JAK Stephanie James _Fabulous Beast_
Jul. 4th, 2018 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutThis is a reprint, that lists both names. The original was from April 1984. My sister brought me a paperback to read on vacation. Thank you!
Our Heroine, Tabitha “Tabby” goes on a cruise, because she would sort of like to be a different person than the bookstore owning, divorced by a guy she never should have married because she was too boring woman about to turn 30. While on the cruise, picking up dragon tchotchkes as one does in 1984 — she has a thing about medieval bestiaries — she stumbles over (literally) a beat up Devlin, the hero, also a passenger on the boat. She drops her packages, gets him to a taxi and back to the boat where she delivers him to the onboard clinic, infirmary, wtf, and then nurses him back to health herself, thus exercising her bossier side quite safely.
Meanwhile, Devlin was in the alley beat up after stuffing the guy he was in a fight with into a dumpster. He was there to do some sort of covert pickup something or other, and later on, after Dev and Tabby had misunderstood themselves into a sexual relationship that might or might not survive the cruise, Dev’s covert ops activities drag Tabby into them (because this is, after all, a JAK romantic suspense novel).
Tabitha cuts and runs, and contemplates what she has learned from her abbreviated cruise ship adventure. She throws herself a 30th Birthday party (hey, spoilers! Also, duh spoilers!). It goes super well, altho while her efforts to pick up a Hot Younger Man are largely successful, they are both too drunk to follow through and wind up snoring on her sofas, conveniently In Flagrante something or other when Dev finally reappears in Tabitha’s life.
There’s a lot here that is familiar, and a lot here that is troublesome. Dev’s behavior is a bit retrograde even by mid-1980s standards, but it is _appalling_ by 2018 standards. OTOH, you _can_ frame what these two are up to as a covert 24/7 kink thing. Pretty easily, actually. So if you are tied into kink enough to find takedown scenes HAWT this might really work for you. But if the whole idea of someone being forceful in a romantic context makes you ill, then you should really stay away.
Sadly, I got a huge kick out of it, and I think this may be the first time I’ve read this one. I was a little bummed there was no grotto scene BUT there is a maze! Trade offs!
#24
Our Heroine, Tabitha “Tabby” goes on a cruise, because she would sort of like to be a different person than the bookstore owning, divorced by a guy she never should have married because she was too boring woman about to turn 30. While on the cruise, picking up dragon tchotchkes as one does in 1984 — she has a thing about medieval bestiaries — she stumbles over (literally) a beat up Devlin, the hero, also a passenger on the boat. She drops her packages, gets him to a taxi and back to the boat where she delivers him to the onboard clinic, infirmary, wtf, and then nurses him back to health herself, thus exercising her bossier side quite safely.
Meanwhile, Devlin was in the alley beat up after stuffing the guy he was in a fight with into a dumpster. He was there to do some sort of covert pickup something or other, and later on, after Dev and Tabby had misunderstood themselves into a sexual relationship that might or might not survive the cruise, Dev’s covert ops activities drag Tabby into them (because this is, after all, a JAK romantic suspense novel).
Tabitha cuts and runs, and contemplates what she has learned from her abbreviated cruise ship adventure. She throws herself a 30th Birthday party (hey, spoilers! Also, duh spoilers!). It goes super well, altho while her efforts to pick up a Hot Younger Man are largely successful, they are both too drunk to follow through and wind up snoring on her sofas, conveniently In Flagrante something or other when Dev finally reappears in Tabitha’s life.
There’s a lot here that is familiar, and a lot here that is troublesome. Dev’s behavior is a bit retrograde even by mid-1980s standards, but it is _appalling_ by 2018 standards. OTOH, you _can_ frame what these two are up to as a covert 24/7 kink thing. Pretty easily, actually. So if you are tied into kink enough to find takedown scenes HAWT this might really work for you. But if the whole idea of someone being forceful in a romantic context makes you ill, then you should really stay away.
Sadly, I got a huge kick out of it, and I think this may be the first time I’ve read this one. I was a little bummed there was no grotto scene BUT there is a maze! Trade offs!
#24