Club Book

This book is a mess. It's a tiresome, long and just plain blah read. Such a letdown being that it's been touted as Page's foray into mainstream historical romance but with a bit extra spice. Spice aplenty there is, but it's shoved in all over the place and just doesn't seem to fit with the characters. One of those sex for the sake of sex novels at times that you often find in erotica.

What really bothered me about this story are the sub-stories, there are too many of them and they just keep on coming which explains why the book is 408 pages. It really needs more focus. It meanders from one thing to the next which I found irritating. There isn't enough development between the h/h either but all of a sudden they love each other. Very left field here. There's also too much focus on the suspense aspect of the book. People who are dead are suddenly alive, mysterious events keep happening, evil men abound etc etc . Too much. Some of the sex is totally out of place with the characters. One that comes to mind is the rimming scene that was just there to "shock" the reader I thought. There's supposed to be a kind of love hate history between Jane and Christian but it's not there. Barely a barb was exchanged and whatever was was hardly worth mentioning.

It is a very dark story at times. The club is a seedy place where twisted men get together to "explore" a sinister side of sex that's not all that consensual. Most of the women are trapped in loveless marriages with sexual deviants and have been psychologically as well as physically hurt. This is the background of the story and the reader is led to believe that things will happen to the h/h at this club but the back blurb is misleading because nothing really happens there. It's the starting point for the heroine to find her friend and the hero to find his sister who has disappeared.

This was the kind of book that I hoped would get better but never did. It has a lot of potential. A swingers' club of sorts, an extra dose of hot sex, murder, mystery but it's a mish mash of a story that just doesn't get you to connect with the characters. I found myself counting the pages to the end, skimming parts and just wishing it would be over. Sharon Page writes some good historical erotica (check out Sin for some top notch scorcher ménage scenes) but this attempt at a mainstream regency historical romance is a dud.