Review- Meghan's Playhouse Book 1: Seducing Cat by Adriana Kraft

Meghan’s Playhouse Book 1: Seducing Cat
by Adriana Kraft
2009
Contemporary/ erotica/ f/f-bisexual/ f/f/m-menage
28K+ $5.49
Ebook

Buy it Whiskey Creek Press, Omni Lit, Fictionwise

Level headed English Professor Caitlin Shanahan has finally earned tenure and purchased the century-old house of her dreams—at thirty-four, she'd better face facts: her future is teaching college and writing plays, not falling in love. So why is she so drawn to foxy little hometown actress Meghan Keenan, who's rented her upstairs apartment, or worse, to the girl's gorgeous hunk of a lover Kurt Davis, a brash carpenter who's never even been to college?

Twenty year old Meg has a plan. First she'll seduce the reluctant professor; then she'll share her sexual delights with both Cat and her brawny carpenter, and when she's successfully brought them together, she can make her escape and explore what's beyond the only town she's ever lived in.

Kurt can't stand the up-tight professor who's hired him to build a gazebo and refurbish her old house—the house he wanted for himself. Even if Meg succeeds, he knows Caitlin would never look at him twice. No need to go there in his fantasies…

This is the second book of Adriana Kraft’s that I’ve read and to be honest, since the first book left me a bit cold, I was a bit leery of reading another. Adriana Kraft, a husband and wife team of writers, like to specifically write bisexual female characters, which anyone who reads this blog will know puts Kirsten and I in seventh heaven. So I really wanted to try another hoping it’d be good. That said, this story was so different in its feel and style than Writing Skin was and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Meghan is a young 20 year old who’s very comfortable in her own skin and sexually open. She’s been friends with 24 year old Kurt since they were children and have a nice, easy going, commitment free friends with benefits type of relationship in which there are no expectations of it going any deeper or becoming something permanent.

As the blurb says, Caitlin is an older, up-tight, spinsterish professor who runs a local playhouse and is restoring an old house she bought. Caitlin feels that she’s over the hill at 34 and has basically given up on sex and love thinking no one would find her desirable.

Kurt, a local carpenter, was hired by Caitlin to restore her house. They have an uneasy, antagonistic relationship in which they put up with each other because Kurt is the best at what he does, and Caitlin has the money to keep him working for a long time. They seem to barely tolerate each other until Meg decides to play cupid and get them together. But first she must seduce the cool and distant Caitlin.

First I’ll talk about what bugged me in this book, although it wasn’t anything that had an impact on my opinion. Is 34 really that old? The way this is written, Caitlin sounds like a 40+ year old woman. Since when is 34 over the hill and too old to give up on having a sexual/love relationship? I kept thinking she must be 40+ to be feeling like she did or worrying that she’s not appealing anymore.

Second, why Meghan wants to get Caitlin with Kurt is a huge mystery that was never really explained. I mean she just decides to get them together? Kind of odd. She knows that Kurt and Caitlin dislike each other, so why it would occur to Meghan to shove them together was a point missing for me. But, you know, the story itself and how it was written kept me from thinking about that too much.

What I loved about this story was that in the end, the authors made me believe that Caitlin and Kurt will have a good go at it.

It starts out with Meghan seducing Caitlin who’s never been with a woman before. I really enjoyed that part as Meg is very open and it’s like Cat is discovering sex for the first time. Cat’s kind of shy and hesitant along with being uptight, so it was sweet. Once Cat and Meg are fully into a sexual relationship, Meghan then follows through on her original plan to bring in Kurt for a threesome. Kurt, however, has warned Cat that this might come up and both insist to each other that they would do that over each other’s dead bodies.

I though it very believable that both Kurt and Cat would be at odds, but then come around after a while. Their differences are quite real, even if a bit contrived for a good story. He’s the hunky, uneducated wrong side of the tracks dude with the intellectual, right side of the tracks older woman. Both find though that those issues are minor to the actual attraction that they find they have for each other.

My issue with Writing Skin that the characters and sex came across as too calculated and clinical, was not present in this book at all. All the characters are very warm and real and the sex in this book was very hot. More so because they feel something for each other.

For those who want to know, this is strictly an f/f of a bisexual nature. It’s classified as lesbian on several sites, but Meg is, has always been, bi. And Caitlin was never with a woman before, so the feel of this is very much bi. I’d say this is more a m/f relationship story with some f/f bi and ménage in it.

I definitely recommend this book for those who like a bi slant to f/f relationships and who like characters to feel something with each other outside the sex. It’s a very satisfying story all around and I’m looking forward to reading the next few books in the Meghan’s Playhouse series.

Sex rating: Orgasmic- f/f, f/f/m, lots of minor anal play, vibrator use, and some voyeurism. Mostly it’s vanilla sex though.

Grade: B+