New Leaves, No Strings by C.J. Fallowfield

So that was sex, I liked it, I really liked it, thought Mia Page as she tried to recover from an Olympic worthy orgasm. She looked into the vivid blue eyes of sex god Gabe Austin who was still holding her up against her bedroom wall and she also thought shit what have I gone and gotten myself into? Why would anyone only want sex no strings with this guy?

Best friends Mia and Lexi start University and make a pact. Tainted by their pasts, they're going to try and get over their commitment phobias. Mia's going lose her virginity with hot, no strings attached sex. Rebellious Lexi's going to try ditching her one night stands and attempt to have a relationship.

What Mia didn't count on however, was Gabe Austin, confident and irresistibly gorgeous, who quickly inserts himself into her life. Inextricably drawn to each other, their desire soon leads to a passionate encounter. Gabe's fears of abandonment and domineering attitude, combined with Mia's own fears of attachment, threaten to derail his attempts to win her heart. Despite her reticence, Gabe Austin's a guy who is used to getting what he wants and he's determined to make her his and his alone. Just as he seems to have won Mia around, he goes and does something that could ruin everything.

This is a debut full length fictional novel for C.J. Fallowfield and combines erotica, romance and humour.

It is the first in The Austin Series, six books in total, which are designed to be read in sequence.

I’ll just start off this review by saying that perhaps, maybe just a little bit, I was not the target audience for this book.  I mean, I enjoy erotica as much as the next girl, but I’m also a seasoned erotica reader and to me, this story fell flat for several reasons.

Mia is 18 and a virgin (yes, it’s a virgin story) and has just left for college with her best friend Lexi.  She has kept men at a distance her entire life, since she suffers from abandonment issues with her own father.  On the first day of college she meets Gabe, and the sparks fly.  She finds that just having a sexual arrangement with someone who wants more is a lot more complicated, and difficult, than she thought it would be.

This book has a lot of sex.  And when I say a lot, I’m talking way more than the average read.  For me, I’m afraid it fell into the trap of sacrificing plot for sex.  I, a romantic pervert, found myself skimming the sex scenes because they were so numerous and repetitive. 

I did enjoy the basics of the characters in this book, and the dynamic between them, but I really wish there would have been more character development, followed by plot development, that would have invested me in the characters more often.  This is, however, the first book in a series, so I will give the rest of a series a go and see if, perhaps, there’s more development to the story and characters as we go further along.

Overall, this book was a weird mash up of NA and erotica.  The characters, while in college, seemed very young, and as mentioned, the story was just ok.  I’m interested to see if this series actually goes somewhere.  3 stars.