Review - The Lovers by Eden Bradley

This review has some spoilers about the plot so I caution the readers before they continue with this particular review.

Imagine my surprise when I go searching for more books by Eve Berlin and discover that Eden Bradley is a pseudonym of the same author.

*cue angelic music*

This was fantastic.  I went back to the beginning of The Lovers and reread the story through the lense of Pleasure's Edge.  What I found is that beyond the two male characters both having tattoos and the heroines being writers the similarities of the stories diverged there. 

The Lovers introduces us to Bettina, Audrey and Jack.  And with them come instances of bicurious sex (for Bettina), menage a trois, and a relationship between man and woman (Bettina and Jack).  Because of the complexity of the relationships flying fast and furious in this story, at first, I expected more introspection between most of the characters, but as the story is written in first person (a marked difference between this and the Eve Berlin title), I knew that wouldn't be the case.  Eden Bradley made this very much a story for Bettina and how she learned to cope and deal with her issues. 

For such a short tale (only 250 pages in ebook), we see growth of the heroine over time that includes bouts of hot sex.  I loved seeing this in the story.  For me its verification that the heat of the moment doesn't fizzle out as Bettina begins to pick apart both herself and the relationships she is in.   Also, it allows the growth of the character to seem more realistic.  As a borderline agoraphobic it would be quite unbelievable to have the heroine suddenly be cured of all her ails because of freely given pussy and cock.  Instead Bettina comes to the conclusions about who she is and what she wants as her relationship with Jack and Audrey progresses.

To sum it up, The Lovers is an erotically rich novel that has well developed characters, a believable storyline, and sex so hot you'll scorch your fingers on the pages. 

Review - Pleasure's Edge by Eve Berlin

I'm not exactly between books, but when I read the back cover for Eve Berlin's Pleasure's Edge, I paid for it in record time.

That was Wednesday and I closed the book 20 minutes ago.

What I assumed would be an slightly different take on the author researching for the next book scenario veered off around the time the characters met. This was not going to be some story of the heroine discovering herself while her Dom guided her through being a “good subbie.”

Thank god for that.

Instead it was a heroine of such control freak proportions that I at once felt a kinship with her. Add to that, the Dom himself, was a fully developed and moved from working on his own writing to whipping it out to masturbate to the images of said heroine.

The chemistry on the pages was palpable. The introspection shown for Dylan (the heroine) and Alec (the hero) puts a new spin on the subject matter altogether. Instead of the focus remaining mostly on Dylan we get equal time with Alec as well. Both characters, are confused by their feelings for one another and we get to watch between bouts of hot sex, hotter dungeon scenes and what has to be my new favorite wall!sex scene while they figure it out.

There aren't many BDSM stories that can dance that delicate balance between romantic feeling and the mind fuck that is the scene. Kudos to Eve Berlin for doing it well enough that I'm going to hunt down the rest of her books and I suggest you do too...right after you read this one.