the frat boy coverRating: 4 stars
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Length: Novel

 

Madison Perry can’t help her competitive streak. So when her sorority makes it to the final of the Greek Week tournament, and the fraternity competing against them cheats, Madison is angry. And she is absolutely outraged when no one believes her about the cheating. Madison can’t help her ire; she has been through this exact situation before, in far more serious circumstances. Before she knows it, Madison ends up starting an all out mud brawl with frat boy Colin Novak, after he makes a rude remark. The fight leads to them both getting kicked out of their respective fraternity/sorority and Madison finds herself with no money and no place to live just a few months before the end of the school year. She can’t go to her parents, so before she ends up homeless, Madison decides to answer an ad for a job at an adult film company that comes with housing included.

Madison has never worked in porn; she has barely even watched it. But after her boyfriend of two years cheated on her, she can’t help but feel like she wasted those years of college, missing out on a chance to explore more about her own sexuality and fantasies. The chance to work for Petal Productions is an opportunity for Madison to experience things she has only dreamed about. The one problem? The other new actor they hire is none other than her nemesis, Colin Novak. Madison wants to balk, as she can barely tolerate Colin. But when Colin makes clear he is willing to go along with the test sex scene between them, Madison refuses to back down. And she finds herself quite surprised that despite the fact that she can’t stand Colin, the sex with him is hotter than she could have ever dreamed.

Like Madison, Colin was kicked out of his housing and he needs money and a place to live. And like her, there is no way he can tell his parents what happened. So working in porn seems like a great solution. Colin is not happy to end up working so closely with Madison, but he can admit he finds her incredibly hot. And working for Petal Productions means that the two end up doing a lot of scenes together. Not to mention, they live together, along with the company owners and two other actors. It takes a while for things to thaw between Colin and Madison, but when they finally accept their feelings for one another, it makes the sex all the more intense. The pair finally seem to have landed on solid ground, with a place to live, a job they enjoy, and a partnership that they both love. But when trouble comes, both through a fellow student, as well as from the neighborhood HOA, Madison and Colin may find everything they built is at risk.

The Frat Boy is the fourth book in Nikki Sloane’s Nashville Neighborhood series. While we do get some quick appearances or mentions of other characters from the series, this story stands alone totally fine and I had no problem starting here. Before I go too far, just a bit of explanation on the dynamics of the story. I would describe this book as a male/female romance with some female/female sexual exploration. The ultimate romantic pairing here is between Madison and Colin, but Madison is also clear that she has a sexual interest in women that she wants to explore as part of her work for Petal Productions. There are several explicit scenes where Madison has sex with fellow actor and housemate, Abbie (either alone or with one of the men). It is very clear that Madison is turned on by sex with Abbie, and I think it is implied that Madison is bisexual, or at least exploring her sexuality. That said, Madison never identifies herself as bi/pan or LGBTQ in some way, either to others or to herself. She also never really seems to consider her sexuality or think about her interest in women in a broader way here, other than just wanting to act out her sexual fantasies. Colin identifies as straight and none of the scenes with multiple men have the guys engaged in sexual activity with one another, just with the women. I would have liked to see Madison’s interest in women explored a little more here beyond just having sex with them, even if just in her own internal thoughts, but I did appreciate we get to see Madison confidently reach for what she wanted sexually.

This story is largely a sexual romp between two attractive college students who are hot for each other, as well as living out sexual fantasies as porn stars. Madison and Colin live in a house with the owners of the production company, plus two other actors, and they all film scenes with one another. There is a lot of explicit sex in a lot of combinations, including various threesomes and more. Things start off with some steamy hate sex between Colin and Madison as they audition for the job, and it rolls on from there. We get POV chapters from both Colin and Madison, so we are privy to both how hot they find one another, as well as how much they are enjoying all the sex. This is particularly true for Madison who, as I mentioned, is really exploring for the first time a lot of her sexual fantasies. Most of the sex we see is during filming, so in addition to being explicit, it is also often role play style (think “naughty student seducing her teacher” and other porn staples). So if you are looking for a high heat, erotic story with sex in all sorts of combinations, you will find that here for sure.

What I appreciated is that Nikki Sloane does delve a little deeper here and gives us some character exploration as well. We learn more about Madison’s past and what has made her so sensitive about people believing her. It helps to explain why she reacted so strongly to the competition early on and gives her character some more depth. We also learn more about Colin, his relationship with his parents, and his own past. The pair also deal with a jealous student who causes trouble for both of them. So while the story is very sex focused, there is effort here to round out these characters. There is also a late storyline involving the neighborhood Home Owners Association, which felt a little tacked on to me; perhaps it was there to bring in some of those characters from other books in the series. It’s nothing problematic, it just didn’t really seem to add a whole lot to the story (though it did showcase Madison’s intelligence nicely).

There are a few places here where things didn’t totally come together for me, though a lot of this is my inability to turn off my logic brain. I never really understood why the actors all had to live in one house, or how the company was running with just six performers, but was supposedly super well known. No other actors are ever mentioned and the scenes they film all seem to just be various combinations of the same six people. I also found it near impossible to believe that with only six actors in total, they would hire Madison and Colin without ever even introducing them to the others, let alone having them film together to get to see how they all worked on screen. But again, these are just quibbles and nothing that really detracts from the overall story.

I found this one to be a sexy, entertaining story. It is very erotic and sex focused, but there is enough of a plot and some nice character development to hold it all together. This is my first book by Nikki Sloane, but I’ll keep my eye out for more.

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