WINTER

A young ballerina realizes she won’t make it professionally and, as she’s finding a new purpose, meets a mesmerizing artist with whom she embarks on a journey of passionate self-discovery.

After French ballet student Giselle loses her boyfriend and her place at her London ballet school, she returns to Paris aimless, takes a job at a flower shop, then becomes a model for an up-and-coming artist. William is sensual in ways Giselle has never experienced before, and the two quickly become lovers, sharing an explosive attraction and a surprising emotional connection. As the relationship intensifies, they share their deepest secrets and most intimate fantasies. William is connected to a mysterious network of sex clubs and decadent events that intrigue Giselle, and, encouraged by her lover, she delves into this shadowy world with him. In most ways, Giselle and William are perfectly matched and deeply connected, but when a long-standing tension causes an argument, a careless accident leads to tragic consequences, and Giselle’s guilt sends her down another career track and into the sheltering employment of the enigmatic company William was tied to. Moving across the globe, Giselle settles into a satisfying professional life but an empty emotional existence and, after many years, decides to revisit her past, with surprising results. Jackson tells a vaguely interesting story that is at times sensual, at times sexually explicit, and at times compelling. But most of the time, it kind of meanders, with some lovely language, some good writing, and some beguiling elements but mostly a disengaged, disjointed narrative style that keeps us one more step removed from a story that already lacks structure and tension and wanders in too many directions without much discernible purpose.

There’s much better erotic romance out there.