Miss Chatterley Trilogy

 Miss Chatterley, Part I: Hungry
Miss Chatterley, Part II: Dirty
Miss Chatterley, Part III: Torn
Miss Chatterley, Part IV: Spent
by Logan Belle
Published by Pocket Star
Genre: erotica; romance; chick lit
Thanks to edelweiss for the previews
3.5 / 5 (for each and the series as a whole)

For some reason - and I'm looking at you, Christian Grey - authors seem to think in threes. Now, this is all fine and dandy when you have three books to write about within one series. But it's problematic when you have one good book and spread it out into three separate ones. We saw this in The Fetish Box trilogy, which ruined what could have been an entertaining book by splitting it into thirds. Perhaps we blame the publisher for wanting to squeeze as much financial gain as possible. Really, it doesn't matter whose fault it is. It must stop.

And so we come to Miss Chatterley, which dips a toe into that turgid stream.

A warning: this review is for all four parts and contains spoilers. Read ahead at your own caution.

If you read the D. H. Lawrence classic, then you have some idea of the premise. Bored wife (in this case, girlfriend) seeks sexual stimulation in the arms of a man who is not her husband (in this case, boyfriend).

In Logan Belle's retelling, Connie has followed boyfriend Cliff out to Silicon Valley, leaving behind her beloved New York, as he starts up a Twitter/Facebook sort of website called ... wait for it ... Chatterley, which happens to be Connie's last name. Cliff is focused exclusively on his project, leaving Connie feeling neglected and lonely.

Come on, kids. You know what neglected and lonely mean in romance and erotica novels, right? YES! Sexy times!!

Enter personal trainer Oliver, all muscled brawn and studliness. Before you can say "workout," he has Connie feeling sated and flush, if not a little bit guilty. But hey. Cliff is nowhere to be found, and when Connie does make a move, he has what you might call performance issues. Paging Cialis!

Oliver is all sex, oozing it like melted chocolate over strawberries. In addition to fantastic orgasms, he gives Connie something Cliff just cannot: attention. He focuses on her with such shattering intensity that she practically climaxes just from the way he looks at her. D. H. Lawrence would be impressed.

Meanwhile, Connie's sister is in the throes of relationship issues herself, preferring the company of a married man to one not so encumbered. She even tells Connie to go ahead and throw down with the hottie. In another subplot, Cliff's assistant takes a shine to a potential investor, and those two have some really hot - and I mean SCORCHING - headboard rocking. In fact, in the fourth one, the two (plus a comely companion) enjoy the best sex scene of the series.

Throw in some corporate intrigue, and there is your plot. Stretched quite thinly over four - count 'em, four - volumes.

The thing is, Logan Belle has a good erotica outing here. Her sex scenes are well done with just the right amount of detail, and her characters are interesting enough to keep you hooked. The problem is the story. There just is not enough of it for different books. Combine them into one, and you have a much stronger novel.

But this isn't about literary merit. It's about sex scenes and cash. At 99 cents a copy, you can splurge and buy all four, and you'll want to, if for no other reason than to get to that threesome in the last installment.