Menage, by Emma Holly

I loved the one Black Lace book I've read by Emma Holly, the wonderful Cooking Up a Storm, and from the excerpt I read of it, Menage looked to be just as good.

When two handsome grad students move into Kate Winthrop's Philadelphia townhouse, the once-burned divorcee thrills to having two young admirers, at least until the evening she finds them in bed with each other! Sensitive Joe is mortified. Badboy Sean challenges her to join in. Aroused by their show, she accepts. The adventure that ensues is more intense than any of them expected, and more fun. But can three lovers live happily ever after . . . together?

It was even better, excellent enough for an A-.

It worked for me on every level. It had complex characters and a believable (if untraditional) love story.

The love scenes (and yes, eventually, they all are love scenes), were incredible. Erotica is fundamentally designed to arouse, and I did find it very, very erotic, but what was most amazing was how Holly used them to show us who Kate, Joe and Sean were and how the relationship between them evolved and grew. Even the elements that left me cold, like certain domination scenes, were excellent at showing us more about our protagonists.

As I said, this is a very untraditional love story, and to enjoy it as such, I had to be able to accept that their HEA might not be one that would even be a HEA for me personally, but I thought it did work very well for them.