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SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL
Vanessa Marlow
St. Martin’s
ISBN: 978-0-312-36477-9
May 2008
Mystery - Psychological Thriller
Vanessa Marlow, (a not so closely held secret pen
name for historical romance writer Cheryl Holt) is
releasing her first erotic psychological thriller,
SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL. Meg White is a dessert chef in
Portland, Oregon. At age 23, she thinks she has a pretty
good life. A fiancé, a decent job, a roof over her head
everything is going well. When she meets Jordan Blair,
her whole life is turned upside down. Jordan shows her a
side of life she has never experienced and is tempting
in its seductive allure.
Disturbing. If I had just one word to describe this
book, it would be disturbing. Explaining what I mean and
to expound upon what made this book effect me the way it
did will give too much of the plot away, so writing a
review is very difficult. What I can say is that I was
thoroughly sickened and felt like I needed to take a
shower after reading SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL. This is
not a book for the light at heart and you will need a
strong stomach to make it through the whole story. At
the risk of giving spoilers, there are many scenes where
I consider Meg having non-consensual sex. She is drugged
and has no idea what was happening to her, while it
might have been couched in erotic terms, it creeped me
out.
Here comes the part where I am going to be as objective
as I can possibly be. Just because I had a difficult
time reading this book, does not mean it is a bad book
or a poorly written one. Quite the contrary, I suppose
that because it got SUCH a reaction from me, that it was
WELL done. The writing is good, realistic and detailed
and got a lot of gut wrenching emotions wrung from me. I
also spent the last three days with uneasy dreams. So I
repeat, this is not a book for the faint of heart. I
have read a lot of fairly hard core erotica, and this
book has left the biggest impression on me….mostly
because as I have previously mentioned, I felt the sex
was non-consensual, and that truly bothered me a lot.
Reviewed by Sarah Silversmith
Rating: 4 |
