Secret Weapon by Opal Carew
September 13, 2011
Erotic Romance
Trade Paperback
St. Martin’s Griffin
Reviewed by Helyce
Sloan Granger has had feelings for Janine Reid for a long time. He’s never acted upon these feelings out of respect for his best friend Ben, Janine’s brother. So he settles for friendship with Janine. When Ben is shot and killed in the line of duty, Janine seeks comfort from Sloan and he finds himself thrown into the role of protector and brother in Ben’s absence. He’s takes this role seriously, but soon Janine begins to feel too confined and while she cares for Sloan, she can’t handle his over protective nature. So she moves from Los Angeles to Kenora, Maine.
Janine, too, has had feelings for Sloan, but she’s never pursued him because she knows him well enough to know that he won’t be able to accept her lifestyle. She knows that Sloan is a one woman man. Janine might be one woman, but one man is just not enough for her. She has a thing for men in uniform, specifically policemen. She likes sex with play acting, bondage; basically she’s up for anything. Settled and happy in Kenora, she’s been seeing Derek for a while. Derek is a cop and he is well aware of Janine’s rather kinky side-but it works for him and he’s eager to please her.
Unbeknownst to Janine, Sloan is now a cop himself and he’s moved to Kenora with the hope of rekindling his relationship with Janine. He hasn’t contacted Janine yet to let her know he’s in town. One day after work, Derek starts telling him about his girlfriend who is “a little on the wild side”. Derek informs Sloan that she has a fantasy about sex with a stranger and Derek wants to know if Sloan is interested in playing the ‘stranger’. Sloan is completely shocked when Derek pulls out his wallet to show Sloan a photo of his girlfriend. It’s none other than Janine herself. Sloan is speechless, but he doesn’t let on that he recognizes Janine. He’s confused and quite surprised at what Janine is into. He agrees to play the part of the stranger and plans are made for that weekend. Unfortunately, when he arrives at Derek’s and sees Janine, standing there, blindfolded, he can’t go through with the ruse and he comes clean, letting her know that it’s him.
After getting over the initial shock of seeing Sloan again, Janine makes it clear that she is not about to change her lifestyle. It’s one of the main reasons she moved from L.A. and Sloan in the first place. Sloan is sure that if he’s able to spend some time with Janine he can convince her to be his one and only. He sets out to prove to Janine that he’s okay with her choices and that he just wants to be with her. Even if it means he has to accept that she can never be with just one man.
What follows is a lot of sex. Then there is more sex. And just in case that wasn’t enough for you, don’t worry, because there is more sex to come. There is m/f sex and m/f/m sex and just in case you’re curious there is even m/m/m/m/f sex. Go ahead, try and picture that! Kidding, they don’t all do her at the same time, but they are all present! Through it all, not a condom in sight-but go figure, they did remember the lube.
Once Sloan decides that the way to Janine’s heart is by actively participating in her fantasies that becomes the focus in this book. Derek and Sloan continue to set up scenarios for play acting, bringing in two additional men to the mix, Jonas and Liam. Through it all, Sloan is convinced that he can change Janine, but he is deluded. Janine knows that Sloan is in love with her and she admits to having feelings for him as well-but she has no intention of changing for him. If he wants to be a part of her life, he must accept her for who she is, kinks and all.
I’m a fan of erotica and honestly, I understand that an erotic novel is going to be loaded with sex, but can we get a story in there somewhere? I felt no connection to Sloan or Janine and quite frankly, I thought Sloan should have dumped her ass and moved on to find someone who could love just him. The few intimate moments that were shared with just the two of them didn’t convince me that they had any kind of connection to each other either. I didn’t like Janine. I’m all for girl power and women being strong individuals and taking what they want, but she came off as extremely selfish and unfeeling to me and I couldn’t get past that. I had at one point considered DNFing this book. I kept thinking there’s got to be more to this! And there was, just a little bit and it was the character of Liam-a secondary character whose main role was his part in the ménage scenes. But we get to see what is going on in his head. I began to look forward to him showing up and he’s what got me through to the end of this book. I was disappointed in the ending. I found it to be unrealistic in the grand scheme of things. This book was just not for me.
Rating: D – but only because of Liam.
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Oh! when you said picture the m/m/m/m/f sex scene the image that came to mind was something similar to that Human Centipede movie (if you don’t know what I mean by that don’t even google it! Believe me, you don’t want to know).
I think this review is very appropriate to yesterday’s discussion about the fade to black sex scenes and the overuse of sex scenes just for the sake of it without any plot development whatsoever.
But I’m curious about the bareback multiple partners sex, what if she gets pregnant? It’s like a Jerry Springer show waiting to happen.
Hi Brie-the main difference between yesterday’s discussion and this book is that Secret Weapon IS an erotic romance novel. I expect there to be explicit sex and an abundance of it in an erotic novel. I would also expect there to possibly be multiple partners and on occasion some kink. But I also need a story and something that connects me to the characters. The author writes her sex scenes very well, but there were many instances that I found unrealistic. I recognize that there is a certain amount of fantasy involved in erotica. I’m no prude, but I need a small dose of reality with my erotica. :)
PS: I missed your last comment. I was quite bothered by the lack of condoms-not from the pregnancy aspect because clearly she could have been on the pill,but from the point that it’s not like they provided each other with a recent blood test. I wasn’t thinking orgy, I was thinking STD-fest.
Hmm…yeah. This is not for me. And Brie is right – this is a good example of TOO much sex and not enough (any?) plot. I personally don’t like books like this.
Me too. The things I didn’tlike overwhelmed me and once they started running through my head, it was hard to let it go.
You can have great erotic romance with tons of sex and still have a great plot and sex scenes that actually move the story forward. Look at Megan Hart’s books, those are dirty (in a good way) and full of sex, but boy do they have complex plots!
In the end it’s just a matter of taste right? I also agree with you about the STD-fest, you can be as kinky as you want, but there’s no need to be careless.
Brie, I’m a huge fan of Megan Hart and I completely agree-now if she would only write Jack’s book I would feel complete!