Lick Me by Janet R. Berg

Lick Me by Janet R. Berg

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Lick Me was an odd read that left me a bit confused on how to review it. The book itself is well-written and I enjoyed how the author took Maggie (and the reader) through different parts of Australia and Bali. Several of the scenes were described so well that I could imagine actually being there. I suppose you could say that Maggie’s story is told in two parts and this is perhaps where I have difficulty in my review.

In the first part of the book, Maggie has moved in with her mother in order to take care of her due to her declining health. While the opening of the first chapter confused me at first because it felt as though I was reading stage instructions, once I realized that it was being told from someone else’s perspective I settled right into Maggie’s tale. The author does a nice job of presenting the story through Maggie’s memories, musings, and observations, as well as emails between Maggie and her brother, Andy. Living with her mother and hanging out with her mother’s friends often sends Maggie into her own imagination and the woman has some seriously steamy daydreams. When she and her mother move into a smaller house, Maggie begins to feel as though she’s being watched and her suspicions are confirmed in the most startling of ways the first time she brings a man home with her. Thus begins her sexual relationship with Bert, a man who died in the house decades earlier. This part of the book actually threw me for a big loop because there was nothing in the blurb indicating that there were paranormal elements in the book. And while the scenes were undoubtedly erotic, more than once Maggie had thoughts that would send me off laughing – my favorite being how she questioned how the ghost’s fingers could be so long. Seriously? You’re having sex with a ghost and your concern is the length of his fingers. I will admit that I found Maggie’s easy acceptance of a spectral lover surprising, especially when in an email with her brother she states that they never believed in such things before. But the woman was enjoying her orgasms and Bert was providing them in abundance. This part of Maggie’s story was actually a good chunk of the book and I must confess that I found the way in which she moved on from Bert to be a bit too neat and rather anticlimactic considering the events that led up to their separation.

Maggie’s time post-Bert was a mixed bag of sexual explorations, the first of which had me shaking my head as to why? I really didn’t understand why Maggie would seek out William after running into Tim again – a man she purports to be the one who got away and that she’d like to see if there was something there to pursue since they’re both single. And considering that she had just shook off Bert, William made even less sense to me. I suppose this is the part of the book that was meant to fulfill the erotic sexual journey, but it just felt out of place considering what Maggie had been through and where she seemed to be headed. As for the rekindling of her relationship with Tim, I don’t even know what to say about that. All was well and sweet in the land of Tim and Maggie, until it wasn’t – and it really, really wasn’t. And now for my soapbox moment. At the very end of the book Maggie makes plans to get tested and hopes to be STD and HIV free. Until that moment I had given her the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the author didn’t write condom usage into the later sex scenes (because she didn’t need them with Bert) so as not to ruin the flow of the story. This is not uncommon in erotica. But when Maggie worried that she may have been exposed to an STD, I was perturbed. By my estimates she was in her late 40s or early 50s. She was not a child. She has grown children who have had their own children. She should have known better and that line really, really ticked me off. Stepping down from the soapbox. Lick Me was an enjoyable read with a whole lot of steamy erotic scenes and just enough story thrown in to let me connect with Maggie. It was an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours, even if I had to suspend belief more than I expected to when I began the book. Oh! By the way, American readers – fanny does not mean the same thing in Australia as it does in the US.

I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Reviewed by Angela at Crystal's Many Reviewers!

Check out the Lick Me by Janet R. Berg blog post on Crystal’s Many Reviewers.


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