cover image Crosstown Crush

Crosstown Crush

Cara McKenna. Signet Eclipse, $15 ISBN 978-0-451-47605-0

An incendiary visit to the world of kinky cuckolding kicks off McKenna’s (Give It All) new Sins in the City series. Married couple Samira and Mike Heyer, having indulged Mike’s roleplay fantasies of catching Samira with a more virile man, decide to up the stakes by placing an ad for someone to seduce Samira for real while Mike watches. The ad attracts handsome exhibitionist Bern Davies. Though the protagonists are barely sketched beyond their fantasy roles, McKenna satisfies the reader with scene after gloriously filthy scene of detailed play-by-plays and dirty talk, while also giving a real sense of the appeal of the cuckold dynamic for all parties. But the tension suddenly falls apart when the story takes a sudden, ineffective turn toward the romantic for Samira and Bern—and toward true jealousy for Mike. The character development comes too little and too late for this otherwise effective niche erotica. Agent: Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary Agency. (Sept.)