Monday 24 February 2014

Sapphire Blue by G. Doucette

"WARNING: DARK THEMES, EXPLICIT CONTENT"
My Thoughts:

Wow... Sapphire Blue by G. Doucette certainly goes off on an unexpected tangent. 

Have you ever dreamed of a looming catastrophe, where you are just an ordinary bystander watching the drama unfold around you? Imagine a train comes careening, too fast around a corner; you see the engine derail, leaving the tracks speeding to a place no train should go. Transfixed you watch, knowing disaster is coming. Knowing you have no hope of stopping the carriages with your bare hands and your shrill, panicked voice. And knowing all this, you still you cry out a warning and reach out in vain with arms that even if close enough would be able to push the barreling locomotive back on its course.

Sapphire Blue is like that. Argent is the train steadily loosing control; Mara is a passenger with no real inkling of her pending doom, and you the reader are the forever traumatised witness wishing desperately to push them both back on a course, towards something true and maybe a little safer.

Poor, poor Mara. Her life was so well ordered before the advent of Argent. At first, like so many relationships where a good girl meets a bad boy, the sex is all heat, excitement and raw passion. However Argent isn’t the hero of this tale, he’s not going mend his ways and become the man of Mara’s dreams. He is a sick @$&* with some supernatural shit in his corner, and Mara is the catalyst... the conductive material for a sexual experiment.

This book crosses into dark themes and scenes and the reader should be prepared.

For myself, I enjoyed the story. Yes, even the darkness and the controversy - though it did make me uncomfortable. Possession as a means of sexual exploitation is not a new concept in fiction. Dean Koontz has delved near to this topic on at least two occasions, using hypnotherapy in False Memory and chemical mind control in Night Chills. I would love to discuss this in a bookclub group one day. It would be interesting to analyse / philosophise / debate the difference between the act of giving consent, and supernatural possession creating the illusion of consent. 

Read this book and tell me who is the victim and who is the perpetrator, in all the many situations where you can find such identities. It won’t be as simple as you think. 

My Rating:
❀❀❀❀

Disclaimer:


I obtained an ARC from the publisher (via Netgalley) with a view to providing an honest review. The thoughts expressed above, are entirely my own. I don’t like the concept of rating novels as they are subjective to the moment. A five star book today, may be re-evaluated when compared to future novels.

The Summary:
Mara Cantor’s life is boring and uncomplicated, and she likes it that way. She has her internship at the museum—a job she shares with her roommate, Davis—and while it is low-paying and occasionally mind-numbing, it gives her all the free time she needs to finish her thesis. And that is just fine.
But when Argent Leeds, the internationally famous playboy and raconteur, visits Mara’s museum, he brings with him the most exciting archeological discovery in decades: the Pazuzu gemstones. Long assumed to be nothing more than a myth by most scholars, the gemstones are rumored to possess mystical powers.
Between Argent, his gemstones, and Davis, Mara’s boring life has suddenly gotten very complicated. Now she is caught up in a sexual adventure that is either the most exciting time of her life . . . or the most terrifying.
Available From:
About the Author:
Gene Doucette is an award-winning screenwriter, novelist, playwright, humorist, essayist, father, husband, cyclist, dog owner – and a few other things, too. He is, in other words, a writer. A graduate of Boston College, he lives in Cambridge, MA with his family.
Sapphire Blue is Doucette’s first foray into the erotica genre, and will be available for purchase in both paperback and e-book formats on February 27, 2014.
Connect with G. Doucette:
Other books by Gene Doucette
 

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