THE VELVET CHAIR

Author: Jennifer Stevenson ISBN: 9780345486691 5/2008 PARANORMAL Publisher: BALLANTINE

THE TREAT: Life with a sex demon is never boring Jewel freed Randy from two centuries in a brass bed. Now he’s her booty slave. THE TRICK: The Venus Machine will make you irresistible! A new age swindler is selling beauty via the “Venus Machine.” Fraud cop Jewel is gonna bust him. So’s Jewel’s new partner, sexy con artist Clay. Randy and his mojo are along for the ride. THE TRUTH: Can the contraption bring attraction? Jewel gives the Venus Machine a test run to prove it’s a fountain of flimflam. Something wild kicks into high gear. Powerful machine or power of suggestion?

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

While trying very hard to find something lovely and fun to say about this book, I feel it would be a disservice to say that I enjoyed any part of THE VELVET CHAIR at all.  I feel horrible that I disliked it so much and am trying very hard to be objective while writing this review. 

Unfortunately, I found the book to be silly, over-the-top and prone to misunderstandings—at least I, as the reader, had a ton of them.  I felt like the characters were all speaking in a different language or something because I simply could not keep up with the flow of the conversations.  I found myself re-reading parts of the book to try to make sense of what the conversations were even about. 

Then, there is the wonderful penchant the author has for transporting the two lead characters without any real knowledge by the reader—they are one place, and then BAM!, they are somewhere else completely. Only I couldn't make out if it was a physical transportation or a mental one, and that was weird to me—the not knowing.  The hero—and I use that term loosely—flat out annoyed the heck out of me, and he was a cross in my mind of Jack from Will & Grace and a fairy prince that is only allowed to do his good master's bidding. Totally annoying.  I wanted to scream at him to get some friggin' testosterone running through those little fairy veins and put this little harpy in her place!  Especially with Jewel practically hating on him one minute, and then flying off to some alternate universe to have some weird dragon sex with him in another—and that is only in the first couple of chapters!  It seemed to get sillier from there, and I just could not get into the book at all. 

I am someone who reads a book in a matter of hours under normal circumstances, but THE VELVET CHAIR took me almost a week to get through it.  I felt as though maybe I missed something by not reading the first book because all of this weird behavior seemed to be totally accepted as the lead couple's way of doing things.  I don't know.  Maybe.  But to be completely honest, I wont be sticking around to find out!  

Kristal Gorman