Fifty Shades Darker by EL James

I have to admit, I was curious. What was the hype about the Fifty Shades Trilogy by debut author, E.L. James? I decided to buy a copy. Alas, I did not realise that I had bought the second book in the series.

Although the second book in James’ trilogy does link to the first, first-time readers can follow the story-line easily enough without reading the first book in the series. Not that it is a complicated book to understand. It is, after all, Mills and Boons on steroids.

The sex scenes did not launch straight away as expected. The reader has some time to reconnect with Ana Steele and her love interest, the tormented Christian Grey.

Christian Grey is wealthy. He buys the company Ana is working for. The reason? He has control issues and wants Ana. Badly. Ana stamps her little feet and tries to gain some form of independence. His strange sexual preferences and her innocence are not enough to keep them apart. They fall in love. But, more than that, they have a lot of sex. They cannot keep their hands off each other.

 Fifty Shades Darker is about dominance and control. There are some lessons about love.

But I suspect this is not the reason why people are buying the book.

The erotic scenes are good. The story-line keeps the book from becoming a porn story. The problem is that the climax was premature (excuse the pun). The minor climax scenes after the main suspense left me feeling a little … umm … deflated.

 

Reviewer:  Ulrike Hill

Score: 3/5

Published by: Arrow Books 

ISBN: 978-0-09957992-2

Review Date: 4^th July 2012
The above review first appeared in The Bluestocking Review (Facebook).