Quick review: 'Restraint' by Charlotte Stein

Title: Restraint
Author: Charlotte Stein
Publisher: Xcite publishing
Genre: Erotic romance
Length: Short story
Source: Bought

Description: Mallory is certain that one of her friends – handsome but awkward Artie – hates her guts. The last thing she wants to do is go on a luscious weekend away with him and a few other buddies, to a cabin in the woods. But when she catches Artie doing something very dirty after a night spent listening to her relate some of her sexcapades to everyone, she can’t resist pushing his buttons a little harder. He might seem like a prude, but Mallory suspects he likes a little dirty talk. And Mallory has no problems inciting his long dormant desires.

My thoughts: I've heard Charlotte Stein reccommended as a good romance author, and when I saw this was just 99cents on amazon, I thought I would give it a try. It's a short story, so there's not much to say, but Ms Stein manages to acheive a lot in a short space of time. I really got a feel for the two main characters - they felt fully fledged very quickly and I was curious to see how these very different people could end up together.

Mallory really doesn't like like Artie - she thinks he's stuck up, and he always seems disgusted with her, and unwilling to even talk to her. She finds her mouth runs away from her sometimes, saying crude things that she later regrets. Early in the story, though (even if everything is 'early' in a short story) after just such an incident in front of her friends and Artie, she discovers that he isn't cross for the reasons she thought, and in fact doesn't object to her dirty talk at all. It was quite interesting to read a female character being the one to initiate most of the sexual encounters in the story, and the one to do most of the dirty-talk, and it makes things quite interesting.

I feel strange rating such a short story. I did enjoy it and the characters, I just wish there had been more - I felt like there could have been more of their story shown. It works as it is, but I didn't want it to be over so soon. So I think I'm going to give it 6 out of 10, and I'll definitely be looking at other things Charlotte Stein writes soon.

~Ailsa