Sunday, August 4, 2013

Review- His and Hers and Hers by Nona Raines



His and Hers and Hers
By Nona Raines
Nov 20, 2102
Contemporary/ Erotica/f-f-m/ romance/ménage/polyamore
38K words
Pub: Loose Id

Kyla Denster and Jordan Brougham are passionately in love. Kyla knows she's lucky to have a guy who uses all his tricks to keep her happy in and out of bed. Jordan knows he's lucky to have such a hot, adventurous girlfriend.
But neither of them knows that their best friend, Cassie DeSantis, wants them both. Cassie's painful past has taught her not to wear her heart on her sleeve. She keeps quiet, afraid that revealing her feelings would mean losing the two people she cares for most. Things change one night when an impulsive kiss leads to the three of them spending an incredibly hot night together.

When the couple wants more of Cassie, she leaps at the chance to be with them. But problems arise at her insistence that no one mention the L word and when Jordan and Kyla clash over how to deal with disapproving family. Their triad relationship will only survive if they all stand together to prove that three is the perfect number—when all three are in love.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read an f/f/m romance/erotica. They aren’t that common, although there are lots more than when I first started reading them. So when some twitter friends linked it I thought it would be fun to read it.

Generally, I would say this is a decent read. However, it didn’t really spark anything in me that made it stand out; I’ve read better and worse. The issue for me in this story is what I’d say are poorly written sex scenes and a sense that while the characters get a happy ending, I wasn’t feeling it as deeply as I think I should have for an HEA/HFN.

Actually, if I start breaking it down, there are many things. One is that I felt there was a lot of tell instead of show in what’s going on with both Cassie and Kyla as far as being attracted to women goes. In the beginning, we get glimpses into Cassie noticing things about Kyla from a sexual standpoint, but not from Kyla’s. They have been friends for a long time already and this hasn’t come up before? Kyla seems to be open to the idea of being with Cassie only as an afterthought from her and Jordan talking about some sexual fantasies, not because she already had an inherent sexual attraction to Cassie on her own. Or that wasn’t really expressed. Maybe if there was more about Cassie being attracted to Kyla all that time and vice versa, it would have come off as more believable to me.

Also, even though they’ve been good friends for a long time, Kyla, unlike Jordan, seems so out of touch with who Cassie is, setting her up on a date with a total loser and not even once picking up the signals that Cassie is bored out of her skull with this guy. Whereas Jordan is just jealous and gets right away what a douche that guy is.

Then there was Kyla’s easily getting it on with Cassie as if they were doing that all along, which came across more as “whatever, I’m game” and  not, “I totally want you.” At some point though, it almost seems like she and Cassie become more connected than Kyla is to Jordan due to Jordan being a dick. But at the same time we are constantly reminded of the fact that Jordan is the love of Kyla’s life and she would do nothing to jeopardize her relationship with him. That puts Cassie on the outside because right there in the interim of them coming together, one person is more important if push comes to shove.

I didn’t like Jordan. He’s cowers to his family who get on his case for being the only blue collar, unmarried kid. He doesn’t really stand up for Kyla even though clearly his parents don’t like her and never have. Forget about that he hides their threesome as well. And I felt he was a bit sleazy by the way the sex scenes were written.  

For instance, in some scenes he almost seems to ignore Kyla as he gets it on with Cassie. It felt like Kyla was excluded although not specifically written as such. I didn’t get that she wasn’t bothered on some level. It would be a normal reaction even if she was into the three of them being together.  Here they have a really tight relationship and she agrees to bring Cassie into it but Jordan seems to be more about “oh yeah who wouldn’t want two women” even though the author tries hard to make them all inclusive. I don’t know, he rubbed me the wrong way.

The relationship issues. I would think that a solid couple bringing in third person would create some issues no matter how close they all are. However, the issues these three face are all about Jordan’s family and their influence on him and ultimately Kyla and Cassie as well. Only Cassie has some issues because she is coming into a solid relationship and there is some fear of being a third wheel. Therefore, even though they all end up together, I didn’t feel them to be a gelled unit since there wasn’t much about them together other than having sex and having been friends all along.

The best part of this book was the transient character Walter whom Cassie helps often. I got more of a feel for him than the others and wanted to know where that went. There was also a lot more warmth and emotion injected into those interactions between Cassie and Walter than what I felt for Cassie, Jordan and Kyla’s interactions.

Still though, I would recommend this book only because it is the rare HFN f/f/m ménage and it did have lighter, fun moments to it that kept me reading. And some of the sex, even if kind of funky, was pretty hot.

Heat Level: 4-5- fairly graphically written f/f/m sex scenes.

Grade: It was OK

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