Review: Christina’s Tapestry by N. J. Walters

I needed a break and I wanted pr0n, so I decided I would finish this book since it’s been languishing half finished in the bowels of my TBR for a long time.

Title: Christina’s Tapestry
Author: N. J. Walters
Genre: Fantasy erotic romance
Grade: C-
Reason for Reading: When I first got into ebooks, I subscribed to Ellora’s Cave’s chat loop. N. J. Walters was a frequent poster, and I’m sure she posted an excerpt, and I was intrigued enough to decide I wanted to try her out.
Synopsis taken from the Elloras Cave website: Christina Beaumont impulsively buys an expensive tapestry that she sees in a shop
window, having no idea how that one action will change her life. The magical tapestry
not only transports her to Javara, a world that resembles medieval Earth, but also
into the arms of two massive warriors who both want to claim her.
Jarek and Marc, Brothers of the House of Garen, are elated to discover the tapestry
has delivered Christina to them. Women are scarce in their world, so the men of a
family must compete for the right to be her husband. But before she can choose, Christina
first has to experience the lovemaking of both brothers, separately and together.
Jarek and Marc use all their considerable sexual skills to pleasure her in ways she’s
never imagined.
But the tapestry also offers another choice. Christina could return to her own world.
Jarek and Marc join forces to convince Christina to stay with them even as they fight
a rival family for the right to keep her as their very own.

My Thoughts: This is not the worst menage story I have ever read. No, that honor goes to something written by Rachel Bo, which was about some guy reuniting with his two former lovers after finding out that his son was happily experiencing the menage lifestyle thanks to having had a book of his own. Anyway, I started this book shortly after I finished that one, and was not favorably impressed enough to continue, and have basically put off reading menage books since then, although Lisabea has convinced me to give Samantha Kane a chance. Anyway, my main issue with the idea of menage stories is that I don’t always buy the character dynamics and, having actually known polyamorous people in RL and done a fair bit of research on the topic, it’s the sort of thing about which I probably unreasonably expect some realism.
Realism, sadly, is not something that occurs with any real frequency in this book. The characters are out of central casting, from Christina, who practically wears a neon sign shouting, “I am a placeholder for you, the reader!” to her suitors, Jarek and Marc. Jarek is the big, tough bad boy, while Marc is the charming rogue, although Marc’s charm wore off when at one point he thinks something like, “Jarek might have had her mouth and pussy first, but he would be the first to take her ass.” (It was this point which pretty much made me abandon the book for months until I came back to it tonight.

The writing is equally wooden throughout, and it actually got to be something I noticed after a while. There was also a fair bit of showing and not telling, such that I couldn’t follow the thought processes that allowed Christina to decide which man she was choosing. I also found the sequel-baiting far more noticeable here than I prefer, given that the story is fairly short. And the menage thing wasn’t really resolved to my satisfaction either. A solution was broached, but it wasn’t one that I personally would have been comfortable with, and so I can’t imagine any character being OK with it.

There were moments that did work for me. Christina, despite not being the world’s most memorable character, at least doesn’t spout off pop culture references every five seconds. She also does the right amount of WTF-ing at the situation into which she’s been thrust. The sex scenes were also pretty tittilating, although after a bit I thought they got a tad repetitive.

Overall, though, I don’t think the fantasy fulfillment aspect of this story quite makes up for stilted writing and poorly drawn characters. I have been told there are better menage books out there, and I think it would probably be better to find one of them.