Any Way West
The set-up of ANY WAY WEST is quick, Jake and Trey are in New Mexico to find a venue for scenes in a movie and happen to come across the ranch of Jake’s teenage crush, Carly Wright. The chemistry is still burning between the two of them and Carly, after a two year dry spell, is more than ready for some erotic play with not one but two attractive men. The agreement is easy; steamy passion, fun and no strings attached.I love a good ménage story so when I was offered a copy of ANY WAY WEST I was eager enough to start reading. The saying that popped in my mind various times reading was; Two is company, three is a crowd. From the start it was almost like Jake had an aversion to Trey being there in the erotic setting with him and Carly. Perhaps it was also due to the dynamic between them that I got this feeling. Jake West is intense, blunt, Alpha with a bad boy image and loves his sex rough. Trey Barnes is casual, charming, fun loving and he doesn’t mind being the wingman to Jake. In some ways this could’ve delivered a great dynamic but I felt Jake overpowered Trey in his need for dominance in the bed room and Carly’s heart.
Carly is an artist with an open minded and passionate nature. Her carnal happiness was the focus within the ménage trope. The easy writing voice and rapid flow of the story allows the heat and lust to ignite fast which was spine tingling erotic. I personally enjoyed the bed scene the most that was both sexy and hot. Eliza March has a knack for delivering scorching body heat between her protags but I’m afraid in ANY WAY WEST the cons outweighed the pros. The novella held plenty of steamy sexing but not enough character development for my taste to get connected to them and this made it hard to let the romance work for me. The trust issue of Carly holds a minimum of development, the agreement of no strings sex play was emphasized by doing just that, and a preference whom Carly wanted to be with gradually revealed.
The characters didn’t come to life for me, they fell flat and I didn’t care very much whether Jake and Carly would get their romance to a happy place. At a certain point in the story Trey allows Jake to easily dismiss him from a sex scene and at that point I liked neither men very much. Jake for being an arrogant jerk and Trey for allowing it. Even if a ménage is just for fun each participant should be an equal in the whole of the ménage and I just didn’t get that aspect in ANY WAY WEST. The ending delivered a final let down with a matter-of-fact proposal that made my jaw almost drop to my e-reader in astonishment.
I’m afraid ANY WAY WEST by Eliza March wasn’t my kind of ménage, and this was largely due to my lack of connection to the characters. I know not much in my review is positive but I think if I get a story with a different set of characters Eliza March can deliver a pleasurable erotica I can enjoy to the fullest!
