Review: Wicked Weekend by Gillian Archer

Publisher: Carina Press
Where did you get the book: e-ARC
Release date: March 12th

Why did Lauren Vaughn introduce her sister to the man she herself was crazy about? Now Lauren is watching the happy couple at their combined bachelor/bachelorette party—while Lauren sits all alone at the bar. Until she spots a hot stranger with the telltale black handkerchief in his pocket: the signal for “seeks no-strings affair with sexy submissive.”
Lauren can’t take her eyes off him. So when he comes over, she kicks her inner good girl to the curb and follows Jamie Forman to his room, where he makes her scream with pleasure all night long. But Jamie is a complicated man. He can’t handle how desperately he wants her in his bed—and his life. It’s up to Lauren to teach him how to make all night last forever.

*blurb taken from author’s official website*

Wicked Weekend hooked me from the start of the book and I thought it had a great opening. Lauren, the heroine, has the likability factor, and as it’s a novella, I liked that there was action straight away. Lauren is sick of moping after her crush, Pierce, who is now her sister’s fiance. Lauren decides to take action and have herself a fun weekend fling. She meets Jamie, who is a dominant, in the bar and the two are instantly attracted to one another. Lauren has always been interested in the BDSM lifestyle but was too shy to try anything. I’m not too keen on having smex straight away in my books, but Lauren is smart about having sex with Jamie, a man she doesn’t know. She sets boundaries and makes sure he’s not a psycho by getting someone to vouch for him, and telling her best friend where she is and with whom. Smart heroine!

Jamie is a dominant and is part of the scene, but he doesn’t like to share — and his best friend Sawyer, who is famous in Vegas for being a dom, teases him about this. Jamie takes it easy on Lauren, and the sex scenes were quite smexy with a lot of dirty words. I wasn’t too sure on some of the verbs used though, such as ‘slurping’ which is really unsexy. Lauren is placing a lot of trust in Jamie for someone she doesn’t know, and I did wonder should they have gotten to know one another first when she was trying out BDSM for the first time. I also felt that the first sex scene wasn’t intense enough. I think the tension should have been more prolonged, especially as it’s a erotic romance, and it was over quite quick.

The next day, Lauren is confident of herself and berates herself for pining away after Pierce. There’s a scene that occurs between Lauren and Pierce that I felt wasn’t needed.

spoiler below

[spoiler]What made me laugh though was Pierce wanting to have a threesome with Lauren and Crystal, but Lauren calls him a sick fuck and doesn’t want to take part in some twisted play. It ties in with my post about menage on how how it seems to be OK (I find it squicky personally) for two brothers to share a woman, but it’s against the grain for sisters to do it. Room for thought :D.[/spoiler]

Crystal, Lauren’s sister, is a major bitch and manages to put down Lauren all the time which I didn’t understand. The author alludes to screwed up family history but never expands. There’s no reason for why Crystal is the way she is, and why Lauren is the whipping dog for her family. Jamie also has commitment issues due to his family, but again it’s alluded to but nothing is expanded on which I found frustrating.

When Lauren and Jamie meet for their second meeting, I didn’t like how he messed with Lauren’s head by doing something that he knows she’s not comfortable with. He does this because he’s scared of how strong he feels about Lauren. What I found so wrong about that was that Lauren was new to the BDSM scene and she put her trust in Jamie. He was so wrong to lie to her in that way when she’s given her trust in him. Jamie admits in his POV that he enjoyed the mind fuck it gave Lauren. Lauren realises something is not right and calls out her safeword. This is where things got conflicted for me because Jamie does a turnabout and realises how much he fucked up, but he said he enjoyed the mind fuck it gave her in a previous scene. Why would he say such a thing like that? I found that very irresponsible with the position he has as a dominant.

What started off as a strong book for me lost its appeal towards the end, and I just didn’t get the story or the characters. There’s a misunderstanding where they separate, but then they soon come together again. I don’t know if the story was affected by the short length and there wasn’t enough time for character development. I did like the author voice though, so depending on what the next book will be about, I may pick it up.

All in all, I give a Wicked Weekend a C

Wicked Weekend