Giveaway, excerpt, and review below
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A Beautiful Struggle
by Lilliana Anderson
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Self/Indie
Release Date: January 1, 2013
Heat Level: Steamy
Word Count: 64,000
Katrina Mahoney has a very full life attending university to study a law degree, training for triathlons and now she is working part time as well. She couldn’t possibly find time for a relationship, especially after her last one ended so catastrophically.
Right now she is content focusing on work, study and training while hanging out with her best friend David Taylor, a womaniser with a heart of gold that would do anything for Katrina – except watch her get hurt again.
That is, until the dashing Elliot Roberts, a junior solicitor from her work, shows an interest in her despite their office’s ‘No Dating’ policy.
Katrina struggles with following her heart or following her mind and has trouble seeing where her heart truly lies.
Warning: This title is intended for readers over the age of 18 as it contains adult sexual situations and/or adult language which may be considered offensive to some readers.
Guest Post
Sex in Romance, at what point does it become Erotica?
For those of you who don’t yet know me, I am Lilliana Anderson, author of A Beautiful Struggle, A Beautiful Forever and Confidante: The Brothel and I’m your guest blogger for today. Thank you so much Megan, for having me!
Now I’m the first to admit that the sex scenes in all of my novels border on the explicit side, it’s one of the first things that get mentioned in a lot of my reviews. I often wonder though, at what point does a fairly sexually explicit romance novel become erotica?
Is it the details in the scene, or the frequency of the scenes? Now I have read some wonderful erotic romance novels and then I have read others that make me want to rush to the bathroom and wash my eyeballs out because I could never unread what I just read. So based on my own experience I would think that it’s a little of both.
I ask this simply because I feel the need to put an explicit content warning on my novels to warn people about the highly descriptive sex scenes but I don’t feel that my scenes are either frequent enough or perhaps explicit enough to warrant me categorising them as erotic romances – although perhaps I’m wrong.
Excerpt
Elliot was already there when I reached the sports bar, leaning up against the wall outside it looking at his phone. He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt. His hair was sticking up and messy from sleeping - he looked positively delicious.
The corridor we were in was pretty quiet so the clack of my heels could be heard as I walked towards him, alerting him to my presence. He stood up properly and gave me the most brilliant smile I have ever seen on him. It made my chest swell, and I impulsively started to run to him, jumping into his arms as he captured me in a passionate kiss that had me melting on the spot.
He broke away and smiled at me, brushing my hair out of my face. “I was dreaming about you when you called me,” he murmured.
A little ripple skittered through my stomach and shot down between my legs. “Good dreams I hope,” I purred, leaning into him.
“Let’s get out of here, and I’ll show you”
Review
I loved reading A Beautiful Struggle. I loved it but I also hated trying to get my mind past the crappy dialogue.
Reading A Beautiful Struggle reminded me a lot of a teenage version of Bared To You.
When I started reading A Beautiful Struggle, I thought Katrina and Elliot were adults. And I believe they still are, but they were portrayed as children behaving as adults. At least that’s what I thought as I read through these pages. Katrina is living with her parents for crying out loud! And David, who is also a major character, is also living with his parents, and they feel like they have to report to them every day! God forbid if they spend the night at someone’s house like Katrina does quite often….but only on the weekends.
Another sore point for me was the fact that Katrina seemed highly upset about work gossip with her co workers ( talking about her work relationship),who were also acting as if they were in grade school with their catty remarks.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading Anderson’s latest after fully disassociating from how the characters speak and act. One major hurtle overcome. The sex was great though, I’ll give Lilliana that BUT she could’ve pulled a bit more sexual tension off the page, and I think that was due to more telling and less showing.
Overall, A Beautiful Struggle is a good one to pass the time with on a rainy Sunday.
A Little About The Author
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Australian born and bred, Lilliana Anderson has always loved to read and write considering it the best form of escapism that the world has to offer. Besides writing Angelien's biographical trilogy, she also writes contemporary romance and drama all set within Australia.
When she isn't writing she is a wife, and a mother to four children. She has worked in a variety of industries and studied humanities before transferring to commerce/law at university.
She currently lives a fairly quiet life in suburban Melbourne.
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Thanks for having me Megan!
ReplyDeleteOh! and I was just thinking about your review and how you didn't understand why Katrina and David both still lived at home - It's because they are both still at University. In Australia, we don't have big Campuses with Dorms, they are simply really big schools that are very accessible by train line, so the vast majority of Aussies live at home until after Uni is over.
ReplyDeleteHope that helped :)
Lilli xoxox
I knew it had to be a cultural thing but I wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing that up! I'll be sure to revise my review before I put it on my other review sites.
ReplyDelete