takes a much more active role--first in her self-education about submissive desire, and then when she finds herself in danger. There is a moment in which she and Gray clash over the depth of her involvement; she comes to realize that if she wants a man to dictate her sexual experiences, she must let go of her preconceived notions of how it will play out. These details of their developing relationship are interesting, but it feels as if Banks has left half of the equation blank--even though we learn about Faith's past, her history with her abusive mother, and her evolving concept of desire, we learn precious little about Gray. It seems like a missed opportunity when he could be a much more well-developed character. However, since all the action takes place in the space of perhaps three weeks (maximum), perhaps this isn't surprising.

This is a book about dominance and submission that does not venture into the pain part of the equation. It's adventurous and kinky without being completely over the top, which in my opinion is what makes it a good 50 Shades readalike. However, Faith is a true submissive, which is completely unlike Ana.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Beautiful Bastard [2013]

Another title that came up as a potential 50 Shades readalike was Beautiful Bastard, a Twilight  fanfic-turned-book that was co-written by two women under the name Christina Lauren. Reviews online range from glowing to vituperative, depending on where the writer stands on the idea of publishing fan fiction. I am not going to dive in to that particular can of worms here, but instead try to give an idea of the book’s merit as a work of fiction (whether some ideas or characters are “borrowed” or not) and as a 50 shades readalike.

Chloe Mills is very close to finishing her MBA, but first she’s got to complete her internship as an assistant under the most demanding, arrogant, and rude boss ever known: advertising whiz kid Bennett Ryan. He may look like a god (her nickname for him is “Beautiful Bastard”), but he acts like a devil, offering Chloe constant criticism and pushing her to her limits. She rises to the challenge and isn’t afraid to give as well as she gets--even during an encounter in the conference room, in which their constant antagonism takes an abrupt turn into panty-ripping sex.

Despite their continued professed dislike for one another, each subsequent encounter leads to the same frenzied coupling, resulting in a stack of shredded lingerie in Bennett’s drawer and serious questions for Chloe about what exposure of their non-relationship would do for her reputation and future job prospects. Bennett has all the power and has already established himself in the man’s world of advertising, while Chloe is merely his assistant. From these inauspicious beginnings, will they be able to find their way to a meaningful relationship?

Grade: B+

Perhaps surprisingly, I really enjoyed this book. The structure is a little bit unconventional, as it alternates between Chloe and Bennett’s first-person perspectives--perhaps because of the tandem authorship? Despite the power imbalance, it’s clear from the outset that Chloe and Bennett are equally smart and driven; they are each other’s match and would be bored by someone who didn’t challenge them. Their gradually increasing intimacy and realization that their encounters are doing the opposite of “getting it out of their system” is actually quite sweet.

Things that make this a good 50 Shades readalike: the obsession with fancy underwear; their  power dynamic; the sheer number of times they have sex; the fact that it also began as Twilight fan fiction. Unlike the E.L. James books, however, there isn’t a great deal of working through emotional traumas from the past. For me, this was a welcome relief, as was the fact that Bennett expressed his emotions first. Also, aside from their predilection for having sex in public places, Bennett and Chloe aren’t particularly kinky.

ETA: My review of the next book in the series, Beautiful Stranger, is here.

The audio version of this book review is now live.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Mine to Hold [2012]

Shayla Black's Mine to Hold is the sixth book in her Wicked Lovers series, described as "[d]ark, dangerous, beyond sexy erotic romances about high-octane men and the daring women they will risk all for, even their hearts." The series or individual books in the series were recommended as readalikes for 50 Shades of Grey in more than 30% of the sources I reviewed, and Mine to Hold was the book that arrived first through the interlibrary loan lottery. Major spoilers ahoy!

