All mouth and no trousers
2 stars

I sometimes dabble in romances in the ddlg lifestyle although I’m very much a novice. However, this book sounded too much fun to pass up. I love a fake relationship trope and I’m partial to a billionaire - it sounded like something I would love.

I’m sad to say, however, that I didn’t love it.

The good bits first. The story as a whole was great. The way our couple meet (or re-meet), they reasoning behind the fake relationship, the person trying to sabotage Martin and Samantha’s new found love… I was behind it all.

The writing was also very good. It was written in third person, past tense and I found it to be engaging and very readable. I definitely wouldn’t mind reading more from Ms West in the future.

Sam and Martin were both likeable characters and the only negative things I can say about them would be that Martin was too domineering and Sam was too juvenile at times. Not really sure that’s a valid complaint in a daddy / little book, though!

However, there are some not so good points about the book, too.

The pacing was all over the place. We seemed to spend aaaages with Martin and Samantha as they reconnected in the bookshop, but in other places a whole sex club was built between paragraphs. Some things were drawn out and some happened far too fast. The first time the pair had sex was over in about a page leaving me a little peeved. The pace allowed me to pick up and put down the book at will. I was never engrossed.

I don’t know if someone just forgot to edit the book but we have a ridiculous amount of simple grammar errors (your instead of you’re, for example) and some incorrect word choices, exhort instead of exert, fair well instead of farewell, to name but two. Sloppy, irritating and an easy fix.

The sex and ddlg playing was hot…especially the spanking. However, there were some points that really weren’t my kind of thing. Martin doesn’t mind sharing Samantha so we do get a scene where 4 men (I think it was 4), including her ex-boyfriend get sexual with her. There’s quite a lot about anal play and anal sex, which is also not my bag.

But the biggest complaint I had about the sex was that it was all mouth and no trousers. Figuratively and literally. As I mentioned before, the first penetrative sexual encounter was over before it began. We then have build up to a scene with multiple partners. But they’re not allowed to have sex with her. So we get 5 or 6 naked folk in a room, a little fondling, a little sucking and then they’re all asleep in a bed. Disappointing from every angle.

Probably as a result of all of my above complaints, I didn’t really ‘feel’ the love between Samantha and Martin. But I could see exactly where it *should* be building. I could see exactly what the author had planned and the potential for the progression of their relationship. I felt like this was a very detailed first draft with so much possibility. And if only it had a bit more editorial work then I would have LOVED it. Shame, really. ( )

This book had an interesting story line but I would have liked to see more built into it. It moved very quickly and more fleshing out of story and characters would make the book better. Good effort from the author. ( )

Well this was...not good. It’s sad that the blurb about the book is probably the best thing about the book. I don’t really know anything about the publisher, but no one looked at this prior to printing; the number of errors in grammar and incorrect words (e.g. exhort vs exert, except vs accept) was ridiculous.

As to the story itself, I didn’t feel it. There was no character development at all nor backstory, even though the heroine has supposedly been in love with the hero forever (which I don’t think is ever brought up to him BTW). She is an erotic romance author who writes reverse harem, yet she apparently knows nothing about daddy kink (not that it seems he really does either). There was a year that I guess passed in about a chapter, and we’ve heard pretty much zero about the villain until he shows up at over 80%.

Finally, this wasn’t even sexy. It definitely can’t be categorized as erotic romance since there wasn’t any sex that moved their story forward; honestly I’ve read more sex scenes in most historical romances, so don’t expect to find many hot times happening here. If you’re looking for good erotic daddy kink, go to AO3 and do a tag search instead. ( )

I could say a lot about this book, but I don't want to spoil anything. I'm the type that when reading a book, I wait for the man to do something to hurt the woman. That seems how most books go these days. That didn't happen in this book. Yeah, Sam got hurt by Martian at one point, but it was all just a misunderstanding. To me, even though it's stated several times, Martian didn't really come off as a billionaire playboy. I would have liked a little more background on the characters. To keep from spoiling anything, there's something mentioned on why Martain doesn't want to return home to Montana. I would have liked more on that. Maybe it'll be in another book since this is book one. I would have liked more on Sam's past with Berry or a little more on what was going through her head after what happened towards the end. At one point, there was a huge time jump. There was no indication of it except for when Martain was talking about how long he'd been gone from his apartment. I noticed several errors in the book as well. Once the wrong name was used. Other than that, I really enjoyed reading this book. I hadn't been intending to sit down and read it as it was four in the morning, but I couldn't put it down. I had to finish it. I'd recommend this book. ( )