Secret Society Extreme Pleasures by Jennifer Rosario & L.A.R.

This book claims to focus on dozens of interviews with real people involved in the Swinging lifestyle. What you get is an orgy of bad writing.

Jennifer tells her stories in the manner of a person speaking English as a second language. Every paragraph is written with a strong Hispanic accent and this whole book has a very Latin feel. Her stories are told in a very rambling way and it is all a muddle for the reader to digest. She does not use punctuation and only very rarely does she employ double inverted commas/quotation marks. Her characters do not talk in the normal manner of “this person said” but always “that person stated” - this stated X and stated Y got really annoying. Jennifer has not proof read her script as there are lots of errors which make reading her book a chore. There are many scenes of sex between multiple partners and they all get into a jumble. She talks about one character doing one sex act as part of a group activity only to get the names of who is doing what mixed up. Coupled to this she even gets the gender mixed up in places and women grow bits they were never born with!

The writing of this book is lazy and the focus is lost. Some tales are told in an interview fashion but then switch without warning into a first person narrative. Others start in the first person but then become a free for all between the characters. When Jennifer describes a holiday location, she gives the impression she has copy/pasted a holiday brochure because the heavy Hispanic accent and broken English have suddenly gone. Each of her tales of Swinging activity are rather monotonous with lots of licking and stroking. You move onto the next tale and it is more of the same with yet  more licking and stroking. Character development is totally missing and all the people are like dogs in the park. I could not relate to this book and I did not find it erotic at all. Nothing was exciting and this book was just a long list of lick and stroke.

Secret Society Extreme Pleasures is NOT an erotic novel and I found it very dull. Nothing made me excited or made me smile. Writing good erotic literature is a skill and clearly Jennifer does not have the skills to be an erotic story teller. Her book is boring and repetitive rubbish that I am very glad was a free download. I can only give her book the minimum score of 1 star as I feel this book is a big FAIL.

Secret Society Extreme Pleasures is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2013.

Running in Flip-flops by Abigail Fay

Shannon Wheaton is a Peace Corps volunteer doing a 2 year post in Senegal, West Africa. Her new home is a mud hut in Keur Souleye, a village with no electricity, running water or paved roads. Follow Shannon through the highs and lows of her job in this remarkable story.

Running in Flip-flops is a first person narrative written in the style of a workplace blog. Most employers are furious when employees write a blog about their day job and hate any negative comments being put into the public domain. Shannon speaks frankly about her 2 years working as a volunteer for Peace Corps as she details all that is wrong with her post in Senegal.

Rather than a rose tinted picture of good work with the natives, Shannon tells it how it is. This story is full of realism and lists all the pitfalls of living a very basic life in a village within a third world country. This story is full of emotion as to how Shannon actually feels, day in, day out. It is a great story to read during your rest break at work because it gives such contrast between your day job and life with Shannon’s.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Running in Flip-flops because of how real this story felt as though you were one of Shannon’s co-workers sharing a gripe about the job. This novel has that vibrancy that workplace blogs have and you really feel that you are in the loop. Shannon is such an open character and you learn not just what she does but how it all feels inside. You go through the constant mood swings with her and understand how rough she feels spending her time in the village.

The decision by Abigail to write this story as a first person narrative/workplace blog was correct. This focus made you feel you were getting the inside track and Shannon was speaking to you in confidence. You felt as though she was not supposed to be saying these things but she trusted you. It was all cleverly done and I felt as though I was living the part. The fact that Shannon was a girl and I am a middle aged man made no difference to my enjoyment of this book. We all dress, eat, sleep, work and even go to the toilet, making small changes depending on where we are.

This book gave a lot of information about the culture and language of Senegal. It really gave the reader the feel of the place in the way the story was told. As Shannon grew to understand the culture and logistics of the region, as a reader I felt the same. The atmosphere within the story was great and I felt I was sharing the mud hut in Keur Souleye with Shannon. Her tale was so easy to relate to that I now have to hold back a smile when I handle black African passengers on my coach at London Heathrow Airport!

The ending of this book is good and it is like when you come home from a holiday. A period of your life has passed, you take away memories but know that the people in that location carry on their parallel lives. Shannon has these same feelings about Senegal and the last chapter puts it all into perspective for her. I finished the book and thought that was nice for her, finding it hard to believe Shannon was not a real person but a fictional character.

I am really glad I stumbled across Running in Flip-flops. I thought it was a great novel that explored a very different world to mine. It was a pleasure to read and I found it very interesting and refreshing. It has all the success of reality television but in a book. It is great to get such an insight into peoples’ lives and work away from the sparkling holiday travel brochures and corporate publicity material. Running in Flip-flops is a very good read and I will vote it the top score of 5 stars. Well done Abigail for writing such a convincing book, I imagined I was there!

Running in Flip-flops is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2011.

The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid.

In September 2005, heavy rain is sweeping Britain and in the Lake District a body is revealed as the land moves on the ancient peat hags. This body in the bog is of great interest to Jane Gresham, a scholar of the local Lakeland poet, William Wordsworth. This novel reveals the mystery of what has been hidden for 200 years.

This novel is a lovely mix of things brought together to make a remarkable book. There is history, local folklore, poetry, mystery, police procedure and social commentary. What makes this book so nice is that you get the full story. It is not a storyline with a few details fleshing it out because every scene is built upon with attitude that makes you feel as though you are living the story. Everyday life with it’s modern day character is tightly woven into this novel, making it so real.

Val’s writing quality is very high and she uses a very extensive vocabulary. This is an intelligent read and this novel has a lot of depth. You feel that you are getting the full works from an author at the top of her field. You know that this is as good as it gets.

The Grave Tattoo won the 2006 Portico Prize for fiction and I can see why. This is a great book that was a joy to read and I shall vote it the top score of 5 stars.

The Grave Tattoo was written in 2006 and has 543 pages in the paperback edition.

Not worth saving a pound on.

I thought I would save a pound yesterday and rather than have my regular venti size of latte at Starbucks, I would try their filtered coffee. Gosh! what a difference not having steamed whole milk in my favourite coffee makes. The filtered coffee was okay, but it was not the affordable treat that I enjoy so much from a whole milk latte. It was never worth saving a pound and it had no WOW! factor that I get each time from a latte.

So next time it will be £2.95 well spent for my favourite drink rather than a £1.95 make do.