The Pleasures of Summer

The Pleasures of Summer 
by Evie Hunter
Published by Penguin
448 pages
Genre: erotica; BDSM
Thanks to the publisher for the preview
4 / 5


Earlier this year, I read Evie Hunter's The Pleasures of Winter and enjoyed it a whole lot. Well, I enjoyed the sex scenes a whole lot. The plot? Fine, serviceable, whatever. Those sex scenes, though. Yum.

The Pleasures of Summer is not a sequel, so don't go into thinking you'll learn what happens next in Abbie's and Jack's saga. This one is more of a variation on a theme, specifically sexual domination.

Our hero is Flynn Grant, a burly Scottish soldier now working in private security. He is somewhat atypical for literary Doms in that he is not wildly wealthy and does not appear to live in grand splendor. He receives a job order: he must protect bratty society girl Summer (yep ... you're going to read about her pleasures) O'Sullivan from threats to her safety. Summer's dad owns an airline that has been targeted for revenge after a crash, and fears run amok that Summer will be used. Someone clearly is out to get her; she receives several threats and there was a kidnapping attempt.

Summer doesn't want a bodyguard, even if it is masculine ball of testosterone Flynn, largely because she has a secret interest she wants to pursue. Summer is drawn to the submissive lifestyle, even though she knows very little about it. She's trying to sneak off to an exclusive club so she can learn more and discover if this is what she truly wants.

Well, guess what, Summer. Good old Flynn here is a Dom! And he'd like to show you the ropes, as it were.

The two wind up in an isolated cabin in the north of Scotland, and, well. When you've got a man oozing sexual promise and a woman tense with sexual curiosity, you know there will be some serious headboard rocking.

Sure, Flynn is conflicted. Summer is a job, and he's not one to mix his personal and professional lives. She's just so darn attractive though, and so willing, and so open to instruction. In one particularly squish-inducing (and you know exactly what I'm talking about, girls) scene, Flynn guides Summer through the oral pleasure process.

The story gets occasionally repetitious, but that's because it's somewhat too flimsy to stretch over 400+ pages. The sexy times, though, are outstanding. Evie Hunter knows her way around describing headboard rocking, and she will leave you panting. As for Summer and Flynn, they are capably written. Summer is a rich girl with brains, and we understand her frustration with being treated like an imbecile, just as we recognize (as does Summer) that some of her problems are of her own making. Flynn is not as well rounded; Hunter gives us an occasional glimpse into his military background, but we know very little about his path to becoming a Dom. What we do know is that he's a very good bodyguard in every sense of the word.

I look forward to the next installment. Will our pleasures be Spring or Fall?