Review: Overdue For Pleasure by Shelley Aikens

Overdue For Pleasure has been on my Kindle for a while now. I bought it and tucked it away on my TBR for a rainy day. I wanted to do some “fun” reading this weekend, and so I searched my virtual shelves for an erotic romance. I couldn’t decide between an erotic historical or this book. I’m pretty sure the cover and the fact that this book features a librarian heroine was what tilted the scale in it’s favor.

Mandy is a mousy librarian (this is how she describes herself). She is in a relationship with her live-in lover Martin but they are somewhat mismatched in the bedroom. Basically, she is horny and he only wants vanilla sex a couple of times a week, on a schedule. After waking from an erotic dream aroused, she puts the moves on Martin only to be shot down. Unsatisfied and frustrated she heads off to work. At this point things start to go crazy. She’s lured into a dark corner of the library by a man who closely resembles her erotic dream man. He hits on her and to proceeds to feel her up. The only reason things don’t go any further is they are interrupted by Sean, Mandy’s co-worker.

After Mandy takes off work early she catches Martin, her lover, in the act of cheating. Or just after the act of cheating…she catches him getting rid of the condom. They break up and  suddenly Mandy has men coming out of the woodwork practically humping her leg every time she has a naughty thought.

She runs into mysterious library lover in the park where she lets him finger her and bring her to orgasm. But don’t worry, it was all very romantic. (It wasn’t)

“Don’t worry, I would never compromise your values. I’m sure you’re monogamous with your guy, and you probably don’t believe in infidelity. And I don’t believe in doing anything without one hundred percent mutual consent.” He traced the side of my face with his hand. “I just want to touch you, to make you happy for a little while. To bring that hidden woman out of you.” He slipped his hand further under my skirt. “But only if you want me to.”

Mysterious guy just wants to make her feel good, bring out her hidden woman.

After the lovin’:

With a pang of embarrassment, I realized that I didn’t even know his name. Reluctantly, my eyes fluttered open so I could introduce myself. But he was gone.

Classy Mandy. Very classy.

Mandy has another encounter the same day on the bus with a hot guy in a business suit and a college kid. Lots of rubbing, and erections, and skirts riding up. But of course, she was remorseful after:

I was torn between lingering lust and total mortification. As I straightened my rumpled skirt, I opted for mortification. How could I have let myself do something so sleazy, so dangerous? Was I that desperate for sex?

Later (that night I think?) Mandy gets it on with Sean the co-worker who interrupted the library lovin’. Here is where I really start to lose my patience. She has full on sex with Sean, who has “waited forever for this” with no condom. Not even a thought of a condom. I’m already a little squicked out about the park scene and the bus scene but now she is bare-backing with Sean hours after breaking up with Martin.

So basically, we have a frustrated mousy librarian who is suddenly putting out mega-pheromones, attracting a bunch of horny dudes panting after her with their tongues hanging out. I’m still waiting for the plot. There just isn’t one as far as I can see but still I read on thinking surely there will be something that’s going to make this story interesting.

Now that Mandy has broken up with her cheating lover she needs a place to live. Enter James, the uptight attorney who loves his dog. Mandy has never cared much for James and really thinks he more of a pain in the ass than anything else. But he offers her a really sweet deal if she’ll be his roommate and help take care of his dog while he travels. She takes the deal and soon finds out that James is a nice guy sometimes and they start to develop a friendship. You can see where this is going right?

Ok, now I’m getting interested. A romance is brewing. Things are looking up. That is until Sean the co-worker shows up and seems to be jealous of all of Mandy’s recent action. She’s his little slut. <—his words not mine. Sean is a dirty talker and Mandy seems to really like this. However she is already tiring of him but apparently he’s not done with her. This leads to a sex scene where consent is very questionable. She clearly says no, but is aroused. The problem I had was there was no clear consent, only Mandy saying no and struggling. We know that she is experiencing arousal, and this might be skirting on fantasy for her, but consent was too fuzzy for me and this felt too much like rape. It was at this point I turned off the e-reader and gave up on this book totally. There was just no point in going on.

Rating: DNF
Overdue For Pleasure by Shelley Aikens
November 1st 2010 by Carina Press
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