Extremely poor decision-making and alcohol leads temporarily disabled LA detective Eric Catalano to encourage his wife Delaney to have sex with his partner Tyler. With Eric watching, Tyler and Delaney experience extreme (dare I say, unlikely) amounts of sexual gratification--leading to emotional chaos and Tyler's self-imposed exile to Louisiana. Two years later, Delaney shows up on Tyler's doorstep with their child. Yes, the condom broke at some point during those 5+ orgasms--and Delaney and Eric are now divorced. Delaney wants Tyler's help watching their son while she writes an exposé on the corrupt LA assistant district attorney who's been trying to kill her.

Rather than stay home to babysit the son he didn't knew he had but loves instantly, Tyler informs Delaney that this time they're going to do it "his way"--with the help of his new friends (protagonists of other books in the Wicked Lovers series). Tyler's way includes breaking down all the barriers that Delaney might have to a relationship between them, nevermind the fact that Tyler has apparently been having sex nonstop with other women since he left LA; the fact that she's recently divorced and someone has tried to kill her several times and situations with heightened stress levels are always the best time to begin relationships; and the fact that she said "no" and "don't" when he kissed her...

After a long, sexual tension- and then sex-filled road trip to Los Angeles, Tyler and Delaney arrive and then, after finding out that there's a time limit on their mission to expose the ADA, have a lot more sex before accomplishing anything. But in the process, they establish that Delaney is finding it difficult to trust Tyler because of his sexual history and that he's hoping that she'll get pregnant again as soon as possible so they can have more kids. So. Some things happen, including her ex-husband handcuffing Tyler to a fridge and attempting to rape Delaney in front of him. Also: anal sex! Things like that. I confess, there were many times I almost stopped reading this book, but I persevered for you, dear reader. And in the end, we all lived happily ever after.

Grade: D

This book: not my cup of tea.

My first reaction is that Mine to Hold has a lot more in common with Lora Leigh's Forbidden Pleasure than anything by E.L. James. There's an improbable cop/thriller plot and a man who has trouble understanding the word "no" from the woman he's attracted to. While this may be compelling for some readers, it certainly wasn't for me, and I'm not sure it aligns well with the relationship that James depicts. There are numerous references to Tyler as a "caveman," but no implication that there's anything too far out of line in his approach. By contrast, Leigh's Keiley and James's Ana have their many moments of understanding how impossible and overbearing their male counterparts can be. I would definitely recommend it to Lora Leigh fans, however!

Book Review Index

Book Review: Gabriel's Inferno [2011]

On the list of 50 Shades readalikes I’ve read so far, Sylvain Reynard’s Gabriel’s Inferno has by far the least explicit sex, but it also has some of the most sensual scenes and language. Originally written as Twilight fan fiction, the book and its sequel were both best-sellers for their pseudonymous Canadian author. Some spoilers below.

Julia Mitchell is an American graduate student newly enrolled at the University of Toronto and writing her thesis on Dante. Professor Gabriel Emerson is the instructor for her Dante seminar. Due to several unfortunate coincidences, they do not get off to a good start, and Professor Emerson acts like--as described quite often in the text--an ass. What takes some time to become clear is the details of their shared past; six years before the story opens, Julia and Gabriel shared one perfect (chaste) evening which she has never forgotten. Professor Emerson, however, is a creature of some dark and lustful habits, and believes that their meeting was a product of his drug-addled imagination.

Once this misunderstanding is cleared up, Gabriel is determined not to let Julia stray far from his side again, but there are various complicating factors: she is still enrolled in his class, which makes any relationship between them a violation of university policy; he is burdened by secrets that he is convinced make him unworthy of her love; her abusive ex-boyfriend resurfaces to cause trouble; she’s a virgin who finds it hard to trust his attraction to her . . . the list goes on. But it’s a romance, so you know they will manage to be together in the end (unlike the first 50 Shades book).

Grade: B+

My primary irritation with the book had to do with the “we met six years ago and I remember but you don’t remember me and I’m not going to tell you” plotline that consumes so much of the first part of the narrative. Julia spends so much time waiting for him to figure it out, and I’ve never liked it when romances use that kind of narrative device to create tension. However, once they got over that hump, I was able to get on board and appreciate the slow unfolding of their relationship. And I do mean slow.

