The Fetish Box, Part One: Open All Night and Part Two: What Escapes, Nicole Camden

An unrealistic story about a 22-year-old virgin who inherits her long-lost mother's sex shop.

This review will cover both 'books' that I read in the series as they literally overlap each other with the first ending at chapter 8 and the second one starting with chapter 9.  I apologize in advance for the harshness of the review.

*** This will also be one big spoiler. ***

- Review by Cindi

    

When I review books I try to be as fair as possible to the author.  Occasionally I may get frustrated and that frustration carries over in my reviews.  I always try to keep the meanness away even when I finish a book that angers me or that I think was not written very well.  I am aware that I am not always able to do that.  I am not sure how to review these two shorts without being a bit harsh.  I made a commitment to read them and to review them honestly.  Otherwise, I would have rated them on Goodreads and moved on.  This little series may be for some, but it most definitely is not for me.  

Mary, a 22-year-old college student, has just inherited a sex shop, The Fetish Box, from her mother in Florida... the mother she never met, Mandy.  Mandy hooked up with a guy years earlier during spring break, got pregnant and then as soon as Mary was born called up the guy and told him to come get the baby because she wasn't ready to be Mommy.   Mary is a virgin with very little in regards to sexual experience.  She has been raised by a strict grandmother (apparently "Dad" wasn't ready to be Daddy either) who forced her strict beliefs on her grandchild.  Mary has shied away from sex and lived a rather innocent life.  Until she goes to the home of her deceased mother.

So far, so good, right?  It actually started out well.  Now keep in mind that Mary has never had sex before.   She has never found the one.  She ends up finding the two.  I'll come back to that.

Mary shows up at her mother's house and walks in to see a stranger (Max) in the house. Within seconds of innocent Mary walking in and seeing this stranger, she is allowing him to kiss her and to push her shirt up... bra down... and to suck her breasts.  She has literally been inside the house less than a minute and has never laid eyes on the man before.  Max turns out to be a close friend of her mother's and Mary's new business partner in a club (apparently she inherited the sex shop and a bar).  Moments before walking into the house to have her breasts sucked on by this random stranger, Mary meets a jogger (and his dog) outside the house.  This jogger would be John, an employee and friend of Mandy's.

Fast forward.

Later on, Mary meets John again.  John takes her to lunch and tells her that her mother was a Dominatrix and that he (John) wishes to train Mary in regards to sex.  Mary, at this point, had been in town less than a few hours.  She had already allowed Max (the first stranger) to kiss, suck and fondle her and now she is consenting to allowing John (the second stranger) teach her the art of having sex.  Hmm... okay.  He has her strip down in front of him (in the office of the shop) and put on a silk teddy.  She then wears this under her clothes as she and John go about doing other things together and then ending up at her mother's house for the night.  This is where the book went absolutely and completely ridiculous.  It was bad enough before this point but Mary's first sexual experience was laughable.  There were nipple clamps involved.  Then when John entered her, she immediately had an intense orgasm.

One, nipple clamps for the first time?  Uh, ow?

Two, an intense orgasm with the very first thrust when a woman has never had sex before?  Sure, I see that happening.  NOT.

So Mary has her intense and pleasurable first time (with the nipple clamps, don't forget) and she and John go to sleep.  She wakes up in the middle of the night to find Max in the kitchen.  She then allows Max to kiss her and then to finger her until she has an orgasm on the kitchen table.  He goes to unzip his jeans and she pushes him away and couldn't quite grasp why Max called her a tease.  

She ends up having sex with John again and they are awakened to a call saying that Max and a female employee at The Fetish Box have been attacked in the store.  I am assuming that the author was trying to throw in a little drama on top of the ridiculous sex and characters.  I, however, did not see that part as anything other than filler words.  

Mary ends up going back to John's and has anal sex with him.  There was zero prep with the exception of her "juices" and she found it pleasurable and had another intense orgasm then ends up back at her mother's house propositioning Max, who shockingly did not take her up on her offer of sex... this, after calling her a fucking tease when she rebuffed him the other time (after SHE got off, I might add).

There's a little more drama and a lot more sex and innuendo and then the 2nd story literally ended mid-sentence while Mary is in Max's lap kissing him after a break-in at her mother's house that she just barely escaped from.  

This is one of the worst written so-called erotica stories I have ever read.  I have read a lot of erotica and I understand that a lot of it is mostly word porn.  I get that and I know this before I pick up one of the books.  This book goes beyond that.  The wording alone was silly.  Hot swollen petals.  Button of her pleasure. Tight sheath.  It's okay to use slang.  It's erotica, remember?  We expect the words clit or pussy to be used but to throw those in instead?  It read like an old, historical romance novel.  I would love to be able to use exact lines and quotes from these two shorts but (to my dismay) I am unable to do so as the copies I read were unpublished, advance reader copies.  

I think it's safe to say that I will not be wasting my time on story #3 even if #2 literally ended mid-sentence.  

These ebooks were provided by Net Galley and Pocket Star in exchange for a fair and honest review.