I'm reading Louisa Edward's On the Steamy Side and it begins with 2 people in a bar who decide to hook up. They don't bother to learn each other's names but she can tell he's a decent guy (plus the bartender said he was and that's good enough for our heroine!)
I'm more than a little squicked out by this. I know that these characters will become the H/h and fall in love and have their HEA but well ... anonymous sex with a stranger doesn't put me in mind of HEA.
What say you? Knowing the H/h start their story that way would you keep reading? Would you not care because it's a romance? Would you throw the book against the wall because it's a little too squicky for a romance?
I like the word 'squicky'. Can I borrow it?
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm the wrong person to ask... I'm severely old fashioned when it comes to stuff like that. Having sex with someone you just met 'feels' wrong, to me. Of course you don't need to wait years either but 'Hi, how about a fuck' isn't exactly something to base a relationship on. Or maybe it is. Each to their own I guess.
I just had a thought about taht story Lori. I haven't read it but immediately when you mentioned that the barman told her it was ok cause he was a good guy, I had visions of them being a double act - the barman tells the women what they want to hear about this guy and then he takes them home to do bad bad things. Like murdering them...
I blame the flu medication I'm on, I'm not normally like this :) So in answer to your question, I would probably read a chapter, roll my eyes and leave it on the bookshelf until I was positively desperate for soemthing to read. It would then be my first choice - after the yellow pages.
I love the word 'squicky' too.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with you on thinking that there is something wrong with this as a premise for a HEA.
Actually it sounds more like dangerous behaviour to me.
I recently read a Mary Balogh historical, called A Secret Pearl, where the H/h have anonymous sex in the first chapter. It had a high ick factor. She was a virginal fledgling prostitute and he was her first (and only) client.
But I think it worked there because Mary Balogh knows how to ratchet up the angst factor like no-one else.
But by and large, I'm with you - and wouldn't read on.
Cheryl
Strangely I wasn't really squicked out that they had a one night stand (I knew that from reviews) but that it was anonymous really bothered me.
ReplyDeleteA woman able and wlling to have sex with a man whose name she doesn't know in this day and age makes her TSTL (too stupid to live).
I guess my Louisa Edward's fangirl status is now officially over. Time to harass someone else.
Didn't seem to bother most others, because it's got 4 and 5 stars at Amazon and is described as 'hot and steamy.'
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm just old fashioned. And why shouldn't I be? I'm old, damn it! I do not like one night stands with unknown bodies. I just can't imagine it (outside of prostitution), so therefore I won't read it.
Thanks for the heads up, Lori.