The type of reader who prefers their romances to start fast, with sex in the first few chapters, should stay far away from Gabriel’s Inferno. By the time they were preparing to have intercourse for the first time, it was disc 16 (out of 16) in the audio version. This chastity, of course, makes the book very different than the 50 Shades books (although I don’t know yet what happens in the sequel, Gabriel’s Rapture, or in the forthcoming Gabriel’s Redemption). In an interview with USA Today, “Sylvain Reynard”--a male pseudonym that many consider to be hiding a female author--addressed his views on writing explicit sex:

“I think that leaving things to the imagination is what creates seduction. Sometimes one can have too much of a good thing. Part of the thrill of sex is the anticipation, so as a writer I'm conscious of that fact. In my view, sex is a mystery. If one focuses on the mechanics of sex or the awkwardness of two human beings communing physically, it takes away from the mysterious and sometimes transcendent aspects of it.”

After recently reading so many books with incredibly detailed sexual encounters, I appreciated this refreshing approach. I listened to the audio version, and the narrator was above average, especially when describing intimate scenes.

As for similarities to 50 Shades, Gabriel has many of the same controlling tendencies (bordering on asshole, until he tempers them) as Christian, as well as a taste for expensive things. Julia is a virgin, but not an innocent, and she has had a difficult life with two neglectful parents and an abusive ex. Ana’s parents are much more present and involved, but the women do share a core of strength despite their insecurity and inexperience. Other things that recall 50 Shades are the importance of music to the narrative and Julia’s lip-biting habit, as well as the obvious fact that they are both published Twilight fan fiction.

Completely unlike the EL James books is Reynard’s use of the story of Dante and Beatrice, Dante scholarship, Italian quotes, and other scholarly trappings. Themes of devils and angels, transgression and redemption, and sin and forgiveness loom large. As a former scholar myself, these parts were some of my favorites, especially when Gabriel and Julia had a fight in the seminar in which they both tried to relate their injured feelings to Dante scholarship. However, I was a bit skeptical that Gabriel, in his early 30s and with a history of drug abuse and violent behavior, would have been able to get tenure and publish prolifically enough to be one of the foremost scholars in his field. Yes, that is where I had trouble suspending my disbelief.

And one last warning, there is a near-rape scene that might cause some distress.

Book Review Index

Book Review: Forbidden Pleasure [2007]

Forbidden Pleasure is the seventh book in Lora Leigh’s Bound Hearts series, which was recommended as a readalike for the 50 Shades trilogy. Although the writing is uneven, if you actually find yourself with a patron who is willing to tell you they’re interested in something focused on ménage relationships, this would be a good place to start.

Mac McCoy has left the FBI and his days as a member of “The Club”--a DC area establishment catering to men who prefer to share their women with other men--behind him and moved with his new wife Keiley to a farm in North Carolina. Although he’s happy with his new life, he’s been keeping a part of himself carefully controlled and hidden from Keiley, and the strain is starting to show. Mac has deep-rooted dominant tendencies and a strong desire to share Keiley with his preferred “third,” Jethro. As Mac’s brother in all but blood, Jethro has always used Mac’s relationships with women as a way to have intimacy without getting too close, knowing that he could never give himself completely. He’s also halfway in love with Keiley already, which is why he introduced her to Mac--so that he could become their third. But Mac changed the equation when he left DC, and Jethro, behind.

When Keiley begins to question Mac more and more intently about his past and The Club, he feels that she may finally be ready for the introduction of Jethro into their lives. But the relationship that Mac has in mind for himself and Jethro and Keiley will require all three of them to erase their boundaries and embark on a sensual and loving journey that will either leave them as one happy whole, or three broken individuals. Leigh also inserts a plot in which a serial stalker (from a case that Mac and Jethro worked on at the FBI) fixates on Keiley. But don’t worry, the fact that their lives are potentially in danger does not prevent them from having lots of sex.

