And I'm not going to argue with that either, although sometimes it's a bit too occasional from where I'm sitting. With those opening couple of sentences 'Saddled Up' had me gripped, because it could have been me speaking.
And reading on I felt a real connection with the the novel's 'leading lady' Amber Oakley. Later she says 'All my life I've fought against that need, but never managed to conquer it', and again I know where she's at.
Mind you, what follows doesn't seem to involve much fighting against that need and a fair bit of giving in to it it.
Their story has lots of humour, but when it gets to the spanky bits it was, for me, seriously sexy. Of course, the horse-riding aspect of Amber's life is the thing that caught my eye, although her interest in equitation goes beyond the normal confines of jodhpurs, bits and bridles and takes in ponygirl play too.
Actually, I suspect bits and bridles are involved in the ponygirl thing too, especially naughty bits. But I digress, personally my horsey interest is of purely vanilla, so the pony stuff left me a bit cold.
'Saddled Up' touches on one or two non-spank kinks along the way and that does mean that it has a bit of a Quality Street problem. You know, your tin of sweets has plenty to love - but inevitably there's something in there that just isn't your thing at all.
Unavoidable, I suppose, if you're not creating something that is strictly for the spanko community. It does raise a question: how narrowly niche should an erotic novel be? .
For all of that, when 'Saddled Up' was in spanko country it did have lots and lots that I found very sweet indeed. It's one of a series of novels that feature Ms Oakley and I'm going to look out the others - I feel like Amber and I are on the same wavelength.
