Bound with Love by Megan Mulry

3 STARS

Regency Reimagined - Book 2

I received a copy of Bound with Love as part of the Riptide Advance Read program.

If only I was able to suspend belief enough to accept that everyone in this book is involved or wants to be involved in some kind of queer or menage relationship I think I would enjoy it much more. Because the book is well written, much in the style I've come to associate with Regency romances and many of the characters are interesting. It's just that with all the non-mainstream romances going on, it seems as if the author is trying to stuff as many characters with different queernesses into her story as possible. This would work for me in a science fiction or fantasy setting, I think, but in a historical, non-alternate world book... I find it just too much.

However the love scenes between Nora and Vanessa were nicely done, I thought. Just explicit enough to fit with the overall feel of the book and I did enjoy the relationship between the two of them. This story is really more about family and mothering than the actual romance between the two women and the realisations that they come to, whilst very convenient timing-wise, were valid and logical. I think many mothers have been there. :)

So, I am sure that many readers out there will enjoy this novella more than I did if they're able to put aside the everyone in the book is queer in some way coincidences. It was fun getting to see more of the characters we met in the first book, Bound to be a Groom - they play a vital role in this story - and we do meet characters whose stories are coming in the series.

Bound to be a Groom by Megan Mulry

3 STARS

Regency Reimagined - Book 1

Exactly as advertised. An erotic menage romp. Here we have the story of Anna, illegitimate convent-bred girl with thoughts of independance; Pia, the convent-bred orphan and Anna's BFF; Sebastian, every girl and boy's wet-dream and Anna's hastily-wed-to husband; and Farleigh, the English duke, Seb's one-time lover and friend. All of them are beautiful people, forward thinking, kinky as all get-out and are very quick to fall for the loves of their lives.

It was just all so convenient. Too convenient. While the characters showed promise at being interesting, it was a promise never truly fulfilled because... we need more erotic sex scenes! Whenever the characters would start to do something that had nothing to do with sex, it stopped pretty damned quickly so someone could have at least one orgasm. And they felt too modern to me, despite some pretty purple-ish dialogue. For instance, how does Anna go from a girl raised in a convent to a domme who makes no mistakes? When she's only had sex with her BFF and her husband?

Megan Mulry writes well. Her writing is easy to read and engaging (despite the outlandish at times dialogue) but I found myself wishing for some actual insight into the characters thoughts. Not just that things were hot and sexy and submissive and dominating, but WHY this appealed to them so much and how they managed to find it in themselves to open up to the others as quickly as they did. I also found myself wishing for something more to the story than just how the quartet comes together. Maybe it was that there were no real obstacles for any of them to overcome? (There were also a few spots, especially in the early chapters where POV switches - 3 in two paragraphs at one point, darned near gave me whiplash. )

So, that being said, for an erotic, historical, BDSM, menage sexytimes book, it was great! But overall, for my own enjoyment, I felt left wanting something of more substance.

Oh and... how do they know who the fathers of dem babies is? *g*