Review: Sinful Surrender by Houston Havens

Title: Sinful Surrender
Series: Psychic Menage, #1
Author: Houston Havens
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Genre: Futuristic, post-apocalypse, fantasy
Content: MFMM
Stand Alone: YES
Re-issued /Re-edited: NO
Date published: March 17, 2014
Published by: Liquid Silver Books
Purchase links: LINK
ISBN: 978-1-62210-067-5
Word count: 108,000
Page count:

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Erotic romance author Houston Havens, a former successful model enjoying an adventurous jet-set lifestyle, intrigues her readers with a mix of the past, present, and future, and sexy blends of futuristic science fiction, paranormal fantasy, and western romance, always with love everlasting. A tenacious Irish lass filled with passion and mystery hopes her sultry stories will entertain and fascinate those who dare to take the journey. She’s also a social media junkie with an award winning blog.

Blog – Author page at LSB – Twitter – Goodreads – Facebook

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On the run, branded a traitor by her government, Fay Avalon has to depend on three brothers for shelter. Sinful Surrender is Book 1 of Houston Havens’ new romance series, Psychic Ménage. Why be tempted by one man’s seduction when you can be loved by three?

Top psychic spy Fay Avalon saw too much on her latest mind-traveling mission and is now on the run from her post-catastrophic dystopian government, searching for the truth and proof. She escapes but is shot down, landing in the arms of the enemy.

In Drakker and Arlo’s world, women are so rare the men have accepted a polyandrous lifestyle. When the brothers stumble upon Fay unconscious in the wreckage of an aircraft, they are immediately attracted to her. Arlo wants to keep her, but Drakker knows they can’t. They must take her to their brother Logan Abán, leader of their people.

Logan struggles with trusting anyone, even himself. When a beautiful, intelligent, and intriguing woman falls into their laps, his denied desires for intimacy challenge his need to trust the spy. He’s frustrated by romantic Arlo’s claims of her innocence. When pragmatic and dominating Drakker defends her as well, Logan refuses to trust his gut.

Can one woman satisfy the diverse desires of three men? Will Logan’s fears be realized by betrayal? Is Fay to be sentenced to death as a spy, suffer a fate worse than death by being returned to her government as a traitor, or will she find a new life and love as the wife of three sexy brothers?

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First time I read this author and I was very curious to read this story. A post-apocalypse futuristic menage is always rare. I liked many things and I truly think that it is an incredible first great romance for a new author. This said, it needs a little polish and I am totally convinced that next story will remove the little issues I found.

I thought the plot was totally fun to read. It started a bit complicated with tons of infos and it destabilized me a bit but I decided to skip all the prologue with many pages explaining the world, races, etc. I got confused and thought that I would learn along the way who was who. I did right because I never felt the necessity to come back to it n order to understand the story. So if you are like me, too much infos are not always good, then skip the prologue. I understand that the author had it all in her head and wanted to make sure that we understood her vision, but here, less details would have been better.

So it was a great plot. It was original. I never read one like that and that was truly great. I liked the diversity of races too. It was fun to mix human with fantasy and paranormal characters in a futuristic post-apocalyptic earth. Well done!

I liked the characters but some more than others and that bothered me. In real life, it is okay to fall in love at different pace with people. It is even logical and normal. I’ve never seen a person falling in love with two guys at the exact same time, having the same exact feeling either etc. It does not make sense.

However, in a romance, I expect it to be. The time I will spend on each character to know him or her, then to understand his or her feelings is important. If the second hero do not get the same amount of time, then I feel upset. Sadly this happened in this story. I enjoyed sweet Arlo, fell for yummy Drakkar and got annoyed with Logan. I understood why the heroine fell for the fist two but not the third who did nothing but save her from a bad situation. It was not enough for me to justify the attraction and the love. In fact, I felt he was the third (or fourth) wheel.

This reminds me two books I just read. One hero has trust issues. All three, including Logan here, are Doms, alpha male, with high temper etc. They were hurt in different ways but their past gave them scars etc. It is okay for a couple of chapters but when it is pretty much all the stories… nope. Therefore the romance was not totally perfect because of that. I like imperfect heroes not whinny ones.

I think all readers will fall for Drakkar. The perfect alpha Dom and lover. The story between Fay, the heroine, and him was totally hot and nice. I liked everything about him. This is the kind of hero I wish to find times two or three all the time…

I struggled sometimes with the credibility. Not much, just a little. Like how come the heroine does not know about water, trees etc when she is a mind-traveller and the best of them. Here and there, I thought “she should know, how come she does not?”. She was an experienced spy but acted like a little innocent girl who just came out of her covent. Her knowledge about sex also was like “uh?”. Like how she learned so fast about Shibari when none of the heroes showed her anything about it? But again it was not too often, just here and there.

So this is book #1 of a series from this author, Houston Havens. The epilogue left with an open door for book #2 which will be the menage story of her best friend. I think the friend heroine has more fire, so it will be fun to know her. I hope the heroes will have equal time and romance and sex. Regarding the plot, I have no doubt it will be fun to read!

This book received tons of 5-stars reviews. I am obviously in the minority but it does not mean that I do not recommend it because of it. In many aspects, this is a great story and I recommend it.

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