Review: Forbidden Fruit by Eden Bradley

Publisher - Black Lace
Publication Date - 6th December 2012
Paperback - 320 pages
Genre - Erotic Romance

Source - Received from publisher for review

Rating - 2 out of 5: It was ok

Reviewed by - Chrissie

Book Info - While Mia Curry's university students cram into her class on sexuality, Mia has always kept her own private fantasies carefully under wraps - until now...

Jagger James is everything Mia wants and everything that is taboo: he's young, gorgeous - and a student.

But how can Mia resist?

My thoughts - I recently read another book by this author writing under a different name (Pleasure's Edge by Eve Berlin) which I loved, so I was very excited to be starting this book. But unfortunately, I just didn't enjoy this book as much.

I love this author's style of writing. It's clear and easy to read and it's easy to get swept up in her words. In particular, the sexy times in this book are very very hot. If there is one thing this author knows how to do it's write a sex scene that will leave the reader feeling hot under the collar.

However, my main problem with this book was the ratio of sex to storyline... it was weighted far too heavily on the side of sex, leaving me with a feeling that the little plot that was there was rushed and used only to lead onto the naughty bits. I know that this is an erotic romance and that there will be a lot of sex in it... that's fine by me. But I still want to feel as though I know the characters. I want to feel as though I've connected with the them and that I actually care about what happens to them. But in Forbidden Fruit, that just wasn't the case. As far as I could see, there was a small amount of introductory story, lots of sex and then a very rushed and convenient feeling happy ever after, which I didn't really find all that satisfying.

The story goes backwards and forwards between two couples - Mia Rose and Jagger (teacher and student) and Karalee and Gideon (two other teachers at the same school) and although there is some background given for the main couple, very little is learnt about Karalee and Gideon. In fact I struggled to see why their story was included... other than to allow the author the opportunity to write about more sexy times. Now this is purely a personal gripe, but in Forbidden Fruit, one person in each of the couples has had a partner pass away which isn't a plotline that I particularly enjoy. Having been through that kind of experience myself I just feel that it is difficult for an author to handle that kind of grief effectively and realistically. And in this book, especially in the case of Gideon, it felt as though it was just mentioned in passing as an excuse for fearing commitment rather than actually being used for any real kind of character development.

Summary - Despite the author's writing style and the hot and steamy sexy times in this book, I will admit to having struggled to finish this one. I just didn't connect with the characters and I found it to be pretty unsatisfying overall.