Title: The Perfect Whore
Series: Storm and Lightning: Book One
Author: Josephine Myles
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 200 Pages
Category: Sci-Fi
At a Glance: In spite of a personal niggle that threw the pacing out the window, there were many things to like about The Perfect Whore. I will be looking for the next installment in the series, primarily because I want to see what Myles does for Storm and whether she builds more into Jedd and Storm’s relationship.
Reviewed By: Sammy
Blurb: Being the object of everyone’s sexual fantasies ain’t all it’s cracked up to be…
On a mining colony planet a long way from Earth, bandit Jedd Lightning dreams of making enough money to get his ship spaceworthy again. During a robbery at a high-class brothel, he meets gorgeous alien rentboy Storm and is instantly smitten—but the heist goes south and Jedd has to high-tail it out of there with only half the loot.
Enslaved by a fierce Madam, Storm’s shapeshifting talents make him the most sought after whore on Talmak. He literally can’t stop himself becoming his client’s fantasy lover. Sick of enforced transformations, he wants to escape, but he’s closely guarded and has no experience of the unfamiliar city outside the brothel.
Storm is willing—and eager—to do anything to persuade Jedd to break him out of his gilded prison. Lucky for him the arrogant outlaw needs Storm’s help to free his crewmate, held as hostage by a vicious mob boss who wants Jedd to complete the theft he was hired for. Storm keeps blowing away Jedd’s expectations—but with both the law and the mob against them, they could end up with nowhere left to run.
Review: Josephine Myles has always been an author I admire and look forward to reading. Her latest release, The Perfect Whore, is a real departure from her normal fare, set in the future with both a sci-fi and paranormal twist to it that was pretty fascinating. The story revolved around two main characters, Storm and Jedd. Storm is a Chimericon, a creature that can change shape and sex depending on how the person they touch sees them, hence making him a perfect whore. The shifting, if done too rapidly and too often, is exhausting for Storm, but other than being abducted, raped repeatedly by his captors, and then sold to a high end brothel, Storm is doing okay. Yes, that was irony.
I really felt for this creature. He basically had no control over how he was seen by his client and changed form and sex to comply with their vision. What really broke my heart was his realizing he could barely remember what his true form looked like anymore due to the constant shifting. He cannot be with more than one client at a time, something his madam seems to understand but also uses as a threat to keep him in line. Interestingly the caveat here is that sexually, Storm also receives the emotions of the person he is touching and therefore almost always reaches climax with his customer. Sadly that made his story all the more painful to read. Basically Storm was living a hell unlike any others have ever experienced.
Jedd is essentially a thief who works for some rather shady clients. He doesn’t like the idea, but his ship is in serious need of repair and in order to get back into deep space he needs money to get it fixed. He takes on a job that finds him in Storm’s boudoir and threatening the senator Storm is with for information Jedd needs. It all backfires when Jedd sees Storm as his perfect lover and promises to come back to free him after he takes his booty to his customer—an evil and violent man named Charming Charlie.
Unfortunately, Jedd failed to also get the codes to the technology he’s stolen, rendering his booty useless, so Charlie takes his partner hostage until Jedd returns with the needed passcodes. Meanwhile Storm is unsure if he can trust Jedd to do right by him, or if he will be just another in a long line of people intent on using Storm.
There were many things to like about The Perfect Whore. First the whole idea of what Storm could do and trying to discover just what kind of creature he was became fascinating from the onset. Also, the pace and action in this story was relentless in all the good ways; it was a quick read primarily because it really hooks you in immediately and never lets up. I also liked Jedd in many ways and although he definitely had a softer side, he was also a businessman and that made him a bit smarmy as well. What I really choked at, however, was the idea that despite how much Jedd grew to like, maybe even love Storm, he never saw the true form of the creature. So, I hesitate to say that a real love relationship began to develop between these two, primarily because Jedd saw what he most lusted after rather than the real Storm. Meanwhile, Storm never felt a peace with Jedd, so the HFN ending was a bit tenuous to say the least. Be forewarned, this does end on a cliffhanger of sorts but not one that will leave you gasping or tearing your hair out with frustration. Instead, it’s just a few loose ends and plot points that never got fully resolved as well as the idea of what type of future Jedd and Storm might have with each other that hangs in the balance.
The second problem I had with this story was more a personal dislike than necessarily a real plot disaster. I simply don’t get it when characters stop to have sex in the middle of tense, life-threatening situations. When this happened I just rolled my eyes and felt as though the story hit a roadblock and threw the pacing out the window. Given that it occurred during particularly intense action scenes, I found it to be rather frustrating and unnecessary. In the end, it kept me from completely enjoying what was, until that point, a rather spirited and interesting read.
I will look for the next installment in this series by Josephine Myles, primarily because I want to see what she does for Storm and whether she builds more into Jedd and Storm’s relationship, i.e., seeing the real Storm as opposed to his fantasy lover. However, I am hopeful that the author also gives Storm a much needed respite from sex and time to reflect and heal from all the emotional and physical trauma he has already managed to survive. I think that if this happens, the reader will get a more genuine idea of what a true relationship will look like between our two heroes.
You can buy The Perfect Whore here:
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