Marly's Choice by Lora Leigh

I had heard so much talk about this series, I knew I would not be able to stay away from it for too long. The talk and the fact that Lora Leigh is one of my favorite erotica authors drew me like a bee to honey. The August Men series is about three brothers and the way they have learned to cope with a past that left them with a peculiar sexual quirk. Their need to share their women.

Marly's Choice tells the story of the first brother, Cade. We don't learn the details of what exactly happened to the brothers in this installment but Cade is quite haunted by it. The experience has left him feeling quite deviant and he feels he is not worthy of Marly.

Marly has a past of her own. She was sexually molested by her stepfather when she was young and her mother took her to the August ranch in hopes that they could protect her from the obsessions of a madman. She was barely a teenager when she joined the August household and Cade and his brothers raised her as their niece. It's this fraternal relationship that has Cade gritting his teeth with disgust when he starts lusting after her when she becomes a woman.

When Cade's father dies, Marly comes home from college to the funeral. She has always idolized Cade and in the past few years that feeling has developed into a crush. She has noticed that Cade seems to see her a bit more than a niece and puts a strong backing into trying to seduce him. Cade resists but he is weak when it comes to his lust for Marly and every encounter leaves him feeling dirtier than the next.

This is where I had a problem with the story. He would resist but when he gave in, he did it with gusto. He then would recriminate himself for a few days. When he finally decides to give up the fight completely he is so dominating it borders on rape (during one encounter, I would definitely would have called it rape, even if she did appear to enjoy herself). The sharing of partners is the least of the problem. Marly was really all for it, even if she was a bit hesitant at first. She definitely was into it, but Cade was really over the top in his possession of Marly.

Regardless of this, Leigh mixed the romance with a subplot of her stepfather coming back into their lives, which gave the story more substance than just the out of the ordinary sexual encounters. Unfortunately the resolution to the subplot was so quick and so lacking in action buildup, we are left wondering, why we had it there in the first place.

Even with all the negatives I described, I still could not put the darn ebook away and read the whole thing in an afternoon. I guess if we catalog each aspects of the book I would have said the book was lacking, but as a whole it was good. It really kept me wanting more and that makes me grade it higher than I would have normally done.

Grade: B-
Format: ebook