Not quite Stephanie Plum…

This is an enjoyable light read. At its heart the story revolves around the capture of a felon who skipped bail. But that is in fact, just a distraction, and the real story is about Kennedy and her fathers' new bondsman! But Stephanie Plum this is not!

There is plenty of humour and lots of madcap action, but the characters are not fleshed out sufficiently to really interest you. But it's a good read, and I look forward to the second book, which is part of the Kindle Unlimited package, as is the third! Well worth the investment. Enjoy!

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Not my cup of tea.

There are ups and downs in this book - no pun intended.

It is clearly written as light erotica or mild smut but that's no excuse for the plot being poor. The narrative suffers far too much from implausible coincidences and weak links between characters and areas. The prose is unnecessarily hyper-descriptive: no-one evers arrive in a car, they arrive in a red honda civic, they never wear shoes, they wear Jimmy Choos.

The main character is a strange mess of contradictions: War veteran, perfect shot and successful bounty hunter yet she becomes a clutzy damsel in distress at literally every given opportunity. She must have been 'rescued' more often than Princess Peach by the end of this. She describes herself as a badass but we never see that. She is an object passed from place to place rather than a active participant in her own life. Not only that but she's a single mother in her thirties who seems to act like a 12 year old by supergluing everything on a colleague's desk and sending naughty emails from their computer.

The main character's inability to grow as a person and take responsibility for her own actions and their consequences makes her fairly unlikeable as well as her weird inability to say 'God-damn' while still able to talk about 'fucking' and 'big cocks', which again makes them seem childish. It quickly becomes apparent why her ex left her even though I think we aren't supposed to sympathise with him at all.

On top of that the male supporting lead is something of a mary-sue (or the male equivalent thereof). He can handle any situation, is a great shot, is in incredible shape, gets on well with her kids and family, rides a Harley etc. etc. Yet we never dig deeper into him needing to ask her Dad for a job when he's out of work, nor his stalkerish devotion to a married woman for 18 years. People have flaws; to present characters as flawless makes them odd and detracts from the novel overall.

We are instead suppose to slip into causal misandry. Men are often ridiculed. There's regular discussion of male genital abuse (fantasies) and men are treated badly throughout. If you haven't been paying attention and want to know if a male character is 'good' or 'evil' just wait until you hear their height. Good love-interest 6' 4'', family 6', ex-husband 5' 10'' (I think), villain 5' 7''.

I know this doesn't really make sense in this sort of novel but I often found myself thinking in different parts that if the genders were flipped the reviews of this would be very, very different. If you tricked a female friend into a stag do and told the male partiers to do whatever they liked to her no matter how much she resisted or said no then you'd go to prison. Here it's a bloke at a hen do and played for a laugh.

It's a shame because some of this book is really, really funny and written quite well. You have to think that if the author had tried a bit harder with the plot and less with the description and mediocre smut there could have been a good erotic novel here rather than a loose collection of funny moments and erotic scenes.

The narration was good. I found a few of the female voices a touch squeaky but that might have been my headphones. I think the male characters were a bit similar sounding too which sometimes made it hard to separate brothers from father/uncles.

Luckily, the book is short enough that the lack of a plot doesn't hurt it too much. I think my review comes across as overly negative but it wasn't BAD it was a just a bit mediocre. It was written well enough and was a bit of funny, light-hearted fluff so if you are a fan of the genre then I'd say give it a go.

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not for me

What did you like best about Shame on You? What did you like least?

i like the strong woman and here work. i did not like the surealistisk stupid world and the sex

What was most disappointing about Tara Sivec’s story?

how stupid people was

Which scene did you most enjoy?

when they got there asiments

Was Shame on You worth the listening time?

no

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Overall

Great entertaining funny story but the narration was too rushed & too loud in fact the screams made me wonder about the health of my hearing at times

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