From all the glowing reviews, I had to read this book TWICE to make sure I wasn't confused. Same cover, same book - vastly different takes.
As a reader too used to heroines who are strong and self-assured, and frankly I prefer them that way, 'Fetish' was like a nasty kick in the gut. Truly, the only saving grace was the hero, Violenti D'Arco, an extremely sexy and wealthy vampire who runs a private sex club called 'Fetish' where NOTHING is off-limits. He finds his soul mate in the most unlikely and unappealing heroine I've ever come across.
This supposed "heroine", Aerin Peters, was every comprised of nearly every bad fat-girl-gets-skinny-and-suddenly-everybody-who-ignored-her-now-thinks-she's-hot trope that I'd thought with the advent of e-publishers and authors who went against the grain to write about feisty full-figured women had long since died out. Aerin was forty-seven, going through menopause, mousy, a virgin (huh?) and works as a typesetter (job which allows her to be invisible) and just bascially sounds like some old lady who lives alone with a thousand cats.
In all fairness, women do indeed go through issues of body image, but in romance/romantica - the idea is that no matter what the size or what we look like, we should be able to love ourselves fully first before anyone else can. Maybe I've been too influenced in real life by feisty big women like Queen Latifah and Mo'Nique to have much sympathy for a character who seems to whine as incessantly as Aerin Peters does.
The first chapter of the book was torture as sad-sack Aerin goes through her mediocre-by-choice life, eating her bland luch, bemoaning the fact that she's fat, boring and supposedly unlovable. There's no spark, no *anything* to her that indicated to me as a reader that perhaps this was just a bad hormone day, and when she finally comes across a flyer advertising the club'Fetish', I'm frankly surprised that someone like her would have taken a chance, much less spent the sum of five-thousand dollars to have her every fantasy indulged.
I was also put off my the so-called 'transformation'. That suddenly after a few visits to 'Fetish', Aerin becomes more 'normal'and acceptable as a romance heroine. She loses weight, gains curves in all the right places and gains more confidence. I just didn't buy it and honestly felt the whole notion of needing a man to re-create a sense of self-love/self-worth didn't belong and left a bad taste in my mouth. And even in spite all the changes which everyone around her notices, Aerin simply cannot give up her cherished victimhood as undesirable fat girl.
The saving graces of the book:
1. The Cover: Come on, what's not to like about a naked Violenti wearing nothing but hair and vinyl fetish boots with buckles (I've been trying to find a pair of those myself)?
2. Violenti as a character was the more fascinating and multi-facted of the two (not difficult considering) and dare I say extremely patient. His background, how he became a vampire and the leader of the Clan of the Violent Dark was interesting and I would have loved to have read more about that.
3. The Erotic scenes between himself and Aerin were tender and hot at the same time, and there's was a sense of Violenti celebrating and embracing the body Aerin already has and while reading them I hoped that Aerin would finally wake up and smell the roses.
It is for these reasons alone that I'm giving this book 2-Stars. To say I was highly disappointed would be the understatment of the decade.