Grade: C+

I spent several days trying to articulate how I feel about this book. I definitely didn’t love it. I don’t think it was the three-way sex that bothered me, either. Rather it was the way that Mac and Jethro would sandwich Keiley repeatedly and tell her that they would stop making coordinated sexual advances toward her if she just said no. Leigh suggests several times that Keiley knew about her husband’s tendencies and had been working her way up to interest in where that could take them, but she was too often (for my taste) put in a position where they were asking forgiveness and not permission.

The short time-span of the plot--two weeks at most--makes it difficult to believe that Mac and Keiley’s idyllic existence as a monogamous couple who engaged in very little kinky sex would transform so quickly into a completely different relationship. The writing was also a bit heavy handed, in the “Keiley didn’t know what to do about these desires, which were forbidden” kind of way. As a readalike for 50 Shades, it’s not too bad. It definitely has the dominant and kink elements, plus both the guys have the requisite tortured pasts. It’s written in the third person, but Keiley’s personality is well fleshed-out and not unlike Ana’s. She swings between deep arousal and interest to being supremely irritated at both Mac and Jethro’s high-handedness. The stalker plot is about as believable as the crisis that troubles Christian and Ana in Fifty Shades Freed.

Book Review Index

Book Review: The Lady's Tutor [1999]

I read The Lady’s Tutor by Robin Schone because it came up several times in my search for potential 50 Shades of Grey readalikes, and it was one of the few historical romances that appeared on any lists. However, I definitely would not categorize it as a "readalike." It’s a historical romance with some explicit sexual content. I’ll explain further after the review.

The year is 1886. Mrs. Elizabeth Petre is the wife of England’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom she has been married for sixteen years. Though they have done their duty and produced two sons, Elizabeth’s husband has never come to her bed for pleasure. When rumors reach her regarding the existence of her husband’s mistress, she decides to take matters into her own hands and learn the arts of seduction. She selects the “Bastard Sheikh” Ramiel Devington, the son of an English countess and an Arab sheikh, to provide instruction. But as Ramiel begins to teach Elizabeth about the sensual arts, their student-teacher relationship quickly blossoms into something deeper.

After denying her own sexual appetites for the entirety of her married life, Elizabeth is intrigued and aroused by the acts Ramiel describes, as well as by the man himself. However, she risks her reputation each time she visits him at his house, and as the wife of a politician and the daughter of the Prime Minister, she is even more tightly constrained than most women. Her husband--who has dark secrets of his own--holds all the power, and would have legal custody of her children were they to divorce. It is difficult to describe the plot without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that Elizabeth’s freedom, and future with Ramiel, hinges on her husband’s involvement in a secret society called the Uranians.

Grade: B-

Despite the interesting teacher-student dynamic, with its Arabic flavor (Schone quotes extensively from a book called The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefza), and the fact that Schone thanks reference librarians in her acknowledgments, something about this book left me cold. It could have been the way that Schone incorporated homosexuality, or the use of italics, or just that I wasn’t in the mood for it.

Nevertheless, Elizabeth in particular is an interesting and complex character, as severely constrained as she has been by her family and society. Ramiel also has been slighted by society and, like Christian Grey, is troubled by past abuse. The book does contain explicit sex. However, I still wouldn’t class it as a 50 Shades readalike. Ramiel is much more experienced than Elizabeth, and that shapes their power dynamic somewhat, but there are no control issues being played out between them. If anything, she has more power socially than he does, although he is wealthy. Instead, I’d suggest that the book is more closely related to Cecilia Grant’s A Lady Awakened (one of my favorites from last year).

Book Review Index

Book Review: Bared to You and Reflected in You [2012]

I recently spent a good chunk of time combing the internet to see what other librarians and readers were recommending as readalikes for the 50 Shades series.* Of the fifty sources I reviewed, more than half cited Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series (thus far consisting of Bared to You and Reflected in You, with Entwined with You due for publication in June of this year) as a recommendation for people who have finished the EL James books and are looking for something similar. I can see why: they both feature controlling, wealthy men and women who are recent college graduates. Like Christian and Ana, Gideon and Eva find an almost instantaneous, obsessive, and all-consuming love as they navigate their new relationship and face demons from the past.

