Book Tour for Brazil by Kenya Carlton (Review & Guest Post)

Today we bring on the action and romance in a story reminiscent of a movie thriller.  Brazil by Kenya Carlton is full of life and death situations and a big cast of characters.  So keep reading to learn more about this book as well as the writing of the all-important sex scenes in a story.....

Sex, Sex, and More Sex:

How much sex in a book is enough?  Too much sex makes the reader feel as if there is no plot and too little makes the characters seem as if they’re not that into each other.  In the day and age of Sex and the City mentality, what is the limit?

Candace Bushnell ushered in the era with Sex and the City where the main characters screw a lot and with several different men sometimes at the same time.  This is not the way of the romance novel, especially historical romance. Back in the olden days, more than one suitor would get the heroine burned at the stake, which give us the only one solution, erotica. A genre that allows anything to go anywhere as well as the plot which often times goes straight to hell.  I think most people just want candy for the mind and to get lost for a little while which makes erotica touchy in its execution (no pun intended); a fine line has to be established; otherwise, it’s just porn.  In other words, Shakespeare is not invited into the world of erotica and if he was he would be forced to wear a cock ring while being well versed in the language of cunnilingus.

Chicklit allows women to own their sexuality and have more than one man within the plot line.  Women libbers should be proud of the wiggle room chick lit provides their main characters.  I’m pretty open to any good read, but I must admit some of the chick lit I’ve perused comes up short where the down low dirty sex is concerned and most the time glosses right over it.  I find the lack of details strange but not that strange because for the most part mainstream fiction doesn’t want people to cheer for the loose-moral harlot.  Those bitches may be dangerously close to breaking the glass ceiling while getting lots of good luvin like their male counterparts, and nobody wants that.

And that leaves us with romance.  Romance wants one woman, one man, and a happily ever after.  Is that realistic?  Not at all, but that’s not the topic at hand. We’re talking about sex and most romance books allow 2-4 sex scenes, anything less or more is too little or too ridiculous.  Quickies and make out sessions don’t count but depending how they are done, these tools can help the books’ love meter spike upwards toward hot. Smokin’ hot is only reserved for penetration which means the characters have a couple more times to do it before it becomes old hat.

Charly Beaudliar has fooled many powerful men.  Completely discounted due to her good looks, she makes for the perfect spy.

Unfortunately, FBI agent Leo Santos finds out the hard way that he can’t make the beauty do anything she doesn’t want to.

In desperate need to capture and destroy a man who obliterated his childhood, Agent Santos tries to enlist the femme fatale for help on a life-threatening case, a request Charly reluctantly fills. 
Together, heady emotions collide on a mission that not only jeopardizes their hearts but also their lives, but Leo is determined to put his past to rest, even if it’s with the help of a woman he doesn’t trust and is not entirely sure he even likes. 
AWOL from their bureaus, Charly and Leo are forced to rely on each other in order to right the wrongs from his childhood and catch one of the world’s biggest drug czars.  With no room for mistakes, these two agents must squelch the soul-stirring chemistry between them in order to come out of the mission alive.

MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE BOOK:

Brazil has a lot going on, almost too much at times. There's two separate storylines, but both of them hinge on the theme of revenge with each of the main protagonists struggling to reach their goals.  This kept them apart for long segments of the story though and made their relationship seem very superficial.  The few times Charly and Leo were together they were either bickering or having sex. Through each interaction there was plenty of sexual tension though.  From the crackling verbal foreplay to the sweaty sexual interactions you could sense the one upmanship that they both took part in which didn't allow them to get to know one another.

The action scenes throughout the story were exciting with a strong sense of life and death.  They were gritty, bloody, and didn't always end well.  Along with the story of Charly and Leo came the story of Lydia and Carlos.  Lydia was raised by the drug dealer who killed her family and has been tortured both mentally and physically by him ever since until his second-in-command, who has secrets of his own, decides to save her.  This was the hardest part of the story to read with the brutality done to Lydia.  Carlos was her knight in shining armor and I would've loved to have their story be the sole focus as the emotions were definitely evident between them.  Their story was gutwrenching and ended in an unexpected way that left my jaw on the floor.

There's a large cast of secondary characters that overwhelmed the story at times and added even more action to an already overloaded story.  These characters would flit in and out and you'd forget their names and relationship to the main characters as soon as they left. Streamlining the cast would have helped the overall story by cutting down on the distractions.

The writing was strong with an exciting storyline and memorable characters.  Streamlining the cast of characters and having more interaction between the main protagonists though would have amped up the romance and made for a more satisfying outcome.  No matter its few flaws, Kenya Carlton has written an exhilarating story that will bring me back to her books time and time again.

My rating for this is a C+

*I received this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

AUTHOR INFO:

Kenya has a B.A. in Mass communication, Television and Radio. She has fifteen years in production of television and film and five in television engineering. In 2009 Kenya Produced Dawn a short film and Executive Produced Destination Everywhere the pilot for a travel series through her production company Black R.O.K Productions established in 2008.

http://kcbookcafe.com/