Grade: C+

Dear Bam,

You’ll have to forgive me. I know I’ve been delinquent of late, seeing as how I’ve been busy studying for the big exam [Ed. Note: Which she passed. Holla at yo gurl!] and *ahem* spawning, as you so eloquently put it to someone else. Since this is the case, I am stealing your fabulous review format (which I plan to use from now on, ’cause I’m a lazy bitch…and when you do something right it should be repeated often). Believe it or not, I have read a few books that had nothing to do with Taxation, Accounting or Corporate and Securities Law. While I know you would find reviews of those books scintillating, I’ve read Sasha White’s Trouble and will review that rather than Executive Stock Options and Stock Appreciation Rights. Everyone… don’t sigh with relief quite yet.

I was curious about Sasha White since I saw the Ja(y)nes review of Kink (the antho by White and Saskia Walker). In Watch Me Ms. White took on a tough storyline (cheating wife) and, according to Jane, made it work. I won’t recap the story here since 1) I didn’t read it, 2) other people have offered their opinions and 3) this is a review for Trouble. However, I will say that Watch Me seems to be the beginning of a series of stories about women, love and sex. Ms. White started with Bethany’s story and continues with Samair’s story in Trouble.

The Plot: Samair Jones (okay, I hate the name. How do you pronounce it? SA-mair? SAMA-ir? SAM-air? The last makes her sound like a fly-by-night airline company, and I’m terrible with pronunciation) has gotten rid of her boyfriend, her roommate and is looking for a good time at Risque, Vancouver’s hottest nightclub. The name makes it sound more like Vancouver’s hottest strip joint, but anyway, rather than paraphrasing, I’ll give you a taste of what’s going on in the first chapter:

For the past three years she’d been a good girl. She’d worked a ‘proper’ job, had a ‘proper’ relationship, and a boring, uneventful life. Now it was time to remember how to live.

If that doesn’t sum up what Samair’s up to, I don’t know what will. Reads more like something you’d see in the blurb on the back of the book, no? In addition to getting rid of the BF and the roomie, Samair has quit her job and decides to go looking for some old friends and possibly some hot times at Risque. Samair is looking to reclaim her lost sense of self, and with it her old nickname… Trouble. Valentine Ward (what is it with these names? If I were a guy named Valentine, I’d beat my parents into explaining that insanity) is the owner of Risque and has issues of his own. The bank has suddenly decided to foreclose on his loan for the club due to his ex-wife’s influence (where are all of these influential people? Why can’t I get one of them to talk to the bank about my mortgage?) and the club is his one true love, so Valentine needs to come up with cash fast and the packed crowd every night isn’t going to cut it. Samair and Valentine meet during Samair’s very first visit to Risque and, yes, sexin’ ensues ™. And it’s hot! More on this later, as you know how much I love me some hot sexin’. But back to the plot…I’ll briefly sum up the other salient plot points as I’m prone to blurt crap out now that the hormone levels are off the charts and I don’t want to spoil this for those who want to read it: Samair meets up with her old friend and college roommate Joey Kent who works as a dancer at the club and decides to 1) move back in to Joey’s shoebox of an apartment, 2) have a “sex only” uh…non-relationship with Valentine and 3) pursue her dream of being a custom lingerie designer.

The Heroine: Samair is that girl. You know the one. The chick with incredible talent, great personality and a future that was so bright…I’m not going to quite get there, but you catch my drift. Well, Samair’s parents on the other hand, had specific expectations for their daughter that did not include her crazy friends, her crazy talent, or her crazy thought that she should be happy doing what she does best. So Samair bows to her parents expectations and gets herself a boring job (office monotony), a boring boyfriend (sexual monotony) and a boring roommate (lack of true heart-to-heart monotony). And walks in one night to find her roommate and her boyfriend going at it in their IKEA apartment. Samair makes the decision to leave all of the boredom behind and risk everything by taking a chance on her old college roommate’s largess. She crashes with Joey and then takes a chance on her talent. While I admire women who take life by the balls and take chances, this didn’t really resonate for me with Samair. She didn’t come across as the balls-out tough girl that I honestly think it takes to make it on your own. And the nickname Trouble didn’t really fit even though the author noted that Samair was a troublemaker in school, was trouble sexually, etc. However, it does make a nice name for Samair’s new line of lingerie. Samair’s pursuit of sartorial success is nicely paired with her pursuit of sexual satisfaction with Valentine.

