After Hours - Lynda Aicher Review

“The Boardroom. After hours, it’s where Bay Area moguls indulge their fantasies. Ties are loosened. Inhibitions, too.
Assistant Avery Fast watched from a distance, mouth gaping, blood roaring wildly in her ears as she stared at the naked woman on the table before her. At executive Carson Taggert ordering a man to pleasure her. It made her feel guilty, embarrassed…and hot.
Carson watched and waited. Waited for Avery to notice him in the Boardroom. Waited for her to like what she saw. Waited to see what she’d do the next day. And the next. He couldn't let her go—not when she'd seen what goes on in the Boardroom. He couldn't stop thinking about the desire in her eyes, the flush on her cheeks, her obvious arousal.
Getting her to join was easy. But now Carson wants Avery all to himself.”

Thank you to Carina Press and Net Galley for providing my with an ARC of this book. All opinions of this are my own.

This follows Carson and Avery and their adventures with the boardroom which is a secret sex club set-up for safe and private sexual exploration of those whose are member. I really enjoyed how Avery managed to accidentally stumble upon the boardroom and I think it made for a really great first story in “The Boardroom” series. As Avery learned more about the Boardroom and what it was, what happened there and how it worked so did we and it was really useful to not have both characters knowing what was going on as they obviously had to learn along with us. I was worried this wasn’t going to happen because of the Prequel Novella “Done Deal” which I didn’t enjoy but gave us an introduction into “The Boardroom” and some of its background so I didn’t think the background would feature as much in this but I’m definitely glad I did.

This does involve a lot of sexual exploration, mainly for Avery, as she tries to figure out what she wants from her Boardroom experience as you can pretty much tailor make the experience to you depending on the scene that is occurring for that boardroom meeting. The boardroom is also a very secretive and private place (which is the whole point) which means that you can’t talk about it with anyone who isn’t a member and it’s also a judgement free place which was something that Avery definitely struggled with at first and again it was great to see her going through the motions of feeling guilty for what she likes, to just accepting that everyone likes different things and there’s nothing wrong with that.

There wasn’t that much character development around the main characters Avery and Carson which I wasn’t actually mad at. This book was very much just centred on Avery and Carson’s relationship and them finding out what they want from each other and dealing with the feelings which are developing for each other along with the sexual exploration side of things too. You did get a bit of background on some of the characters like Avery’s boss Gregory and his Wife and Avery’s roommate Karen so it wasn’t 100% focused on Avery and Carson. You also get an introduction to Drake who is a friend of Carson’s and a fellow member of the boardroom who has actually been present in one of the scenes that Avery and Carson were present at – I presume that this is so he can be in the next book and we’ll have an idea of who he was in this book

I really enjoyed this book and I thought the mix of romance with also sexual and self-discovery was very well done and they played very well off of each other. It was executed in a way where Avery was relying on Carson to help her self-discovery but only because he was most experienced and knew more about how to do it and I feel that if Avery and Carson didn’t end up together in this book, then Avery would still be interested in continuing her sexual exploration without Carson because all he’d done was help open her eyes to possibilities and it didn’t feel like it was dependent upon Carson being there.

I don’t really feel like the first book added that much to this book to be honest; it gave you a short introduction to Trevor but you can definitely read this book straight away without reading Done Deal.

Done Deal - Lynda Aicher Review

“Power. Wealth. Respect.
The members of the Boardroom share these things—and more—in this new erotic romance series from Lynda Aicher, author of the bestselling Wicked Play books In the Boardroom, exhilarating pleasures happen after-hours.
At night, behind the closed doors of the Boardroom, it's members only. Stripped of their inhibitions, Bay Area moguls are free to indulge their most extreme fantasies, and business becomes pleasure.
Never in his dirtiest dreams did CEO Trevor James expect to see Danielle Stables on the guest list.
There'd always been something unspoken between them—a spark yet to ignite. An inscrutable and defiant player in the firm, Danielle exudes power and secrets. Tonight she is going to surrender. No strings. No judgments. No boundaries. By dawn, the games between them will have only just begun”

I received this as a complimentary ARC from Net Galley and Carina Press so thank you. All opinions and reviews are my honest and mine own.

This is the prequel novella to the first boardroom book, After Hours which is set to release in January 2018. You could tell that this was going to be the prequel to another novel as there wasn’t really much in the way of plot and really, it was just a book about the one scene which happens in the boardroom. 

In this, you get a quick introduction into the Boardroom which is an exclusive sex club set-up by Trevor Faulkner for people to act out their sexual fantasies without fear of judgement. This novella focuses around one specific meeting where a woman called Danielle is on the list for that night’s meeting in the boardroom and mainly the interactions between Trevor and a woman called Danielle who was added to the list last minute. It’s told from the perspective of both Trevor and Danielle and through their inner dialogues you understand that there was obviously something between them before hence the chemistry between them now. I hate novella’s as I feel that you can never get a full story and that was exactly this here and this was only a book about one main sex scene. I’m really hoping that there is going to be a second book in the series which focuses on answering all the questions about Danielle and Trevor which weren’t answered in this book.

The group sex scene was strange; it was obviously a group sex scene but it seemed like it maybe there to try and emphasize the chemistry between the main characters and somehow prove that they should be together? But it just seemed very strange and like the other characters shouldn’t have been there at all and their introduction was just unnecessary and unvalued. I really didn’t see the point in having a group scene which was made to feel like it was just two people in the room and everyone else was just intruding on them. 

I’m still going to read After Hours as the premise is intriguing and I’m interested to see where this goes however I don’t really see how this prequel novella can help add much story to the first book in the series although this may change if a book about Danielle and Trevor and their backstory is released.