Ultramarine

This one was a total joy to read!!! I loved it!

It's a steamy hot erotica novella and when I say steamy hot I mean - WOW steamy hot! But believe it or not, in about 100 pages you get the fore-play and the sex and actually a story. Well, it's not a lot but what does happen between the two of them and how they connected was an interesting read and the ending left me with such a huge smile!

I would have been pleased just to leave it at that but YAY for me! There's 5 more smallish novellas to this mini-series. 

The whole novella is from Caroly's POV. She is almost 30 years old American living for the past 3 years in Paris and oh, she's a virgin. Finding this fact to be a nuisance somehow preventing her from being "normal" or a "woman" so to speak she turns to Didier a man whore who comes with good recommendations ;) All she has to do is come, relax, get rid of her virginity with probably one of THE most beautiful and sexy man alive. Really, one can't ask for more.. Thinking of how it went for her, I do think we each need a Didier of our own ;)

I, myself considered myself a "late bloomer" (well, not THAT late ;)) so I guess I got her and her thinking on the matter. I did think, like her, that it was just the "right time to be a woman", more a mental readiness than having it connected with someone she was seeing. I guess for a lot of people it kinda comes naturally from the development of a relationship, as they say "one thing led to another" but as it seems for Caroly it was something internal she wanted for herself and not something she wished to have with someone specific. Caroly have her own reasons to being a virgin or for not dating much. I got her reasoning and I loved how Didier, seeing it from his perspective, explained the "logic" he found in her behavior. 

Didier is a man whore. Yeah, but he is "just a guy" (besides being great looking and knowing how to please a woman). I guess his clients mainly saw him as a means to an end.. But Caroly is really interested in him, maybe the fact that she is an American living in Paris made her approach to him different than the "regular" Parisians he is used to. He does "accuse" her somewhere of being American in her perspective of relationships. I guess different cultures see things differently. It's only natural. So I guess that's the reason Caroly sees Didier differently and really tries so connect with him, or maybe it's just more natural for her to get to know him before feeling ready to sleep with him.

It's hard to really know Didier's perspective for most of the novella since we only get Caroly's POV. So we can't know what he means or what he doesn't both in his behavior as in what he chooses to share with her.. and well, we are dependent on Caroly's perspective of all of it. 

The story is a very fluent read. It has a little bitty bit of a "darker side", since we learn a little of Caroly and Didier's past and what brought them to the place they are in today. I thought it added the depth needed for the story to feel more real. It's not a "dark secret" being revealed or something like that, it's more about the both of them getting to know each other and with that some parts that aren't "painted in pink". 

This is the first Novel(la) I've read by Cara McKenna but I also read most of her novels written by her other pan name - Meg Maguire (in which she writes Contemporary Romance). As I've said countless times I started with reading "Strangers on a Train" containing 5 short novellas by 5 different authors and ever since then I've been trying to read more (until i got to all ;)) of the novels published by all five. Meg is a favorite for sure! I've read almost all she published by this name (I have three more planned to be read the following months) and after reading and enjoying this one she wrote as Cara I'll be adding little by little the novels she published in this name.