Author: Dirty Girl Anne

Never Deal with Dragons by Lorenda Christianson

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Never Deal with Dragons

 
Grade: B+
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Paranormal, Dragons
Reviewed by Anne
235pages
 
“It’s amazing how often my day starts with a three-legged dragon and an enraged dairy farmer.” p.11  So starts Never Deal with Dragons.  Myrna Banks is a rarity in her time – she can speak dragon language.  Ever since the dragons were accidentally created during World War III, humans have needed dragonspeakers and negotiators.  Myrna is good at both, though she is underappreciated in her current position.  This is due, mainly to some bad choices she made regarding her ex-boyfriend, Trian.  So she is much less than happy when he waltzes into the middle of her negotiations between the 3 legged dragon (pregnant with twins and very hungry!) and a dairy farmer less one cow and beloved pet.  Unfortunately it looks like Myrna and Trian will be seeing a lot more of each other as he works for a dragon who needs her help.
 
From the very first line to the end of this story, I didn’t want to put this book down.  It’s an interesting world with interesting characters!  Just the concept of dragons being created and then turning out to be dominate over humans…  really fun to read how this has played out and changed the world.
Myrna was a strong woman who seemed to get into a lot of situations, but they weren’t humiliating for the sake of humiliating her character, and she was very good at handling them.  This is good, because the whole story is told from her point of view.  That was a drawback for me, as I enjoy seeing the hero’s point of view, but it worked in this book.  
 
Myrna was frustrating at times.  She had a tendency to cut Trian off when he was trying to explain himself, and this created most of the conflict in the book.  If she’d listened to him, or asked a few more questions instead of assuming, the whole thing would have played out much more smoothly, and it still would have been a good story, in my opinion.
 
Trian wasn’t quite sorry enough for the wrong he did to Myrna, but she kept cutting him off before he could really say sorry, so I’ll cut him some slack, and his actions certainly made up for the past. 
 
The first half of the book was better than the second, but both were still good.  It was pretty funny throughout, though.  The situations with the dragons were real for the world created, but still really funny.  It was a wonderful world and I hope there will be more stories in it!

Spinning Gold by Vivi Andrews

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Spinning Gold

Grade: B
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Fairytale
Reviewed by Anne
97 pages
 
This short story retelling of Rumplestilskin as a romance has Juliana as an affluent aristocrat at the mercy of an evil prince and “Rue” as the golden fairy she calls on for help.
 
It’s a great fairytale romance! I loved this twist on Rumplestilskin. I’m not an expert on politics or fairytale age settings, so I don’t know if the ones in this story were realistic, but I enjoyed it. Juliana was a heroine I liked and Rue had a lot of depth for a character in a novella. It was a nice balance of story and sex and even a battle. If you enjoy fairytale retellings, I predict you’ll like this one.

Choose Your Shot by Christine d’Abo

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Choose Your Shot: An Interactive Erotic Adventure (Long Shots #5)

Grade: B+/B-
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: High Kink
Genre: Choose Your Own, BDSM
Reviewed by Kate and Anne
This is a joint review by Kate and Anne, who have very fond memories of reading Choose Your Own Adventure Books as a kid and both jumped all over this one without checking to see if the other had requested it from NetGalley.
Kate:
I think it’s safe to say that we have all tried a Choose Your Own Adventure book as kids.  One that put you in charge of which direction the story took.  I devoured them as a kid.  I admit to geeking out a bit when I saw a romance/erotic version of this concept from Christine d’Abo.
Unlike the kids’ books where the main character was “you,” in this book Tegan is the main character and you are making her choices.  Tegan is excited to be attending the re-opening of the fetish club she belongs to.  She has been feeling like it might be time to settle into a more permanent relationship and is eager to look over her potential partners at the club.  Tegan is a switch so one of the choices you get to make is Domme or sub.  However, her (your) first choice is between the dungeon, the private play rooms, or finding one of her prior partners.  In my head, I heard the line from the musical Annie.  “Right through these doors, all of it’s yours.”
I have decided 4+ (the plus is because I went back a few times toward the end and chose a different path) adventures is enough for me.  Three of the read throughs I did just for enjoyment.  The last adventure I decided to see how long I could make the adventure last.  I read it long enough that I eventually started running across the same scenes.  However, I did get a huge sampling of what’s in the books.  Orgies and strap-ons and sex swings, oh my.  And that’s just naming a few.
Looking back though, it seems like most of the choices boiled down to the same 3 options.
  1. Do you want to leave your current partner and find another kinky thing to experiece with someone new (you slut-how many partners is that for tonight)? or
  2. Do you want to stay with the current douchebag you’re with simply because you’re trying on the whole commitment shoe and you think they might be the one (by the way, I’m pretty sure they’re not the one)? or
  3. Is it finally time to leave the club?  After all each decision you’ve made has resulted in at least one orgasm so after the six choice path you chose, aren’t you spent yet?

One last note.  Worry not.  There are no “whoops you made a wrong turn and fell into a tiger pit and died” endings in this book.  Although I enjoyed those endings a lot as kid, nothing can ruin a HFN ending quite like a pit full of tigers.

Choose Your Shot was new and fresh, yet strangely nostalgic.  I would recommend this read for any BDSM sub-genre fan looking for something new to try.

Anne:
Back when I was at RT (just thinking of that week makes me smile!) I remember someone from Carina Press mentioning that they would be publishing a Choose Your Own Adventure style romance and I was really excited. I have good memories of reading through CYOA books as a kid. I can report now that reading through an adult CYOA was just as fun!  Like Kate, I’ll admit to reading through it several times to try out the different options.

There are many partners and setups for Tegan to choose from. The way the book is written, any storyline you choose ends on a hopeful, HFN note – or at least it did for all the ways I read through it! I think it has more of an erotica feel than erotic romance, and I was fine with that. I thought the (many) sex scenes were well written and hot. This makes me want to read more by d’Abo!

I wonder if three read throughs is a magical number?  I stopped at three and was really impressed.  Kate went through a fourth time and I think she overdid it a bit maybe?  I mean, really, if you’re reading it through to see how long you can make the story you can’t complain about how many orgasms you had!  Really, can you ever complain about that???

Reading it in ebook format was really simple because of the hyperlinks in the text. There was no leafing through the book to find your target page number, but then getting distracted by a picture and forgetting which page you were headed for. Not that that ever happened to me as a kid. (All the time.)

I get the feeling that this book is set in a world the author has written other books in, but there was no problem reading it.

I’d highly recommend anyone interested in trying a unique reading experience. It was fun and a quick read. I’m imagining other settings, too. You could be at a formal event in a museum. On a pirate ship. Or how about a speed dating event, followed by choices for other dates?? Oh! Or how about a choice set than includes choosing a woman? So much potential here! I’m up for another one!

How about you?  Did you enjoy Choose Your Own Adventure stories as a kid?  Are you excited to try one as an adult?