Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon

It might sound like a man's favorite fantasy - to live forever, destined to be the lover of thousands of women. But for Julian of Macedon, it's a nightmare. Once he was a proud Spartan general, now he's a love-slave, his essence magically held captive in a book, cursed to spend all eternity pleasing women. Then, one day, Grace Alexander summons Julian to fulfill her passionate dreams - and sees beyond the fantasy to the man himself.

Long years as a sex therapist, listening to other people's bedroom problems, has taken a lot of the fun out of the physical side of love for Grace. She's remarkably understanding about Julian's situation - and that's disconcerting for all concerned. With or without sex, the rules of the enchantment cannot be changed. Julian is hers for the next month. And, as their time together slips by, Julian and Grace find more to share than sympathy and conversation - and they begin to wonder if love might be within their grasp. That leaves only one question. Is love enough to break a 2,000-year-old curse?

I have read nearly all of this author's books writing under the name of Kinley Macgregor, but this is the first time I have tried any of her Sherrilyn Kenyon books, and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. The reason why I picked this book up now is that The Book Bitches have selected five of the books from the Dark Hunter series of books as their books of the month for October and November. The five they chose were:

Night Pleasures (no. 4 in the series)
Dance with the Devil (no.7 in the series)
Night Play (no. 10 in the series)
Seize the Night (no. 12 in the series)
Dark Side of the Moon (no. 15 in the series)

Now, if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you will know that it would just about give my poor overworked heart a coronary if I just picked my way through a series like that, so I started at the beginning!

The funny thing is that when the girls provided us with the list of books in the series, they said about this book "You can skip this, worst in the bunch". Now either the other books in this series are going to be exceptional, or we have different taste in reading because I really liked this book...well, most of it anyway.

I'll start with the one thing I didn't like. Grace Alexander...sex therapist. Sex therapist who seems to have only had one sexual experience, and that one wasn't good. Sex therapist who has intimacy issues! Someone in one of the groups I was in said that this character seems to be quite common, particularly in contemporaries, but given that I read so few contemporaries, it isn't one that I was familiar with. I did find it quite unbelievable though, especially with the crazy stalker that was introduced.

Which is quite strange that I should say that Grace's character is unbelievable, seeing as Julian is the son of a Greek God, immortal warrior cursed by a jealous minor god to spend eternity stuck in the pages of a book, only being released occasionally to perform sexually for whichever woman calls his name three times.

The only way to break the curse is for Julian not to sleep with a woman from Alexandria (and luckily having a surname Alexander is close enough to satisfy) and then to join her on the last night of their time together for about 6 hours without losing their physical connection. Sound easy...well, kind of. Except that the torture for him will nearly send him insane. In the meantime, he teaches Grace how to receive pleasure without having sex, in some very hot scenes!!

With appearance by various Greek gods, with their petty arguments and long held grudges, this book was a lot of fun. To be honest I am not exactly sure how this fits in the series but I guess I will find out!

I also read the short story called The Beginning that gives the start of the Dark Hunter series. It didn't do much more than whet my appetite, but I definitely will be reading more!


That leaves just one more thing for me to say:

Julian of Macedon, Julian of Macedon, Julian of Macedon.







Did anything happen?

Maybe he's still walking from the train station.

Rating 4/5