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ROXANNE

WHO LED HER LOVERS TO THE GATES OF PARADISE AND HER PEOPLE TO THE SUNNY UPLANDS

An afternoon’s delight for devotees of the kinky, but others might hope for more to wrap their minds around.

This erotic novel traces a woman’s ascendancy to the leadership of a Balkan country, a feat accomplished and accompanied by frequent sexual escapades.

First-time author Stewart relates the lubricious, sometimes scatological tale of Roxanne, a woman whose father, the deposed king of an Eastern European country, has ended up in England after her mother died in unspecified “upheavals” in their former homeland. Undeterred, Roxanne makes her way back as an adult, gradually gaining power, often by getting it on with various men and women in and out of her office. “I’ve done a lot of strategic fucking to get here,” she says, though it’s not all work and no play; she clearly enjoys sex. As she notes after knocking off the president, who dies of a heart attack in bed with her, “Fucking presidents to death must agree with me.” Highlighted by nonstop sex, her subsequent tenure in the executive suite makes Bill Clinton look like a prude. The author gives graphic, blow-by-blow descriptions that border on the clinical of encounters between men and women, women and women, and wilder X-rated happenings. Indeed, though a novel, this book could serve as a useful primer for budding cunnilinguists and as an addendum to the Kama Sutra. Unfortunately, without much interest beyond the bedroom, the plot is too thin to hold the novel together. Though Stewart occasionally tries to sandwich some political philosophy in between the sex sessions, the thoughts on monarchy and democracy are far from profound and are sometimes incomprehensible. Usually competent, the writing stumbles at times, as when a character is “as proud as punch” to have brought a lover to orgasm. For the most part, characters display few attributes besides lascivious ones, so they tend to come off more as mechanical meat puppets than flesh-and-blood humans. Eventually, after so much sex, the novel’s strong suit—its frank approach to and presentation of sex—turns into a weakness: Reading sex scene after sex scene becomes too routine to draw much excitement.

An afternoon’s delight for devotees of the kinky, but others might hope for more to wrap their minds around.

Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2012

ISBN: 978-1477223284

Page Count: 148

Publisher: AuthorHouseUK

Review Posted Online: March 18, 2014

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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