Viv Bennet’s self-esteem is at an all-time low; she’s just been dumped by her boyfriend who, in his own words, was “forced” into an affair because Viv is “so dull.” In that frame of mind, she’s surfing the ’Net one night when she decides to check out a site a friend recommended, one which allows viewers to post their own erotic writing. Viv reads some entries. She decides she can write as well as some of those, and she rounds up an old story she wrote and posts it.
In a short time, she starts getting comments, and one in particular, signed by the mysterious
“S” intrigues her so, she replies. “S” is verbally fluent, flattering, and charming on the computer screen, and before she realizes it, Viv is answering him, and looking forward to his replies. “S” makes Viv feel alive again, and that perhaps her worth as a woman is more than she herself has come to expect. He’s actually courting her and she’s allowing it, and without their actually meeting, these two people are falling in love. And then, they decide to meet…
MY OPINION: Where to start…? It’s not often a story actually hits home but this one certainly did. It’s an erotic story to be sure, but in many ways, it’s also a very sweet love story…of a woman and her Prince Charming in this day of impersonal, Internet connections. Rose Anderson’s tale touched me because I met the man I love online, and though we never got as graphic as Vivienne and S, we chatted, we met, and we stayed together until he passed away.
This was one story I didn’t want to put down until it was finished because I had to know, without waiting for another night to pass, whether Viv and “S” would meet and what would happen if they did. Would he be as she envisioned him or would the real man be a disappointment after the way her mind had painted him? Knowing the quirks of writers these days, I kept expecting there to be some twist at the ending, that “S” would turn out to be a fifteen-year-old boy or a serial killer or something just as devastating. Without giving a Spoiler, let me say that attentive readers will spot that one sentence telling them how the story’s going to end. Look for it, but if you don’t find it, it doesn’t matter. You’ll enjoy what happens anyway.
An excellent story. A lovely story.
Hermes Online is available from Siren Publishing, www.SirenPublishing.com
This novel was supplied by the author and no remuneration was involved in the writing of this review.
