Try Me, Tempt Me, Take Me by Olivia Cunning

try me take meNarrated by Justine O. Keef

I listened to Backstage Pass by Olivia Cunning last year and enjoyed it, apart from that it was so explicit it caused me to blush furiously for most of it. Try Me, Tempt Me, Take Me is an anthology of three short stories about members of the band Sole Regret, and the series is a kind of spin-off from the Sinners On Tour series (of which Backstage Pass is number one). Each short story takes place in 24 hours or less and features a different member of the band. There is a (mild) overarching story arc which (kind of) joins them together but mostly they stand alone. Each of the stories has a HFN ending.

Try Me features Gabe “Force” Banner, the drummer of Sole Regret. He meets Melanie Anderson at a backstage after-party, to which Nicki, Melanie’s friend has gained them entry. Nicki’s ambition is to have sex with Shade, the band’s lead singer. After a bad experience where she was terrorised at age 13 by bikers, Melanie has somewhat of a phobia about tattoos and, while she doesn’t mind Sole Regret’s music, she doesn’t know much about the band. When Gabe comes to the party wearing casual clothes that cover his tattoos and a baseball cap that hides his black and red Mohawk, Melanie is quite taken by him – and she doesn’t even know who he is. It doesn’t take long before Melanie has gotten over her prejudice against and her fear of tattooed bad boys and she and Gabe are scorching up the sheets, the elevator, the wall (you get the picture) in no time at all.

Tempt Me is about Adam Taylor and his regular Dallas hook-up, Madison Fairbanks. I liked this story the least – mostly because of the premise. Madison was/is Adam’s drug dependency counsellor and the idea of there being a sexual relationship between such a pair was a bit icky for me. Talk about inappropriate!

Take Me features Jacob “Shade” Silverton, Sole Regret’s lead singer. He has an ex-wife and a four-year-old daughter (who his ex likes to use a weapon in their ongoing war). His ex-wife’s sister is Amanda Lane. Shade has crushed on Amanda for a long time and events lead to them hooking up in the band’s hometown of Austin on a rare night off from touring. That’s right; he’s hooking up with his ex-sister-in-law. So that’s going to end well. *rolls eyes* At least she’s not his drug dependency counsellor.

Each of the stories features A LOT of sex. Explicit, lengthy, detailed, repeated and sometimes kinky sex. I enjoyed the first story the best – in part because it didn’t have a problematic relationship at its base but, I suspect, mostly because I hadn’t had time to get bored with all the sex. And I did get bored. If one were to listen to each short story and then have a break for a few days or weeks, then it may not be too much. But, having listened to one story after another, well, it seemed like that’s all they were doing. There was some relationship development, but mostly it was a lot of sex. Which is fine if that’s what you’re in the mood to listen to.

Justine O. Keef does a good job with the narration. I wondered if she recorded the audiobook with a director/engineer listening and if so, how she managed to get through all of those explicit scenes? Because there were times when I dived for the volume to make sure no one else could hear. She didn’t sound embarrassed – at least, not unless the text called for her to sound that way.

Technically, the production was solid and good quality with no errors or problems that I noticed. The band members (there are two others – Kellan and Owen – as well as the ones featured in the anthology) mostly sounded identical to each other and that meant each hero sounded the same as the previous one. Madison had a Texas accent which differentiated her a little but apart from that there was little difference between the heroines also.

Ms. Keef is well able to produce an authentic sounding male voice (I wonder if it hurts her throat?) even if they do mostly sound alarmingly similar – at least it is easy to tell the difference between the hero and heroine of the story.

I think it does take a special talent to be able to read such explicit erotic scenes without bursting into flames and, for the most part, Ms. Keef manages to be fairly matter of fact in delivering the more… shall we say frank – phrases the characters in this anthology seem to say to each other without compunction. They are certainly not backward in coming forward.

There isn’t a ton of relationship/courtship in this anthology but what there is is delivered well. I did feel there was not merely a sexual connection between the trio of couples – perhaps it was more obvious in the first two stories. I did have a bit of a hard time (pardon the pun) in accepting Shade’s feelings for Amanda when only two nights previously he had been having public sex with Nicki (Melanie’s friend – Try Me) and the next morning professed disappointment Nicki didn’t want more than a one night stand. It made it more difficult for me to believe in Shade’s relationship with Amanda but the feelings were certainly vocalised. It was the actual character I wasn’t 100% sure of – and that has nothing to do with the narrator.

In the end, the book dragged and not even Ms. Keef’s more than creditable performance could save me from being glad the story ended. I think I’d like to listen to something more relationship heavy now and leave things like sex swings and home-made sex toys out of my hearing for a little bit.

That said, if you’re in the mood for something erotic and explicit and somewhat inventive (at least when it comes to the sex) you could do worse.

Kaetrin


Narration: B-

Book Content: C

Steam Factor: For your burning ears only

Violence: Minimal

Genre: Erotic Romance

Publisher: Tantor Audio

 

Try Me, Tempt Me, Take Me was provided to AudioGals for review by Tantor Audio.

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