Sugar

by Seressia Glass

November 3, 2015 · Berkley

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This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Koni. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Erotic Romance category.

Here is Koni's review:

Sugar is a novel about Siobhan Malloy, a 35 year old woman who co-owns a cafe/bakery with her best friend in a small town. And that’s where the cliches end.

Siobhan is unique – she’s a recovering addict who has fought hard for the normalcy she has now. She also dances in a burlesque show as a hobby and likes to stand out with her retro sense of style. Charlie is a younger man, a business owner who pitches Siobhan on a business deal and sparks ensue. Siobhan is part of a gang of 4 girlfriends who are prominent in the story and function as Siobhan’s found family. And Charlie has a sparkly family that plays an important role that I don’t want to spoil.

Overall I really liked Sugar. The setup teased me with so many beats of what makes me lean hard into a book: a heroine older than the hero, two people competent and happy in their careers, long and smokin’ hot sexy times, and found families. I mean – so many yummy bits. So the fact that after Chapter 2, I was REALLY turned off I offer as a warning.

Yes, it got much better, but for me, the over the top and Uber-Alpha way Charlie is introduced was not my cup of tea. I found him initially inappropriate, patronizing, and annoying. He gets better, thankfully, but not because of personal growth that is part of the story, but because he seems to fundamentally shift as a character. Even when I got to the end of the book, I couldn’t reconcile the Charlie of the first 2 chapters with the man I really ended up digging by Chapter 5. So I took some points off for what I would call inconsistent characterization of him.

The other main issue I had with the story was the unevenness of the plot action. Seressia Glass is doing something really hard here – she’s got two main characters with tragic pasts that both appropriately inform their boundaries and difficulties with each other – all the while moving the plot forward with internal and external conflicts related to both of their families. It’s a lot to juggle in an erotic romance that also has some excellent, extremely hot, well-paced love scenes. The author succeeds in pacing the personal growth of the characters and their relationship well, but the external conflicts with their families feel very off, timing wise. The amount of stuff with Siobhan’s family that happens in the very last section of the book felt like a whirlwind that really needed much more space to develop. This leaves the HEA feeling literally patched onto the end. It’s odd because we get a lot of time in Siobhan’s thoughts, ruminating on her family troubles, and the way they eventually enter the story didn’t quite sync up for me.

Having said all of that, I really enjoyed getting to know Siobhan and Charlie, and was totally rooting for them. Their chemistry builds wonderfully and I love the way Glass can give us a great and satisfying sex scenes, keep them in character, and still show us how much emotional work they both have yet to go to fall in love. Although I love my erotica, my pet peeve about the genre is the unearned intimacy of the couples through sex. Glass uses the sheer physical chemistry Siobhan and Charlie have for each other perfectly, and doesn’t short cut the emotional work at all.

I want to take space to appreciate how Glass handles Siobhan’s addiction history and current status as being ‘in recovery’ for life. Siobhan feels relatable and I personally appreciate that this character didn’t have a tragedy-bigger-than-you-could-ever-imagine to become an addict. Glass deals honestly with how much damage Siobhan wreaked in her addicted phase and how those wounds never go away. She also acknowledges how this changes a lot about how Siobhan lives her life now (e.g. no medication for pain, ever, no matter what) and the judgement that people with addiction continue to face. Glass does all that, and yet the addiction feels like a part of Siobhan, but nowhere near all of her. It’s exquisitely well done.

I definitely recommend this book for lovers of erotic romance who like a good dose of emotional work and complex characters (Hello “Nature of Desire” Series fans). I am definitely going to go back and read the first book, Spice, in the series, and look forward to the stories of Siobhan’s friends.