Fiona Gillespie moved to London shortly after graduating to take advantage of the opportunities the capital could offer. However, months later, she’s still living in a horrid flat and working in a grimy East End pub. The problem is, she doesn’t really know what she wants to do, career-wise. So when she happens upon an advertisement for a job at a plush Mayfair hotel, she jumps at the chance. A great deal of determination and a spot of luck land Fiona her dream role.
But working at the Totally Five Star London is just the beginning. She adores the role and flourishes, impressing her bosses and making her increasingly determined to climb the career ladder.
While her career is flying, though, her love life is non-existent. She hasn’t even thought about men, never mind met or dated one for months, so when she bumps into two gorgeous businessmen in the hotel, she’s surprised to find her head has been well and truly turned. Even more surprisingly, they flirt with her—both of them! She’s drawn to James and Logan, despite feeling that they’re way out of her league.
When a misunderstanding leads Fiona to James and Logan’s sumptuous top-floor suite, she has no idea what she’s about to uncover. Scenes of people-trafficking, drug-pushing and wild sex parties all appear in her active imagination. Yet what she actually sees is something she’d never even considered before, something that piques her interest.
After discovering their sexy secret, what will she do with this new-found knowledge?
Reader Advisory: This book contains elements of BDSM, anal sex and double penetration.
Duped Again!
I believe this is a case of it's me, not you. This is not a novice author and her ratings are high, so I thought I'd give her another go. But, I believe it's time for us to part ways. Her writing style and my reading preference have a slight... difference of opinion.
There is simply far too much focus on mundane details for me. There is interior decorating and then there's hoarding. The vast majority of Eyes Wide Open reads like a travel brochure extolling the grandeur of the Totally Five Star hotel and/or a love letter to London. Were I contemplating my next vacation destination I'd be compelled to consider adding London. Unfortunately, vacationing was the furthest thing from my mind when I chose Eyes Wide Open.
The entire story is told from the perspective of a vapid and insipid protagonist that I believe could do with a mood stabilizer. The first 20% was spent with her angsting over possibly not getting an entry level PR job at the hotel rather than character building. I wondered if there were a specified word count because a great deal of it was spent informing me of inane "facts" like water preventing dehydration and the importance of eating prior to drinking a bottle of champagne unless your objective is to get ugly drunk, all of which had the effect of making this 182 pg book feel like a 791 pg book.
However, all of this pales in comparison to the fade to black m/m sex scene. See that singular there. Not plural, you'll notice. One scene! And after the two studs took care of her and were about to get the party started the damn lights got turned off!
I'm not sure how a book containing an established couple in Logan and James could contain no MANLOVE, and by MANLOVE, I mean butt sex. But somehow there was only one nap worthy blow job. Actually, the sex as a whole was uninspired and predominantly filled with the insipid one's leaking lady garden when what I was looking for was Pound Town with a side of lady garden.
The kink is humdrum as well. Logan's the dom, James his submissive and Fiona, a novice, is learning that she's a switch. Sort of. If you like BDSM 101 or very little kink in your kink then you will enjoy this book. There is a bit of flogging and spanking and a PVC school girl outfit that gets some mileage.
I know nothing of these characters or what makes them tick nor do I understand what they see in Mary Sue, I mean Fiona. There's little to no chemistry between them and more telling than showing. Fiona is adored by everyone so much so that she has a coughing fit in a restaurant that almost garners the local news being called. Naturally, she's all, "shucks, fellas. You can't be interested in plain, lil ole me!" despite all evidence to the contrary. Logan and James are in some sort of business together that is lucrative since they can stay at the best most fabulous hotel OF ALL TIME a.k.a. Totally Five Star. They have sex a few times and then suddenly they're in love and want to be an established triad? My suspend disbelief only stretches so far and it did not include stretching to an HEA.
It's cute enough and there's clearly an audience for sugarkink fluff as the ratings attest. I'll likely not be subjecting this author to anymore of my lackluster reviews since I'm not part of that target audience.
A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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