Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel by Sylvia Day
This is a romance with lots of sex action between the pages. It’s pretty much non-stop sex and emotional drama. Although I’m a fan of romance with a big erotic component, the sheer volume did put the kibosh on any significant character or plot development.
Eva and Gideon have fireworks from moment one and fly into a passionate romance early in the book. But in spite of the old breathtakingly-gorgeous and fabulously-wealthy man meets almost-as-wealthy and equally-breathtakingly-gorgeous woman that had me rolling my eyes, there is an interesting twist here. These two got issues. They both have enough baggage to fill a cruise ship. They are knee-jerk, jump-to-conclusion, high maintenance, and emotional people.
Gideon is perfection personified. Powerful, strong, dominant, sexy, and perplexingly wealthy for a self-made man in his late twenties. But he communicates just as badly as any normal guy walking around on the street. Actually worse. He doesn’t know how to express himself, how to resolve conflict in a relationship, how to come to terms with and move beyond his terrible past. He seems to love Eva, has exposed himself to her in ways he has never done with another woman, but he still can’t fully trust and let go.
Eva is more emotionally balanced. She has a horrific past, but she and her family have worked very hard to face it head on. She still has her triggers. She doesn’t fully trust, and she cuts and runs when she’s hurt. Still, she’s refreshingly honest about her past, her emotional needs, and her feelings. Eva sets parameters and jumps eagerly into a very sexual relationship with brooding, intense Gideon. Some readers might find that action unwise, but I’m so tired of novels where the heroine hems and haws, runs hot and cold that this was totally welcome.
Still, the novel was a brutal read. The huge amount of sex keeps the reader in a state of sensory overload. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s almost too much. I felt like I needed a break. To smoke a ciggie and eat some pizza, to take a nap before round twenty of intense-passion, multiple-orgasm goodness.
And these two are so damaged. Absolutely, horrifically damaged. It’s difficult reading about characters that are this raw, having such a painful time working through their pasts and trying to make their relationship work. That may make for a good novel, but when combined with the erotic, non-stop sex it was just an overload on the reader. It was like watching a train wreck in agonizing slow motion. At times the book was closer to being a tragedy then a romance.
The ending was difficult too, because there was no ending. Defying all the rules of the self-contained novel, the author leaves the reader to dangle off the edge until book two resolves (hopefully) the agony of these two lovers. Will I read book two in the series? Maybe. I’m rooting for these two to make it, but I’m only mildly committed to them since all the sex took precedence over the establishing the characters. And yes, the sex is an amazing read, but there’s plenty of erotica out there that doesn’t drag me through an emotional grater. If book two winds me up as tightly as the first one did, I’ll need my trusty bottle of vodka by my side. Three stars.