The primary difference between the series is Eva herself. Unlike Ana, she is not virginal or naïve. She is strong and sure of herself; she’s been through hell and therapy and knows her own limitations, even if she sometimes can’t help giving in to them. Like the 50 Shades books, Day’s series is written in the first person from the heroine’s perspective, but for the most part she eschews statements such as “He was just so . . . male” (Bared to You, 27) that recall the eyeroll-inducing phrases that were the hallmark of the James trilogy. Some spoilers in the review that follows. After graduation, Eva Tramell moves to New York City, across the country from her loving father, in order to take an advertising job and start living her dreams. She has the support of her bisexual best friend Cary and luxuries provided by her mother and stepfather, which unfortunately also come with extreme, stalkerish overprotectiveness. A chance collision with business mogul Gideon Cross knocks her flat and kindles an instant attraction, but when he later propositions her, she turns down his offer. After he pursues a more than sexual relationship, she relents. What begins as a theoretical “no strings” relationship soon evolves into something much more complex and shattering. Like Christian Grey, Gideon is haunted by events from his past, including his father’s suicide and sexual abuse. Gideon and Eva are both self-sufficient survivors who very quickly find themselves caught up in a whirlwind that includes episodes in which they trigger each other’s deepest fears, roommate drama, ex-lovers, Gideon’s need for control and Eva’s desire for independence, and the return of Eva’s childhood abuser. Despite numerous challenges to their relationship, they work hard to forge something lasting, refusing to give up even when that appears to be the most reasonable course of action. Grade: B Overall, I liked this series rather better than 50 Shades (which I didn’t hate). The writing was much tighter and the main characters seemed to be closer to equal; I liked that Eva has her own wealth and had sexual experience before Gideon. The second book ends with a somewhat startling admission, and it will be interesting to see where Day goes next with the plot. The elements of dominance and submission are subtler than the James trilogy, consisting mostly of conversations about control and Gideon’s assertion that Eva wants him to have total control of her pleasure, which she comes to accept as true. Final word for librarians: If you’ve got someone in front of you who has finished the 50 Shades trilogy and is looking for more, this is a good pick, but not necessarily a something for anyone with triggers around sexual abuse.

ETA: My review of the next book in the series, Entwined with You, is here.

Book Review Index *Full results to be revealed in a later post.

Book Review: 50 Shades Trilogy [2012]

It seems almost ridiculous for me to weigh in on this trilogy after everything that has been written about it already, but I want to provide my take here before I move on to reviewing some of the books that have been offered as readalikes.* I read Fifty Shades of Grey and Fifty Shades Darker on paper, and listened to the audio version of Fifty Shades Freed. I got all three through my library without a long wait. Let me tell you, it is very weird to listen to an erotic story being read aloud when the heroine shares your name.

I’m not sure whether I would have picked up the books (and persevered through all of them) if I weren’t a librarian; what motivated me initially was a desire to discover for myself what was compelling so many of my patrons to read the books, which required them to put their names on enormous holds lists. I interacted with several people who, faced with the fact that they would be 450th in line, told me they were just going to buy the book.

I believe that the appeal of the books (in terms of the public’s consumption) wanes by about 30% after the first book, as the sales figures and holds ratios seem to bear out. In my library system, there are still twice as many holds on the first book as the successive volumes (159 holds on 428 total copies vs. 73/300 and 86/284). The first book of the trilogy has sold 168,959 copies in 2013 (as of this week's Publishers Weekly data) vs. 115,447 and 112,251 for the second and third books, respectively. I’m not sure if this is a result of a bottleneck created by people still waiting for their hold on the first book to come in, or how this drop-off after the first book compares to other series.