The Hero: Valentine is that guy. The driven businessman who is completely and totally focused on nothing but the bottom line. He’s the guy who had the hot, rich wife, but didn’t take a dime from her because he wanted his success to be his own without strings. So the hot, rich wife ditches him because he loves the club and she needs his attention 24/7. Then she gets the bright idea that she can get him back by pulling strings and forcing his financial hand. Well, Val doesn’t want to bow to pressure, and he’s over the rich whore. While he’s keeping his eye on the prize, he notices Samair, and can’t forget about her. Their non-relationship of sexual exploration suits them as they’re both determined to get what they want out of life and feel that a true relationship would make them lose sight of what the really want. Val is a bit of a cardboard figure in certain ways. He’s gotta make it on his own, won’t accept help from his financially independent lawyer friend Karl, is a kid from the streets that has almost made it, but in his mind he won’t have done it until Risque is his free and clear. Val remains pretty closed (except for hot sex) to Samair, which is typical in romancelandia.

The Secondary Characters: Joey Kent is Samair’s ex-college roommate and ex-college lover. It seemed like Samair was experimenting more than anything else, yet another reason why I think her nickname is a misnomer. There’s nothing troublesome about experimenting, unless you’re passing needles. Joey is the girlfriend I would have liked to have growing up. She’s willing to put up with Samair being out of touch for three years, she takes her in when Samair is homeless, she’s Samair’s personal cheerleader and supplies her with a steady group of people to purchase her start-up line. That’s not to say that she and Samair don’t fight. Luckily for us all, they have a big blow out and have to work it out like normal people. I was impressed by this and happy to see Ms. White didn’t take the easy way out by making Joey the Mary Sue of friends.

Karl Dawson, Val’s best bud, is a chick magnet that doesn’t like women ’cause he got tewtally screwed by one. However, Karl is apparently the hottest man on Earth (hard to see when Samair barely bats an eyelash when she meets him), likes a bit of kink with his sexin’, has made it on his own as a lawyer, and will do just about anything for Val. We don’t get a whole lot of Karl, I suspect because he’ll have his own story somewhere along the line.

Shuzluva Says: While the plot moved along nicely and the sex was integrated quite well (including the obligatory threesome scene), the actual writing didn’t do it for me here. I had a hard time connecting with the characters on anything but the basest of levels (okay, the sex was really quite hot) and felt very little emotional connection with any of them. Joey was the character I seemed to connect with most strongly and her problems were definitely much more pronounced than Samair’s. Actually, I don’t think Samair had a ton of problems, other than some conflict about her family’s reaction to her life choices. Her story centered on the struggle of getting to the light of love and success at the end of the tunnel. What hurt the book for me was passages like this:

She used to enjoy life. She used to be someone who had friends, plans … dreams. Somewhere in the past few years she’d lost her way. She’d given up on those things. She’d given up on herself, and settled. She used to feel things.

Bam, you know I’m the type of girl who likes a show not a tell. Which is definitely the case here. When it comes down to emotional moments like this, I like more than a paragraph telling me that Samair let her dreams be crushed and she became emotionally crushed. Show those dreams crumbling to dust! Show me that heartache and disappointment! Give me the horror of overprotective and controlling parents! I’m a masochist…give me your worst and make me feel it too. While I can’t ignore how well the sex was written into the plot (and not simply sprinkled generously throughout to titillate), and how Ms. White didn’t simply take the easy way (i.e., big misunderstanding) out with the plot turns, due to the writing style which had me forcing myself through the first two chapters, and the lack of emotional connection with the characters, I’m giving this one a C+.

You may buy this book here .

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 11:16 am and is filed under Books, Grade: C, Romance: Contempo, Shuzluva's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.