Nothing to Lose: A Lesbian Romance
By: Clare Lydon / Narrated By: Gabrielle Baker
Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
If you prefer your stories to have not a whole lotta tension, and quite a bit of sex…
Yup. I did it again—I went and chose a romance without reading the reviews and now, AFTER I’ve listened to the whole thing (Cringing a few times), I discover some reviewers were THRILLED with all the sex scenes. Now we all know I’m a verrrrry embarrassed prude (I mean, who wants to cop to something like that? Seriously, I should just get over it!), so naturally I’ve just gotta say up front: You want the sex scenes, the gasping, the curiosity, the sweat and moaning? Here you go.
Nothing to Lose is NOT the most intense as far as that goes, however, so let’s get on with the story (As my toes slowly uncurl…). Scarlet is a 30-something kinda sorta loser; she’s cut herself off from friends, hasn’t been doing much in the way of career, or in the way of creativity: A bad breakup some time ago has left her wary and pretty much a curmudgeon. Enter the flood that will upend and devastate her life and her flat. The city has to open floodgates to manage rising waters, and in the weeeee hours of the morning, a pounding on the door from a policeman is the signal that she’s got 30 minutes to get everything that means something to her, and get out.
This is where we first see that Scarlet can go back on her word, seeing that she’s judged people harshly when they all played: What stuff would be most important to you? At the time, she’d scoffed that property could mean anything, but now? It means a whole heckuva lot! She grabs some items and dashes to a community shelter but, overhearing that some people had been assigned openings at the town mayor’s house, Scarlet decides she’s really not into sleeping on the floor and wrangles her way into Mayor Joy’s house.
Joy is the young mayor, the young attractive mayor, the young attractive mayor whose marriage broke up cuz she sorta came out of the closet to her husband.
And things go from there.
When Scarlet sees floodwaters swirl through her block, inundating her building, therefore her little basement flat also, the sturdy and stalwart young woman breaks down and weeps uncontrollably, only to be comforted and cuddled by the lovely mayor.
Then Scarlet spends the rest of the book breaking down about this that the other. Joy is always supportive. Their mutual attraction grows until it leads to bouts of passion after Joy fesses up that she’s a lesbian. And we get many a scene of undying lust. But I’d just listened to The Bride Test recently, so my toes were pretty much alREAdy curled up from all the mating that went on in THAT book, so I guess I was actually pretty inured to the whole sex run amok thing, but not toooo terribly amok. I’ve heard waaaaay more graphic, and what I liked was that author Clare Lydon backed up the romance and sex with genuine getting to know each other.
There’s really no tension, though narrator Gabrielle Baker has dramatic tones, especially when reading the angst-ridden Scarlet. And things come to a head when, after only a bit of romping, Scarlet deMANDs that Joy come out of the closet Right NOW! I mean, for gosh sake: The woman is a public figure; give her a break. Especially as they hadn't spoken anything about commitments and the like (And with all of Scarlet’s kvetching about her destroyed flat and her ruined stuff, I’d take a step back if I were Joy…).
But Joy has a single conversation with her ex, and everything is okey dokey. Not only that, there’s actually a scene where the two women sit down together, and it’s an, “I’ve got good news!” And, “I’ve got good news too!” And EVERYthing is wrapped up with bright and shiny ribbons, even small subplots. Now, I do so love a Happily Ever After, but this was a bit much. Plus, I thought Scarlet started getting whiny and demanding and possessive, like, immediately.
Dunno, but run, Joy, run!
A sweet romance with nary a bit o’ tension to be had despite the dramatic opening of a life destroyed by a flood. Quite a bit of in-depth sex, but all in all it was backed up by good old fashioned story and relationship development. The narration was a plus. But still…
Run, Joy! Run!
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