But enough idle speculation, let me get to my thoughts about the series. The trilogy involves the complicated, often tortured relationship between a young mogul, Christian Grey, and Anastasia Steele, who is a college senior when the first book opens. Christian copes with the traumas of his tortured past by attempting to exert absolute control over his environment, especially his sexual partners. Ana is an innocent who is swept up by his magnetism and power, but she finds it impossible to be the completely submissive partner Christian wants, even though she comes to care for him deeply. They learn to compromise as various challenges threaten their relationship. As you have probably heard, the books were originally conceived as Twilight fan fiction.

I will say up front that I enjoyed parts of the trilogy, but felt that it would have been a much stronger product if someone had taken a firmer editorial hand with the text. Never mind the plot points, James repeated so many phrases (“Oh, my sweet Fifty!”) and descriptive terms that it was very difficult for someone like me, who approaches life with red pen in hand, to remain immersed in the story. As a longtime romance reader, I wasn’t particularly shocked by the content; in fact, it was a bit tamer than I had been led to expect by some pearl-clutching reactions.

The trilogy is essentially a romance with a more explicit erotic content (some BDSM-related) than you would find in your garden-variety genre book. Ana and Christian (spoiler!) end up living happily-ever-after. The books feature the reformation of an overbearing male character that is not unlike the redemption of a rake in a historical romance. Although I found the primary external threat to their relationship unbelievable, I did appreciate the push-and-pull of negotiation between Christian and Ana over the course of the books, which didn’t stop after their marriage. It was interesting to see how things developed, as well as the material she was drawing from Twilight. One of the most peculiar reactions I had was to feel that James had created a backstory that made the actions of the characters in the Twilight Saga (which I also read and enjoyed portions of) make sense.

Grade: C+

I recommend that librarians on the front lines read (or listen to) at least the first book in the series, so they will be able to make informed collection decisions and be able to do the best reader’s advisory they can. There are various reasons that a patron might be interested in the series; this article on its appeal factors is a good starting point when trying to understand why it has been and continues to be such a phenomenon. I will say that when I tell patrons that I have read the series, they are immediately put more at ease and willing to open up to me when they’re asking for my help at the reference desk.

Book Review Index


*As part of my run-up to an upcoming presentation on erotica and collection development in the library. Since 50 Shades of Grey has kicked off a lot of discussion in the library world, in terms of collection development and reader’s advisory, it makes sense to start here. Future reviews will evaluate potential readalikes for the trilogy.

Meditation on 2011-2012 Romance Novel Titles

It has been far too long since I've gazed deeply into the heaving bosom of romance novel titles, as I did in these previous posts. I'm about half a year behind schedule, in fact. The good news: this means I have TWO sets of Romantic Times award nominees to draw from (2011 and 2012), in addition to the Romance Writers of America 2012 RITA and Golden Heart awards list. The bad news is that this means I really can't compare this crop of titles to previous years. However, this project is based on my whims rather than any real degree of statistical accuracy. Onward!

Methodology: I copied and pasted all the titles of romance novels into an Excel spreadsheet, de-duplicated, and searched on various keyword stems based on my previous findings and anything else that struck me as relevant while I skimmed the list. That process looks like this:

There are 677 award-nominated titles on my list (some of which are short works rather than novels), and these are my favorites (links go to covers and descriptions):

A Misplaced Cowboy, like a comma, can end up where he shouldn't be.
What an Earl Wants is responsible for an insidious earworm every time it appears.
When You Give a Duke a Diamond, which I always imagine as part of this series.
Lady Doctor Wyre is the first in the Jane Austen Space Opera series. Think on that a moment.

Best Puns: Bathtub Jinn and The Sexorcist
Head:Desk: Daring to Date the Boss and Sheikh Surgeon Claims His Bride
WTF: Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow and Cat on a Hot Steel Flight Deck

Continuing Trends:

Nobility: As usual, being of noble birth is an excellent way to get yourself into a romance novel. Dukes were the clear winner last time, but this time they were supplanted by Ladies, who featured in 16 titles [followed by Duke and Lord, each with 11, Earl: 6, Heiress and Prince: 5, King: 4, and a variety of stragglers with two or three titles]. As for Sheikhs, there were three (plus one harem). Overall, more than 10% of all the nominated titles featured a mention of one or more nobles.

