Private Pleasures

This story deserves a much higher rating than the five I am giving it here. Wow just WOW and I have to say I am still shocked and I am still sad and I am still angry at all the Jeff's out there that can and do stuff like this to their wives and kids. To the Heidis out there stop being shores and work on not stealing other women s lives. But most importantly thanks to the Carlas out there who are the real meanings for the word friendship. Again I loved this story.

A good story. A cautionary tale. Jeff definitely had it coming. Nora was naive, but Margo definitely played a part in her naivety. Jeff and Nora were both playing their public parents, but neither had a clue about their private parents. Nora is making sure she teaches them what she never knew.

The fantasy of a TV channel only for women is farfetched but one most women would relish, especially in the romance department. Nora Buckley's husband wants a divorce and intends to leave her and the children penniless. Nora, with the help of the Channel's owner Nicholas, tries to set things right. Bertrice Small writes a very decent romance set with a good plot and lots of sex. The characters are interesting, and definitely a good read for women of all ages. I recommend all her Pleasures books.

Nora Buckley didn't see the end of her marriage until Jeff asked for a divorce. She also didn't count on him draining their accounts, having the kids sign over their college funds, and sell the family out from under her so he could buy a co-op for his new squeeze. As Nora wallows in self-pity, her friends let her in on a little secret - "The Channel" - where for $3.95 charge to your cable bill, you can experience a fantasy night in a twist of virtual reality. She indulges and soon decides that her fantasy life is more rewarding then her everyday existence, especially once she grows a backbone and starts to stand up to her bossy soon-to-be-ex-husband.The plot is interesting, but the execution is kind of lukewarm. Small has been quoted as being the granddame of romance, and her dialogue shows it. With the exception of Jeff, who is so unlikable and a complete cliché of the overbearing husband, the dialogue just rings like it is straight out of a circa-1950's romance, with wisps of graphic street language tossed in. Despite that, she has created a story with a very atypical plot (and loaded with sensuality), making it stand out in a sea of formulaic romance novels (though I detested the end - Nora should have risen above the muck).

I have to be honest and admit the previous "erotica" books I read have been down right naughty, dirty, some even hard core wow!However it does get boring and predictable after a while.Then, a friend told me about this book and I gave it a try. At first I was like "Where's the sex?"..but then I realized I was enjoying the story. I was enjoying the character development, the fantasy of a almost perfect world of the friendships she had minus the terrible husband who wants a divorce. So to me this had a story along with really really good sexy parts. I read some other comments and some people say it's not like Smalls other books, but I enjoyed this book. I would recommend it to friends. And now Small has gained another fan, I just bought 2 other books of hers right after finishing Private Pleasures.

Great book series

I generally enjoy Bertrice Small's novels because she delves further into romance and sexuality in her books than other romance novelist I've read and I can appreciate that she has written books set in the modern age however; this book was a bit much. The kind of person who would fully enjoy this book would be a dominatrix...I am not a dominatrix. I could not appreciate how the men, particularly the leading man (if you can call him that), had been stripped of their manliness by the women entering into The Channel. I especially didn't like on one occasion how the leading female character put the leading male in an uncomfortable position by proposing he perform an intimate request that wasn't to his liking (or mine). There were several times I wished the men in The Channel had have told these women to go to hell (If you read or will read the book, you'll get the implied joke stated here.) It is clear toward the end of the book why these men were subject to this type of treatment but I say let a man be a man, let him retain his masculinity. I enjoyed the plot outside The Channel better than I did the romance aspects of the book because of the improprieties of the leading female character when she crossed over into her fantasy. I suppose if you're the type of woman who wants to control a man and make him do what you want him to do than this is the novel for you.

While the writing was okay and the sex scenes steamy enough, the premise of the whole book was hard to buy into. I just couldn't really get into it. The whole time I was thinking, "through the tv!?" Don't get me wrong I love to read about fictional worlds and things that can't really happen, but the author just didn't make this "universe" seem real enough for me.

Great as always

Brilliant book

If you are already a fan of Ms Small's previous work then no doubt you will enjoy this book. If you are a BS-newbie, I wouldn't if I were you. This was the first BS I have read and it will definitely be the last. The storyline was virtually non-existent - the book is merely an excuse to sell reams and reams of unemotional, graphic sex with a few characters you don't care about enough to like thrown in as a necessity. Personally I read only a few chapters of this book before I flicked through to see if the rest of the book was exactly the same. Subsequently I decided to quit and donate it to charity - I certainly wouldn't make anyone else pay the amount I did for this huge disappointment. I'll be going back to Linda Howard, McNaught and Lowell. At least they know how to write real stories as well as romance that is actually romantic. Romance readers should keep away - romance is the one thing this writer *doesn't* seem to touch on.

delicious and loved it. she is a hot writer and i love her books.

If only this place existed in real life!