Title: S.E.C.R.E.T.
Author: L. Marie Adeline
ISBN: 9780385346436
Pages: 288
Release date: February 5, 2013
Publisher: Broadway
Genre: Fiction (erotic)
Format: eBook (ARC)
Source: TLC Book Tours
Rating: 4 out of 5

It’s been a long time since Cassie Robichaud has felt desired. She was estranged from her alcoholic husband when he crashed his car and died five years ago, and they never really had a healthy relationship in the first place. Since then, her romantic life has sputtered and died.

So when Cassie spots two lovebirds at her waitressing job, it’s no wonder she feels pangs of envy. And when the woman leaves behind a little journal, can you blame Cassie for peeking?

Was I lonely? Yes, of course. But I was also slowly shutting down parts of myself, seemingly for good, like a large factory going dark, sector by sector. I was only thirty-five and I had never had really great, mind-blowing, liberating, luscious sex, the kind that notebook seemed to allude to. . . . At home, my body was a warm place for the cat to sleep on. How had this happened? How had this become my life?

Cassie’s curiosity leads her to discover a secret society, the mission of which is to satisfy the deepest fantasies of women like Cassie. (What luck!) S.E.C.R.E.T. aims to provide Safe, Erotic, Compelling, Romantic, Ecstatic, and Transformative experiences for the women who are selected to join. Cassie’s life, which had seemed so static, changes almost overnight, and she is set on an irreversible path to self-discovery and joy.

Talk about reading for pleasure!

I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Gray, but I have read a lot about it. This erotic story succeeds where Fifty seemed to fail: it chronicles the story of a woman who is empowered by sexual encounters with handsome, respectful men, showing sex scenes that are both titillating and safe.

The writing is decent, with a few well-worn cliches that pop up here and there:

Still listening to the conversation on the phone, he gave me a smile that only people born with charisma to burn know how to give. It literally changed the temperature in the room.

I’m admittedly new to erotica, and there was one ting that kept bothering me: I kept waiting for something bad to happen. Perhaps my tastes skew too dark, but usually in stories when it’s going well for the heroine, a dark stranger appears and destroys everything. Instead, a cheerful woman shows up and rebuilds everything. I couldn’t help feeling a sense of foreboding. When would the other shoe drop? When the plot does twist unexpectedly, then, it caught me off guard, which I always like–I love being surprised by a book!

Quote of Note: “[F]ear can’t be released without our permission. Since we ourselves generate it, only we can let it go.”

Interested? Read it for yourself! Purchase S.E.C.R.E.T. at your local bookstore or on Amazon (Kindle edition available).

I receive a very, very small commission when you purchase the book through the above links. Thank you for helping to support my site–and my book addiction!

Don’t just take my word for it. Check out what other reviewers have said:
February 4: Romancing the Book
February 4: Love to Read for Fun
February 5: RTBookReviews.com  Q&A/giveaway
February 6: From the TBR Pile
February 7: Passionate Encounters
February 11: Feeling Fictional
February 12: Smexy Books
February 13: The Romanceaholic  Spotlight/giveaway
February 14: Luxury Reading
February 15: Babbling About Books, and More!
February 19: A Chick Who Reads
February 20: Sara’s Organized Chaos
February 21: Seaside Book Nook
February 22: Love, Romance, Passion
February 25: Book Lovin’ Mamas
February 26: All I Want and More
February 27: Chaos is a Friend of Mine
TBD: Close Encounters with the Night Kind