Scots: After a somewhat disappointing showing last year, the highlanders were back in force! Ten titles had "Highlander" in them. In addition, there were six "Scot" titles, one "Laird," and one "Kilt."

Punctuation: I can't help it, it's my favorite trend. This year, there were seven colons (Rancher's Twins: Mom Needed); five dashes, one question mark (Not Fit for a King?), and one ampersand.

Professions of Love:

I also scanned the titles to see what people's jobs were (beyond being noble). Mostly it's the men that get actual jobs, usually in some kind of protective capacity. There were the usual cowboys (7), soldiers (7), and warriors (5), as well as assorted rangers, ranchers, mavericks, and so on. Interestingly, there was one mention of a homesteader and one of a farmer. Some of the women allowed to have professions were three governesses and one nanny, most likely so that they could be seduced against their will from their subservient positions (Seducing the Governess). However, there was also one cowgirl and one lady doctor, so perhaps there's hope after all.

Rogues (7), rakes (1), renegades(2), rebels (3), and scoundrels (2) continued to be popular, although perhaps the low number is some indication that "rake," with its negative connotation, may be falling out of favor?

Notable:

Most notably, the economic downturn seems to have finally penetrated the world of the romance novel, as there was no mention of millionaires, billionaires, tycoons, or magnates. There was also only one "Boss" title.

I definitely spotted a "how to" trend among the titles I scanned. Some novels gave contradictory advice, such as How to Seduce a Rogue and Never Seduce a Rogue, but the advisory urge was strong. There were six titles that begin with "How To," two "Guides" and one featuring "Rules," as well as three "Lessons." By picking up one of these books, you could learn:

How to Bake a Perfect Life
How to Dance with a Duke
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf
How to Marry a Duke
How to Seduce a Scoundrel
How to Woo a Reluctant Lady

Gender and Power Divides:

Breaking the titles down along gender lines required a little chart-making:

Almost all categories are dominated by the female-identified descriptor, which is . . . completely unsurprising.

I also wanted to talk a little about the language being used, which implies some value judgments. Love, it seems, is usually a scandalous enterprise:

These sin-ful titles make up almost 8% of the total. Many of them are likely historical romances, but I wanted to include them before this chart:

Mixed in with generic words such as "love" and "desire" are some that suggest lack of control and powerlessness. Generally, a loss of agency is exemplified by boss romances, but is also a prominent feature of many other romance subgenres. Combined with the previous chart, we can see a focus on surrendering, possibly against your will, to a scandalous desire. Again, not surprising.

Miscellaneous:

• Werewolves and vampires seem to be trending downward, with only three mentions of each (in addition to a "Wolf" and an "Alpha," giving the werewolves a dubious victory).
• There were six mentions of angels and archangels and six mentions of devils or "devilish," which is likely an adjective rather than a demonic protagonist.
• There were 11 mentions of homes, houses, and homecomings.
• The sea and sea-related things, which seemed to be trending last year, only made it to four titles.
• There were only 9 Christmas titles listed, plus two mistletoe titles and one Valentine's Day title.
• Unsurprisingly, titles were much more likely to feature dark* (17) than light (1) or sun (2), with various iterations: moonlight (4), starlight (1), twilight (2), midnight (5), and of course night/nightfall (13). Things were also hotter (10) than they were cold (2).
• There was also a certain amount of blood (7) and death (10). Romance can be hard.

Based on my findings, the most popular trends across all subcategories (occupations, atmospheric, descriptive, etc.) are:

Therefore, my suggested can't-miss titles for 2013, according to my crystal ball algorithm (drumroll):

Bride of Scandal, Lady of the Secret Dark
Seducing the Scandalous Lady by Nightfall: Her Secret Bride's Lover (this plot is super complicated)

If you're an author, these titles are free for the taking. Strike while the iron is hot! Feel free to leave your own suggestions in the comments.

Meditation Index