Stand-Alone Sunday Review: Wicked Games by Kelly Lawrence



Here at Once Upon a Series, as the blog name would imply, we love a good series of books. But occasionally we come across a stand-alone novel that has caught our attention and up until now they haven't had a home here. So, we came up with Stand-Alone Sunday... a semi-regular feature here at Once Upon a Series to give a home to all those lonely stand-alone's that we review.

Publisher - Black Lace
Publication Date - 4th July 2013
Hardback - 256 pages
Genre - Erotic Memoir

Source - Received from publisher for review

Rating - 2 out of 5: It was okay

Reviewed by - Chrissie

Book Info - 'Looking back, I think I knew I was in trouble the first time I met him. The road he took me down was at once both more liberating than I could have dreamed of, and yet more intense than I could cope with. If the path of love doesn't always run smooth ... then how much more crooked it becomes when mixed with raw desire.'

This is no novel, but the memoir of an intense, exciting and at times unsettling relationship. Alex, for all his charms, is no billionaire playboy, and Kelly is no blushing virgin; rather your typical, overworked teacher who has no time for games, certainly not the wicked games he leads her into. Games that she ends up craving like a drug.

My Thoughts - I was very excited when I received this book for review. I've read quite a lot of Fifty Shades type books and, as this is a memoir, it promised to give the true story behind all the fiction. This caught my attention and I was very intrigued. But, for me, this book wasn't as enjoyable as i'd hoped it would be.

My main problem with the book was the lack of communication between the two main characters, Kelly and Alex. In and of itself I suppose it's a relatively minor gripe to have about a book. But this lack of proper communication was an issue over and over again, and caused so many unnecessary conflicts for the couple that I found myself getting so frustrated I had to put the book down to calm down. I mean, communication is vital in any relationship, but I'd imagine that in a D/s relationship, especially one where one of the people is a complete beginner to the lifestyle, then that ability to communicate goes beyond vital.

Alex and Kelly are actually likeable enough people for the most part, and are both good people, which actually made their one downfall even more frustrating for me. But in a way, that is what kept me turning the pages of Wicked Games. I had to keep reading to find out if these two people that I had grown to like would be able to overcome the obstacles to make things work.

What I did like about this book was that there was a good balance between the sexual elements and the storyline. In quite a lot of the erotic romance books I've read recently, the storyline has been substituted with sex and call me old-fashioned but I quite like a bit of storyline in the books I read. Yes, there is sex in Wicked Games, and those parts are well-written and enjoyable to read, but they didn't overshadow the story.

Summary - A book that held a lot of promise to be very good, and that was good in some ways. But it was just let down by the frustration I felt a lot of the time while reading it.