The Switch was a really bad book. I absolutely loathed this book. I knew five pages in that this book was going to be boring and, in that aspect alone, I was not disappointed.

The book was excessively repetitive on topics that weren't really all that important to the story-line. An example is Beth's continuous grief over Dennis. I get it. This was set two months after 9/11 and he had supposedly died when the World Trade Center collapsed. It would be reasonable for a person to grief and to obsess over the loss of their friend in such a traumatic way. But it didn't seem like she was even mentioning it as part of the grief. It seemed like a ploy by the author to make Beth more sympathetic. The same goes for Sean's character with the continuous rehashing of his dead wife's aneurysm and stroke history--and how it was so horrible that she didn't want to have sex with him because of how extreme her pain was. There was never any real depth added to Beth and Sean's feelings toward Dennis and Tiffany.

There also wasn't any depth to the feelings between Beth and Sean. They used one another to act out fantasies, ones that had already been described in depth. One chapter spent more time describing Beth's fantasy (in a sort of "flashback"/italicized way) of having sex with a conquering hero than it did on Beth doing anything in real life. Sometimes it seemed like there was more time spent by the characters masturbating about their fantasies with one another than they ever actually spent with one another.

It's also worth noting that the fantasies themselves were really, really awful. Beth had a fantasy of conspiring with the Germans against the French Resistance during World War II, which would then lead to her kidnapping and rape by the Resistance, which would turn into a D/s sex scene. Yes, a white author wrote a biracial character having a fantasy that involved helping a government that preached vehement hatred of anyone who wasn't 100% white. Though Hitler technically named Japanese persons "Honorary Aryans", there were still laws against inner-marriage and there were still potential acts of discrimination perpetrated against them. That made that particular scenario more than a bit disturbing. Several of Beth's fantasies dealt with potentially racist ideas.

This is one of those books that after you read it, you want to take a shower--and not a cold one. It has a very high ick factor which, when combined with it's very high boring factor, makes it practically unreadable. I would recommend finding something else to read. ( )

3.5 stars ( )

This book by far is the hottest erotic romance I have ever read! It doesn’t matter if you are only curious about BDSM or you’ve done more than your fair share of swimming in that pool; you will LOVE this tale! Two lovers from different backgrounds have a chance meeting that evolves into an erotic weekend of exploring the hero’s sexual limits resulting in one hell of a perfect union. What more could you ask for?

What really makes this story unique is that the Heroine takes the lead and teaches the Hero more than he ever bargained for. Girls--- this is one book that you will have no problem getting your man to read. The Hero is an ex-special operations soldier who is all male and depends on his military training and experience in life so his character will “speak” to even the “manliest men” who wouldn’t normally read “chick lit.” And girls… the Heroine is a headstrong woman who straddles two diametrically opposite cultures and manages to find that balance between both worlds; her character is dynamic and intelligent with a strong sexual self image. To top it all off this tale is full of open communication and erotic fantasies shared between both characters so it’s never “just about the sex” it’s all about pleasure, erotica, sensuality, and eventually love. ( )

It purports to be "romantic erotica," but while there is a romance of sorts, and a HEA, it's obviously just there to form a backdrop for a multitude of D/s sex scenes. Some of them were pretty good, but mostly they were rather boring, particularly without having a solid emotional attachment to the characters. The BDSM Scene details were obviously well-researched and seemed forced, and the dialogue stilted & scripted. Though that could just be because that level of formality/artificiality isn't my kink. And I admit to being irritated because I couldn't quite believe in a romance based solely on whether he conformed to her narrow definition of what she wanted sexually, with love an unconsidered afterthought. The military details at the beginning of the book, though, were perfect. ( )