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Pages: 78
Goes Well With: a glass of champagne and hors d’oeurves
Regular readers of this column may know that I sometimes struggle with these Lunch Break Ebooks reviews. When a book is so short, it’s often hard to put aside your expectations and just enjoy it. As a reviewer, I expect well-developed characters and a nicely constructed plot structure—but when the piece you’re reading is under 80 pages long, you don’t always get what you want. Luckily for me, after the first few pages of Twice Is Not Enough by Emma Lai, I pretty much gave up on my expectations and tried to enjoy the ride.
The book is set in London. And while Lai doesn’t give us a specific timeframe, by descriptions of the characters’ clothing, I think it’s set in the Regency Era. William Abbot is a wealthy businessman from America, in London to help his younger sister find an aristocratic husband. We don’t know if Miss Abbot meets her match, though, because William falls under the spell of Miranda Peters, the daughter of one of his business associates. While at a party, Miranda and William find themselves accidental voyeurs, watching the host and his wife enjoy some…ah…private time in their library. The incident spurs William and Miranda into some sexual escapades of their own, right there among the books and couches. There is a bit of drama once Miranda realizes who that man in the library was, but everything is resolved in time for one masturbation scene (did I mention this is a rather raunchy novel?), another round of sex, and an out-of-the blue happy ending. Considering that the book is a mere 78 pages long, I suppose that’s the natural progression of events for an erotic novel.
I have to admit that I felt a bit uncomfortable with the sex scenes in this book. First of all, the first time, Miranda never explicitly gives her consent and is by all accounts an innocent. Since it’s dark in the alcove, she doesn’t even know that her erstwhile lover is William. The thought of a young woman being deflowered by a total stranger while at a party was unsettling for me. I found William’s attitude—“So what if she was a virgin; we still had our fun,” despite the fact that he just ruined her chances of finding a good husband—incredibly callous. If the book had been any longer, I think I’d hate him. I am sort of glad Miranda that finally got some, though, because the girl was positively obsessed with sex, constantly fantasizing about it, even before meeting William Abbot.
The dialogue is a strange amalgam of dirty sexy talk and flowering euphemisms. Just when I got used to reading the harsher terms for anatomy, Lai would slip in something along the lines of “love’s most perfect channel,” and it totally threw me for a loop. She should have made up her mind: go dirty all the way or go the minor league route. Another thing that made me a little uncomfortable was the constant mention of and reference to bodily fluids. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a dirty book as much as the next gal, but it was kind of gross seeing so much attention given to that side effect of The Deed.
All in all I’d have to say that Twice Is Not Enough is certainly a “good enough” ebook. Once you strip away your expectations and see it for what it essentially is—erotica—it certainly serves its purpose. But I’m thinking twice would be enough for this reader.
For more on Twice Is Not Enough, visit The Wilder Rose Press.
