Sex Lessons 2
Wild I called my first roundup "sex teacher" when "sex lessons" was right there...
Read the first roundup of this trope here. What more is there to say? In each of these books, at some point or another, our characters engage in an arrangement where the more sexually experienced person guides the less experienced one through a series of sensual lessons, but, like, platonically. No real feelings here, folks! Nope!
Blame It On The Duke by Lenora Bell. After reading this book, I almost did a mad dads curation, with all the books having the trend where the hero’s father went “mad” (nondenominational diagnosis of course) and therefore he will never procreate or marry of his own volition for fear of spreading the madness. Heroes thinking they’re ticking time bombs are… not something I thought I’d read more of one of. But then I decided I wanted to talk about this book earlier than it would take to find more mad dad books, so HERE WE ARE.
Nicolas, Lord Hatherly, is the son of a mad dad who doesn’t want to pass it on to the next generation. However, he gets “won” in a card game between his mad dad and a merchant with delusions of grandeur and is honor-bound to marry said merchant’s daughter, Alice. Alice is unhappy with this arrangement as well, considering she’s spent multiple seasons actively trying to repel suitors until she’s on the shelf and allowed to travel and live her own life without requiring a man.
Nicolas ultimately proposes a solution to both their issues with marriage- what if they just… got married, but it was a fakeout. They live together for a full summer, with Alice getting all the tutoring in the sensual arts she’s secretly been curious about since reading the Kama Sutra, both of them pretending to give it the old college try for their dads and for society, and then Nicholas funding Alice’s travels around the world, far away from him. Now neither will be pressured to marry or have kids because uh oh, they’re already married and they mutually refuse!
Of course, it’s not that simple. And Nicolas has a house of eccentrics that proves perhaps more interesting than traveling abroad for Alice, and a full-throated future with Alice might be worth the risk Nicolas has spent his life avoiding.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Red Hot Rebel by Olivia Hayle. Love a hero making terrible, out loud comments about the love of his life when they first meet. Make that man CRAWL before the book ends!!!
Rhys is a broody photographer with daddy issues, Ivy is a sunshiney model with sexual hangups. After a disastrous meeting at a Hamptons party where he’s a guest and she’s, essentially, furniture, they end up paired on a round-the-world marketing trip for a hotel chain where she models and he takes her photos and they definitely don’t fall in love. Because they can’t! For reasons!
Contemporary virgin heroines can be tricky, I’ve found, but I think Olivia Hayle does a great job with Ivy because of course a girl who’s been modeling for years would have anxieties about being seen as a fantasy object and eventually that pressure feels like way too much and if you hadn’t already had experience, now your first time is built up in a particularly fraught way!
This book is a little plot light, but it’s got travel, sex lessons, a great dynamic between the love interests, and was an enjoyable adventure to follow them on. Really, the dynamic and the spice are what gave this book such a high rating for me, and it’s definitely my favorite of the Brothers of Paradise series.
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon. We’ve got a switcheroo of expectations here, friends! This was a BRAVE set up for a contemporary romance, and Rachel Lynn Solomon might be the only author I truly trust to pull it off so delightfully and competently.
The set up: celebrity memoir ghostwriter Chandler is having a rough night, because an influencer’s book she wrote is having its premiere signing, and the influencer who she wrote it for doesn’t even recognise her when she attends, excited by their “shared” success. Then she meets a hot stranger at the bookstore bar, and they have a one night stand… that’s terrible. And RLS doesn’t flinch (though I sure did) in giving us the details of this handsome hunk’s sexual failures. He’s bad at dirty talk, she doesn’t climax, there’s at least one injury, and Chandler, naturally, sneaks out when he falls asleep without leaving her number.
You might see where this is going: her agent gets her a new gig with some kinda washed up actor looking for a comeback and therefore exploring using a memoir to launch him into the next phase of his career. And this actor, who essentially starred in a fictional version of Teen Wolf and will be spending the next few months jumping between comic cons while he works on this book with his new ghostwriter, is THE TERRIBLE LAY! His name is Finn, and he’s adorable, and also a little annoyed she left without saying anything, at which point Chandler really has no recourse but to admit how truly bad the sex was.
Then, Finn does what makes this book ultimately work- he calls all his exes and they confirm he was shit in the sack (hilarious), and instead of getting defensive or mad, he begs Chandler, who he thinks is so cool and hot, to tutor him. The reversal of sex teacher expectations, the hyper organized way Chandler lays out (eyyy) their curriculum, the forced proximity of traveling together, the complications of fame, the complications of Chandler’s own ambition wanting to write as HERSELF for once… chef’s kiss. This book is surprising, it’s tender, it’s hilarious, and it’s a phenomenal new take on some classic tropes.
Rating: 4.25/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books with problematic heroes who, either due to their behavior IN book or in a previous book in the series, require major redemption before earning their happy ending.
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!