Title: Seductive Shadows
Author: Marni Mann
Publisher: Booktrope
Release date: July 17, 2013
Genre: Erotica, Contemporary Romance
Age Group: Adult
Source: This is a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review/opinion.
Charlie is a passionate, sensually inspired art student, desperately seeking an escape from an abusive past that haunts her and a tragic accident that emptied her heart. Scarred and unable to love, her yearning for physical pleasure and contact leads her into a tantalizing, dangerous world of power and seduction. The anonymity of the deal offers security, the money provides financial freedom, and the madam’s authority is the mother figure she longs for.
But the thrill of the mansion and its arousing dominance quickly fades when she meets the renowned yet mysterious Cameron Hardy, whose intense, baby blue eyes send a nervous flutter through her core. He’s sexy, and not in a subtle way. Cameron stimulates her art, intellect and desires. Just as he begins to break through her emotional boundaries, Charlie discovers a devastating connection between her past and her scandalous work at the mansion, shattering everything she thought to be true.
Provocative, intoxicating and erotic, Seductive Shadows, is the unforgettable tale of a young woman’s discovery as she learns to forgive, to love and be loved, and to find redemption amidst a memorable journey that will captivate your mind and stimulate your soul.
This book is for mature audiences 17+. It contains explicit language and sexual content.
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Charlie is a gifted art student with a gift of expressing her feelings on canvas. To her art is a way to express herself and all the pain she has experienced in her life. Having a mother who has neglected her for a better part of her life and a best friend who died in a car accident she's only left with her love for painting and her need for sexual pleasure. The only person that Charlie has in her life that she can turn to at this point is Dallas. But when Dallas wanted more from her she ran the other way only using Dallas for sex.
One night at her job at the front desk of the hotel she works at, a woman she's never met before approaches her and offers her the job of a lifetime. A way to obtain sexual release and a job so much better than the one she is currently in. The next night she enters a darkened limo and the note inside tells her to change into the clothes provided and to put on the mask. Where is she taken? To a mansion. Everyone inside wears a mask. There is no one around but Victoria and a few other employees and after she passes the initial test and is given a job, she is shown to her wing where she is to go every night. She's told not to speak to anyone and after she is prepared by the woman inside the room to wait for the client to arrive. That's the first time she met Jay. She's attracted to Jay and comes to see her several times over the course of the book. In the mansion she is no longer Charlie but Cee and can be someone else in the time she spends in the mansion.
But as things begin to shift in Charlie's life so does her outlook and how she views the mansion. In her art class she is paired with Cameron Hardy an experienced artist who slowly as time goes by makes her desire to work at the mansion and the allure it once had begin to fade in the face of the desire she feels for Cameron. As they paint one another, Charlie begins to find new meaning in her life and slowly begins to find the self she lost after her friend died. Charlie begins to find herself again in those around her including the only employee in the mansion that talks openly with her every couple of sessions that she spends in the mansion. There she is allowed to talk about her feelings versus using her sexual desires to cope with her feelings and soon forms a bond with the mysterious doctor of the mansion.
As the allure of the mansion begins to fade, Charlie begins to really wonder about the mansion. She never sees any other girls, she's told to talk to no one other than the doctor in emergencies and Victoria the woman who tells her that she's now her family. She's never seen where the mansion is located nor an address that tells her where the mansion is. All she knows is the more time she spends there, the more she begins to wonder what working there really is all about. Join Charlie as she tries to rediscover who she is and who the people she works for.
This was a brilliant book. I always think when I see anything that links the passion of art and desire together that I'm going to be highly disappointed, but I have discovered in this book that they really do go hand in hand. Painting allowed Charlie to deal with her pain and later on her sexual desires on the canvas and it was exciting to watch. I loved this story very much especially with the flashbacks that allowed you to really view the shattered relationship between Charlie and her mother and how it had a helping hand in how she became years later in her life, Marni really let you feel the pain in the flashbacks that Charlie felt. How could this book have been better? If there was more. There were some questions I was left with at the end and I really would like to know what happened with those things. I would be thrilled if there was another book but as for just this book itself I give it five stars!
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