Wednesday, January 13, 2016

HEAT OF THE DAY by Lily Harlem

 

Publisher: Pride Publishing
Date published:
19th January 2016
ISBN:
978-1-78430-951-0
Menage, Contemporary
E-book
Reviewed by Helen
Weblink: https://www.pride-publishing.com/book/heat-of-the-day
Obtained via publisher
Rating: 3.5


 
All summer long Piper and Flynn shared a romantic working vacation in Spain with Seraphim. The three of them bonded perfectly in every way. Then Sera went home to Portugal for a weekend, and a month later he still hadn’t returned. Broken-hearted and angry, Piper and Flynn agree it’s time for them to move on from Sera so decide to leave Spain and visit Thailand.


I found the blurb quite disconcerting. It’s written in first person POV by Flynn, so I assumed the book would be also written in first person. But it’s not. It’s written traditionally in third person, rotating POVs between the main characters. I don’t understand why the author wrote the blurb as she did. I suspect more readers dislike first person than go looking for it. And if a reader was only interested in a first person book, the story itself would disappoint them.

The book itself is an excellent blend of interesting characters and the story of them getting their lives back together again after a major crisis. I would have preferred a little more detail of the crisis itself, but it was quite clear from everyone’s reactions to it how deeply traumatized they all had been.

The story is only 12,000-words, a very tight word limit for plot, characterization and sex and the author has achieved this by making the sex very much part of the plot. There’s a lot of hot sex scenes in such a short word length—MF, MM and MFM. But there is also emotional connection and that is part of the plot as well.
All in all Ms. Harlem has done an excellent job with the book and produced an emotionally rewarding ménage story with engaging characters that’s a fast yet fulfilling read. The book is very clean throughout, but I would rewrite the blurb and replace it with one written in third person to match the book.


This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.



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