Review – Enchanted Again by Nancy Madore (1/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Erotica
Size: 336 pages
Publisher: Spice
Release Date: October 21, 2008
ISBN: 978-0373605217
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Swapped on Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 1/5 stars
I was on a quest to get a couple of erotica books a few years ago. This was one of the ones I picked up that looked interesting. Unfortunately, this was pretty much an awful book. I was expecting a series of erotic stories based on fairy tales, this was really not that at all.
Each story starts with a nursery rhyme and that is supposedly what the story is based off of (which is a bit…uh…weird). There is absolutely no element of fantasy in these stories (there is a bit of magical realism in one of them I guess). These are supposed to be “erotic bedtime stories for women” but in the majority of the stories the women in them are abused, subjecated, and manipulated by the men in them.
The characters are deceitful and manipulative; which makes them hard to engage with or care about. I do understand this is supposed to be erotica which is maybe less about emotion than a romance, but it still helps to have characters that are engaging and interesting.
However, given the above I at least expect the sex scenes throughout to actually be good…which they really weren’t. Basically the majority of sex scenes consisted of the man going down on the woman and then having vigorous sex with her, rinse and repeat for scene after scene. Soooo boring. Even the description of the scenes is a bit awkward at times and could have flowed much better and been written with much more engaging descriptions.
The first story of the book did have some interesting and creative sex scenes, although they were also very violent, disturbing, and demeaning to the woman in them.
My favorite story of the book was one called Hot Cross Buns, which did a really nice job of showing a functional and loving submissive/dominant relationship between a man and a woman. This was hands down the best story of the bunch (although again, why did the woman have to be the submissive one?).
I don’t read a ton of of erotica, maybe a book or two a year. So I am definitely not all that knowledgeable about it…however this was just a poorly written book in a number of ways.
Overall this was just a bad book plain and simple. Most of the stories in this book just left me feeling mildly disgusted; both with the writing quality and the content. I did read Taboo by Jess Michaels last year and enjoyed that book, so I would recommend that book over this one if you are looking for an engaging erotica.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge