Total Exposure
by J.A. Huss
Evangeline's life is dark and lonely. She'll do anything to change that. Anything. Even play a game with a stranger she's never met. What starts out as "therapy" soon turns into a passionate anonymous love affair. Her blindfold is like a security blanket and his touch is what lights a fire inside her.
I have no idea who he is, what he looks like, or why he agreed to play this game with me. But I don't care. I don't even care that I have to wear a blindfold before he'll come into my room. I don't care that he watches me sleep, and dress, and wants to know all my deepest, darkest, saddest secrets.
She's lost. Sad and lost. And even though it's my job to watch her from the other side of the surveillance cameras, that's not why I enter her room at night. That's not why I touch her when she begs. That's not why I'm really here.
I want her, but does she really want me? Or does she just like the idea of loving a stranger?
Spice Level: 4.5/6 | Story Score: 6.5/10 | Rating: 3.5/5 |
I’m not sure if I bought this on Audible or if it was a ‘free with membership’ read, but either way, it’s on my Audible, and I’ve heard a lot about this author. This wasn’t one I’d heard about but I figured, WTH, just start with something. So I did. Um, I loved the narrators on this one. They did a good job. I don’t know that I was expecting anything of this book…but even with that said, it wasn’t what I expected. Like…is that a thing? Are all JA Huss books a bit of a mindfuck? That seems to be a general consensus about them, but I didn’t know that until I went hunting after this one.
So Evangeline is a woman that is a recluse…not in the sense that she WON’T leave her house, but in that she doesn’t want interaction or attention from people. AT ALL. She prefers to cover every inch of her body and be as invisible as she can make herself. She starts seeing a therapist for it and her therapist goes to Jordan for help setting up a radical type of therapy. Evangeline needs money, and in order to get it, she needs to be able to play a violin concert…which means people seeing her. So they offer a setup of her going to a house rigged with a BUNCH of cameras where she KNOWS someone will be watching her 24/7. Jordan calls Ix (or hunts him down) and tells him that he needs him for a job; instantly we know these guys have HISTORY. Anyway, very quickly, Ix starts interacting with Evangeline by giving her directions which she seems to need. Eat, sleep, bathe. She needs all the directions. Then, he offers her the chance to be the watcher instead of the watched by telling her where to go to watch Jordan. Over the course of the week, all sorts of things happen, but ultimately, she works out of her phobia.
Um, I didn’t like either of these people, lol. Evangeline had a reason for being the way she was, but also, her temper tantrums were exhausting. Ix was an ass a lot. He came to care, but it was like…also exhausting. He was so concerned about Jordan that the connection between him and Evangeline felt very secondary. Honestly, this didn’t feel like a romance to me. It felt like a social experiment and I wasn’t a huge fan. The sex wasn’t good enough to make up for it for me. Not to mention, I really hate being confused for a whole fucking book…especially only to get to the end and only THINK I understand. This is a “spin off” of another one of her series, but I honestly do not think that reading it would’ve helped. The history in this book seems to only exist in the ether - at least until you finish the four book series and I’m not willing to do that now. I think I may just skip to Book 4, because I might be able to catch up. I can’t be much more confused, honestly.
-SPOILERS-
So apparently Alexander & Augustine were together...Jordan sometimes joined them and he was lifelong friends with Ix...Ix was Augustine's best friend...Jordan wanted Augustine to himself? Presumably. (I don't think that's the case, but whatever.) Uh, apparently insert a lot of fuckery and at some point, Augustine asked Ix to come "hang out" alone and he goes, and apparently they fucked? And Jordan videoed it WITHOUT her consent and sent it to Alexander to break them up? But Alexander knew. But Augustine was upset about the tape and wanted to press charges and Ix, because he loved Jordan (as a friend), took the fall and that broke everyone up because Ix was the glue that held them together…Ix’s family died not much later and they still thought that he was a perverted voyeur…
Evangeline was a child prodigy at the violin and her parents used her for that. They made her work like madness and she was only as important to them as the money and fame she brought them. By 15 she was washed up and got emancipated. Like, there’s a whole box of things to unpack in that shitstorm.
But Ix sorted her out in a week? By exchanging stories in a notebook, having sex with her blindfolded, and giving her specific instructions to follow?
Also, the idea of having anal sex then giving the man a blow job makes me wanna blow CHUNKS. Gross. Also, also: if you can fuck a woman while she’s playing violin (especially in the ass) and she doesn’t mangle that song…maybe you aren’t good at this. LoL.
Standalone #1 in Jordan's Game series | 362 Pages | Trope Challenge: -Not on Challenge- |
"I want to own those things inside you. All those sick, bloody fears that make you afraid to leave your house. I want your memories. I want your stories. I want your secrets. If you stay here with me and we play his game together, we're gonna take them, Evangeline. We're gonna take everything you've got bottled up in that messed-up head and shake it out of you."
- Ix, Total Exposure by J.A. Huss
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