Molly Joseph is Vanilla? Maybe With Sprinkles and Chocolate Fudge. (Review)

Book: The Edge of the Earth

Author: Molly Joseph

Erotic Romance, Vanilla-ish with a taste of kink




Blurb:


Charlotte Rowe organizes messes for a living. She’s darn good at it, but her orderly and controlled life leaves her wanting more. When an aged linguist contacts her, needing her assistance to save her grandfather’s dying language, Charlotte sees an opportunity for adventure. But as soon as she meets Dr. Will Mayfair, the other linguist on the project, she realizes she’s in over her head. Her research partner is far younger and sexier than she’d been led to expect. As if that isn’t enough to shake her up, they are forced to work in a remote Caucasus village where local political tensions are on the rise. 

Charlotte and Will race to translate a rare document. 

But their work is stymied by the subtext of attraction whispering beneath every word they say. Then war breaks out and a tragic ordeal sends both their lives into a tailspin. Like the hero of the mythological tale they study, they are forced to battle for love and healing, and make a perilous journey back from the edge of the earth.


Yes, I will follow Molly Joseph to The Edge of the Earth and anywhere else her stories take me. Molly Joseph is Annabel Joseph's vanilla counterpart. Or as vanilla as an Annabel Joseph counterpart can be. Either way, sign me up cause this author can bring the heat both with the sexiness and the intricacies of the story itself. 


The Edge of the Earth is not a light story, which may be hard for some people to deal with. It might have triggers for some people. However, I thought that it was nice to see serious life situations being dealt with in a romance novel. Especially because it was dealt with in a realistic way that honored the love between the main characters, the culture of the Caucasus village where the story was set and how that affected the way the characters were treated by the locals. It felt authentic and rang true to how I would have expected some things to happen in that context. That's not to say that the story was predictable. There were some turns that the story took that I did not expect at all and it threw me for a loop, made me cry and turned my stomach into knots worrying about what was going to happen next!

What I love about this author is that I never feel the need to skip ahead to the sex scenes. The story is always so enthralling that I want to savor it and take my time and everything develops in due time and flows perfectly along. The Edge of the Earth is no different - the flow was perfect and the characters drew me in right away. Charlotte and Will's chemistry sizzled right off the page as soon as they met. They clashed, they fought and taunted, and they learned each other and developed respect, affection, eventually love... It was a beautiful progression. A pleasure to read. And, of course, the learning process included some intense lovemaking that ranged from playful to raunchy with a sprinkle of light kink to downright sappy, but always hot.

I give this book a full five stars and recommend it to anyone who likes romance, with the one caveat warning of possible triggers due to some non consensual scenes that were heart-wrenching. There's something here for everyone - the romance, the light touch of kink, an alpha hero and a tenacious, strong heroine who perseveres, strong storyline and if you enjoy other cultures and learning something new you get that here too. Read it, savor it, re-read it. And, let's be real, when I say savor, I mean try to stretch the book over at least 24 hours as opposed to blocking the world out completely and figuratively forgetting to chew...

Purchase Link:

amazon