Author: Cheryl Butler
Publisher: Little Bee Publishing
Available: Digital and paperback formats from 4th June 2020
Purchase Links:
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/32Zke3o
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3jOBmzw
Thank you to Emma Welton and Damp Pebbles Blog Tours, Little Bee Publishing and Cheryl Butler for my gifted eBooks copy and for having me on the blog tour for this book. My review is based on my experience of the book and any thoughts expressed here are solely mine alone.
Book Details:
Having responded to Abbie’s absence in his own inimitable style, an unexpected reconciliation sees Joe conflicted by a need to seek revenge and a need to seek gratification, but as he wavers between hope and hatred, an unlikely reunion throws all those involved into further turmoil, deepening wounds and threatening fragile minds. Battling for normalcy, accusations and revelations abound until a devastating discovery proves almost fatal. There are lessons to be learned and theories to challenge, but who is really responsible for the endless stream of fear and betrayal? Dark minds and dirty deeds will only cause destruction when obsession knows no bounds. Explicit – strictly 18+
My Thoughts:
The Course of Conviction is the second instalment in The Obsession Trilogy and it is a dark, dramatic and dirty instalment and utterly delicious and I enjoyed every page but the themes within the story will not be for everyone and reading a book that has explicit content sometimes causes dissension of the book, so consider yourself warned.
This is the second book in the series and you should not embark on its pages without having first enjoyed Cheryl’s first book – A Proclivity to Prurience; Obsession comes with a Price.
This first book introduces us to Joe and Abbie our protagonists and sets the frame work for their May to December relationship and the plot lines that are to drive the story both in this volume and in the second;
Joe is in his 20s, handsome, intelligent and intuitive and he knows how to seduce women and has a strong sexual appetite but sex is like food or drink to him. Merely a necessary part of his daily life and his encounters (and there are many) involve little or no emotional connection for him. Joe’s connection to Abbie has been years in the making, as a child his mother died in tragic circumstances and he was left in the clutches of a father, who was neglectful, abusive and perpetually drunk. His circumstances are permanently altered when he becomes friends with Eddie, who is Abbie’s son. They are peers at school and Abbie removes him from his father’s reach and raises him alongside her son. Unbeknownst to Abbie, Joe has harboured an obsessive, consuming, lustful desire to embark on a relationship that is beyond the boundaries of a familial one and it is this desire that drives his sexual exploits in adulthood.
Abbie is in her 30s, sexy, smart, loyal to her friends and like Joe her past suffering at the hands of both an abusive father and husband, colours her present actions and influences her own sexual preferences for younger men (usually in their 20s) and she too keeps these partners at an emotional arms-length. Both spend this first book engaged in their own sexual exploits and lives but still linked by Joe’s friendship with Eddie, they are magnetically drawn to each other and after a day spent at a wedding, they return to Abbie’s home under the guise of putting a wasted and drunk Eddie to bed. And finally Joe’s long held fantasies come true, he and Abbie have some pretty hot sex! But life is never that easy and their liaison is interrupted by tragedy, which leaves Abbie devastated, guilty and overwhelmed by a vortex of emotion she pushes Joe away and flees! Joe is hurt, confused and angry and embarks on a sexual spree of excess in order to survive her absence. Book one ends without resolution, where is Abbie? What will Joe do now!
Book Two opens with the return of Abbie, she and Joe are reunited in every way, with more vivid, raw sex! This instalment focuses on the revelations of long held dark secrets and the fallout that occurs, especially psychological impact on the emotions of our protagonists, both are damaged by their pasts and their current circumstances and they are caught up in a vortex of confusion, guilt, anger and misunderstanding punctuated by their voracious sexual appetites, all which makes for thrilling reading. So too does the plot development with some deft twist, turns and a few surprises! Which I leave you to uncover for yourselves.
What fascinated me about both these instalments is that is very easy to label these books as erotic and certainly they contain very lusty content (and there is nothing wrong in that) as sex is a large part of life. But these books are much more than a ‘wham, bam, thank you mam’ series. They explore unconventional relationships, the psychology of them with a clear understanding that relationships are messy, complicated and controlled by a myriad of emotional perspectives and how each individual views a set of circumstances is always very different and that view point will always impact their actions. So there is a lot more to be considered within these books than the label erotic novel belies.
These books also tested my own preconceptions, as I found it somewhat uncomfortable to consider the premise of a relationship where a younger man pursues, desires and captures the heart of an older woman. Which is ridiculously hypocritical because, I have had such a relationship and this hypocrisy is doubled because our societal norms completely accepts an older man being with a younger woman without qualm (obviously so long as all parties involved are consenting and above the age of consent) I would hope this would go without saying but just in case that isn’t clear, everything in these books follows these boundaries.
I thoroughly enjoyed both these books, they are gritty, raw, desperate, exciting and wonderfully inappropriate and I recommend that you read them for yourselves. So if you need to keep warm on these cold autumn evenings…a hour or so in Abbie and Joe’s company will certainly raise your temperature.
P.S. Cheryl please type faster as I am dying to know what happens in Book 3
Happy Reading Bookophiles.
About the Author:
Cheryl Butler: Having worked in a variety of industries, Cheryl has met many interesting people and, with a profound interest in what makes them tick, she has spent a lifetime of asking ‘What would I do in that situation?’ and ‘What if things happened this way?’, creating a multitude of plots and twists that she had always dismissed until one story line nagged her constantly and she decided to alleviate herself of the burden, committing her ideas to virtual paper. Assuming she would run out of steam five chapters or so in, she amazed herself by writing two novels within a year and A Proclivity To Prurience was born. It was difficult to write, given the themes, but Cheryl felt it was a story that would resonate in the current climate. Writing between a part-time job and raising two young children was a task in itself, but, every spare minute was spent doing so or thinking about doing so and her characters took on a life of their own.
Cheryl loves character-driven tales with a psychological edge and aims to produce that kind of work herself, and she’s not afraid to tackle issues that some may find difficult… other than horror – she can’t read or write horror as she scares far too easily!
Aside from writing and her family, Cheryl’s greatest passion is music and she can easily lose herself in a favourite album or song, rather like she does within a book she’s writing or reading, and a musician’s ability to move you on any level is pure genius.
Social Media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cherylbuts
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cherylbutsauthor/
Website: https://cherylbuts.wixsite.com/cherylbutlerauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cherylbutsauthor/
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