{"id":33632,"date":"2013-06-13T10:04:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T00:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=33632"},"modified":"2016-03-01T09:46:07","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T23:46:07","slug":"the-secret-lives-of-emma-beginnings-a-guest-review-by-bestselling-author-rachael-johns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2013\/06\/13\/the-secret-lives-of-emma-beginnings-a-guest-review-by-bestselling-author-rachael-johns\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Lives of Emma: Beginnings – a guest review by bestselling author Rachael Johns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bestselling author and voracious consumer of romance Rachael Johns gives an insider’s perspective on The Secret Lives of Emma: Beginnings<\/em><\/a> by Natasha Walker<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before I start, I must admit, I haven\u2019t read Fifty<\/em> Shades of Grey<\/i><\/a> or any of the supposed spin-offs and had absolutely no inclination to do so. I read 100 pages of Grey<\/i> because I thought I should \u2013 it sold bucket loads and as an author it would\"\"<\/a> have been good research to work out why \u2013 but I honestly couldn\u2019t go any further. Erotic romance has just never been my thing. \u00a0So, I\u2019d never had any inclination to pick up The Secret Lives of Emma<\/i> series either. There were just too many other books on my TBR pile. I like a hot sex scene as much as the next person in a romance, but I\u2019m more there for the romance than the sex.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And then a couple of weeks ago, I read an article online about the true identity of Natasha Walker,<\/a> author of The Secret Lives of Emma<\/i> and suddenly I was interested. You see, I\u2019d recently met John Purcell, the author behind Natasha, at the Australian Romance Readers Convention and I was gobsmacked!!! Seriously, I would NEVER have picked this. I was really curious to see how John wrote from the point-of-view of a very sensual female and ordered the book (from Booktopia<\/a>) immediately.<\/p>\n

The Secret Lives of Emma<\/i> begins with Emma Benson (32), a bored housewife, studying while sunbaking in her backyard. It is immediately apparent that she is an erotically-charged woman and has a past her husband is unfamiliar with. She\u2019s longing for more excitement in her life, but in particular her sex life. She\u2019s happy with her husband, David, who is apparently very good in bed, but she needs more. To quote the book, \u201cShe was a sexual glutton, but, like any good diet, her diet required variety.\u201d While Emma loves David (or so she says, we don\u2019t actually see much of this relationship), her views on marriage do not match those of the general public and thus some people might find her a distasteful character.<\/p>\n

Personally, I liked Emma (although it took me a while to work this out) and I enjoyed the book. I\u2019m sure there are plenty of people in \u2018real life\u2019 like Emma but I enjoyed the book as a fantasy. I found Emma\u2019s daring and that of her young lover exciting and shocking all at once.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

BUY<\/p><\/div>\n

There are really only two characters in Beginnings<\/i> \u2013 Emma and her 18 year old neighbour, Jason, whom she decides will be her project. She will teach Jason to be a good lover and reap her own pleasure in the process. Jason is an interesting<\/p>\n

character \u2013 he is the perfect son and student but Emma lures him into her torrid world and she becomes his focus above all else. There\u2019s mention of Emma\u2019s husband, her other lover Paul and a teenage girl who is after Jason, but they take up very little page space. The story is all about Emma and her illicit affair with her neighbour\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

BUY<\/p><\/div>\n

Maybe it is the illicitness of the situation that helps the chemistry leap off the page from chapter one. Although at first I wasn\u2019t sure I liked the idea of an affair between world-wise Emma and innocent Jason, I found myself turning the pages as their encounters heated up, desperate for them to consummate their affair. Jason develops more as a character than Emma \u2013 changing from a naive and guileless, albeit hot, school boy, into a man aware of his needs and the power they can have on him and others. If I had any complaint about the novel, it would be that there wasn\u2019t a deep emotional connection between the two lovers, but that didn\u2019t stop me being invested in them and their story.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t compare The Secret Lives of Emma<\/i> to other books of this genre, but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be ordering buying books two<\/a> and three<\/a> ASAP! It\u2019s an easy but clever read and I\u2019m desperate to know what happens next in the life of naughty Emma.<\/p>\n

\n

Rachael John is an English teacher by trade, a mum 24\/7, a supermarket owner by day, a chronic arachnophobic, and a writer by night. She rarely sleeps. Rachael lives in rural Western Australia with her hyperactive husband and three mostly-gorgeous heroes-in-training. Rachael is the author of<\/em>\u00a0 Jilted, for which she won the Australian Romance Readers Award for Favourite Contemporary Romance,\u00a0 and <\/em>Man Drought, both of which have been bestsellers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bestselling author and voracious consumer of romance Rachael Johns gives an insider’s perspective on The Secret Lives of Emma: Beginnings by Natasha Walker Before I start, I must admit, I haven\u2019t read Fifty Shades of Grey or any of the supposed spin-offs and had absolutely no inclination to do so. I read 100 pages of Grey because I thought I should \u2013 it sold bucket loads and as an author it would have been good research to work out why \u2013 but I honestly couldn\u2019t go any further. Erotic romance has just never been my thing. \u00a0So, I\u2019d never had any inclination to pick up The Secret Lives of Emma series either. There were just too many other books on my TBR pile. I like a hot sex scene as much as the next person in a romance, but I\u2019m more there for the romance than the sex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4,91,9,24,58,62],"tags":[1824,1980,2879,3885,4400,4765,5923,5924,5925],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56860,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33632\/revisions\/56860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}