Romance #Review: It Stings So Sweet by Stephanie Draven

It Stings So Sweet

by Stephanie Draven

Published by Berkley Trade

Heather’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars 

They vibrated with incendiary Jazz. They teemed with sexual abandon.
The Twenties were roaring and the women—young, open, rebellious, and willing—set the pace and pushed the limits with every man they met… In the aftermath of a wild, liquor-soaked party, three women from very different social classes are about to live out their forbidden desires.

Society girl, Nora Richardson’s passionate nature has always been a challenge to her ever-patient husband. Now he wants out of the marriage and she has just this one night to win him back. The catch? He wants topunish her for her bad behavior. Nora is offended by her husband’s increasingly depraved demands, but as the night unfolds, she discovers her own true nature and that the line between pain and pleasure is very thin indeed.

Meanwhile, Clara Cartwright, sultry siren of the silent screen, is introduced to a mysterious WWI Flying Ace. If Clara, darling of the scandal sheets, knows anything, it’s men. And she’s known plenty. But none of them push her boundaries like the aviator, who lures her into a ménage with a stranger in a darkened cinema then steals her jaded heart.

Working class girl Sophie O’Brien has more important things on her mind than pleasures of the flesh. But when her playboy boss, the wealthy heir to the Aster family fortune, confronts her with her diary of secret sex fantasies, she could die of shame. To her surprise, he doesn’t fire her; instead, he dares her to re-enact her boldest fantasies and Sophie is utterly seduced.

One party serves as a catalyst of sexual awakening. And in an age when anything goes, three women discover that anything is possible…

Book Savvy Babe’s Review:

The “Roaring” twenties.  Such an intriguing time period, and one I don’t often have the opportunity to read about.  When the opportunity to read and review “It Stings So Sweet” came up, I was very curious and excited to read about the romance in this new-to-me setting.  The book blurb doesn’t really do this book justice.  I was pleasantly surprised to find It Stings So Sweet much more erotic than I had anticipated, and the characters more daring and sensual.

There are three parts to It Stings So Sweet, three separate stories that loosely tie together.  Each of the stories focus on a couple and each couple has to come to accept their proclivities and sensuality to embrace each other and be together.  The stories are all set in the nineteen twenties, where women were still repressed, but pushing for more freedom and acceptance.  In the stories, the women learn to open more to their desires and natures, and their men help give them the push they need to accept those desires.

Each of the couple have their own proclivities and kinks, and all of those kinks push the boundaries of propriety.  Each story is erotically charged and driven, but I was able to understand the characters and their motivations.  I appreciate that Stephanie Draven wrote about characters from different class and society backgrounds, an heiress, a hollywood starlet, and a shop girl are the three main women.  Each of the women have their own hurts and confines, but they each have needs that push their boundaries.  Leo and Clara’s story really stood out for me.  It felt the most developed of the three and is my favorite.

As I said earlier, It Stings So Sweet is erotically driven.  It is a very hot read and I love the idea of the setting, but I could have used more plot to tie the story together and to understand the setting better.  Erotic romance readers will likely enjoy It Stings So Sweet.  The eroticism is balanced by the romance and the books is all together a really good read.

*Be sure to check out my Interview with Author Stephanie Draven*