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This was my first foray into the Blue Moon series (being a diehard Black Lace and Xlibris reader myself) and was pleasantly surprised. These books are good – a decent competition for Black Lace on my bookshelf.
In Naked Lies, the main character, Jane, is a housewife. And this, really, is its main failing. Most erotica these days features career-oriented women, or at the very least rich women who have no need to work. But Jane and her husband are not rich, they have no children…. she’s frankly at home because it’s the only way this story would have worked so well. I’m sure there’s still a small demographic who can relate to this type of home arrangement, but it was (for me at least) a hurdle to cross before I could really get into the story.
Jane’s neighbour, Den, stops by the house in the first chapter, to show her pictures from a porno magazine; the woman in the pictures looks very much like Jane. Allow him to see her naked, he orders, or he will run to Jane’s husband Matt with the photos. She complies, terrified that of her overly jealous husband’s reaction. Again, this would work better if the pictures actually were of Jane (they aren’t), remnants of naughty college days or something along those lines. But once she’s complied the first time, NOW Den truly does have something on her… and the blackmail continues and escalates.
Jane’s been a good vanilla girl and a good vanilla wife her entire life. This, at least, is something many women will be able to relate to. Den leads her deeper and deeper through a maze of sexuality – anal sex, bondage, some pain, lesbian sex. Before she knows it, she’s a seething mass of sexuality. Thinks about sex all the time. Masturbates regularly. And feels freer than she ever has before in her small, vanilla life. Being ordered to do these things – thereby stripping her of her free will and allowing her to revel in the naughty pleasures that these acts can bring – is a pretty standard female fantasy. And it works well enough here.
The book’s saving grace, though, is the quality of the writing in the sex scenes. Mr. Gordon isn’t going to get any great marks for characterization or believable plot lines, but he does have a compelling way of walking you through a sex scene. The lesbian scenes in particular are excellent. Often in erotica books the requisite lesbian scene is casual. Even though most often the heroine has never had sex with another woman, she throws herself into same-sex loving without a qualm. But in Naked Lies, Jane fights it. Questions her responses. Worries that it means she’s a lesbian. And yet gives herself over to the pleasure anyway. To me, this seems a great deal more realistic.
There’s some good naughty writing here, and enough quality, nasty sex to make for an enjoyable afternoon of reading.
