Twice to the Stars by Alexis Reed
Publisher: Ellora’s Cave
Genre: Sci-Fi, menage, futuristic, erotic
Length: Short Novel, 135 pages
Summary:
As the only woman on board the pioneer-class galactic vessel The Adamant, Chief Engineer Samantha Hartland knows better than to let any man into her bed—or her heart. Unfortunately, she doesn’t want just any. One. Man. Blake and Kane Damsen, identical twins and fellow officers, haunt her most vivid erotic dreams. Together.
Blake and Kane have kept their passion for the green-eyed mistress of engineering a secret for two years. Barely. But when one of the crew members reveals he’s willing to kill to get Samantha’s attention, she turns to the twins for help. She gets a lot more than that in the bargain.
Pomme’s Review:
So, Manchester United has just suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Barcelona and their players are surely feeling as frustrated as I am, trying to review Twice to the Stars in a fitting manner.
I have to start by saying i really really really wanted to like this book. Everything in the summary pushes my kink buttons: strong woman in a position of power, check! Not one but two hot men, check! Twins, check!
Told in a third person limited point of view cycling between Samantha and both Blake and Kane, Twice to the Stars starts off very solid. Ms. Reed‘s prose is engaging and she sets the scene quickly but without information dumping, which I very much appreciated. Samantha comes across as both fragile and strong in the beginning scene, which is a nice dichotomy. I enjoyed her thoughts about Blake and Kane, because she isn’t ashamed of wanting them but knows she must keep herself in check. She isn’t tortured by her desires and doesn’t feel guilty for them, making her a really strong character. Blake and Kane, on the other hand, were a bit interchangeable throughout: while their want for Samantha comes across as very strong, I didn’t think they were too different from one another, which made them slightly weaker characters.
The plot, for me, is where Twice the Stars hit a snag: I was ready and eager for the premise set up in the summary to be developed, but instead it was just expounded upon in the first twenty pages, and by page twenty-six, the characters were getting it on. Now, I definitely don’t mind sex (on the contrary!) but I felt a bit cheated, since the whole premise was about how the three characters would make it work. It was just too easy, and there weren’t any real hurdles to Blake, Kane and Samantha being together. They were all ready for it by page two, and it was as if I had arrived after all the good stuff (feelings developing, desires being awakened, etc.) had already happened. Ms. Reed tried to insert some angst but it felt a little contrived, because the characters seemed to have already weighed the odds and decided on the outcome. This made everyone in the book fall flat, which is a shame.
The stalker story line was a little bit predictable, and it felt as if there wasn’t really a point to it: it doesn’t really come across as the trigger to the relationship, more that its events coincided with a good time for Blake and Kane’s feelings to make themselves known to Samantha. I also don’t really know what I was expecting, with Blake and Kane: they share Samantha but they don’t really interact with each other when they’re in bed, which I found a little disconcerting.
Now, I’ve complained about the sex. But, to be fair, it is really good sex: well-written, engaging, and ultimately very hot. For smut, Ms. Reed gets full points!
The layout itself is pleasing to the eye, and there were no typos that I could find.
In summary, this is definitely the read for you if you want well-written and satisfying sex of the twin variety, but I would definitely have liked Twice to the Stars to be longer, with more emphasis on how the characters actually get to the satisfying sex.
Rated 3 Ravens by Pomme!
