Reflected in You (A Crossfire Novel)
“No one learns. No one grows. Nothing much happens—except a lot of bad sex.”
“He was Gideon Cross, of Cross Industries, and at the ridiculous age of twenty-eight he was one of the top twenty-five richest people in the world. I was pretty sure that he owned a significant chunk of Manhattan; I was positive he was the hottest man on the planet.”
Thus is the reader introduced to the male protagonist of Sylvia Day’s latest erotic romance, Reflected in You. To add to his enticements, he is also described as “Dark and dangerous,” “brooding,” and having a “core of strength and command.” As the icing on the cake he is “damaged by his past,” something referenced repeatedly from the first chapter throughout the novel.
Eva Trammell, the female protagonist, is his perfect female foil. Gorgeous, blonde, needy, and deeply, troublingly, dependent, she is also “damaged by her past.”
Could a relationship be any healthier?
Well, yes. Just about any relationship would be, in fact.
Reflected in You is the second in a trilogy of books by Ms. Day, the latest in the current string of soft-core porn novels inspired by the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. This novel takes up where Ms. Day’s Bared to You left off, following the trials and erotic travails of these characters as they argue, lie, cheat, and have strangely unerotic sex—all in pursuit of LOVE.
Though novels of this type are enjoying success right now, this particular novel is rife with problems: silly dialogue is just the beginning. On their first meeting:
Eva: “Looking at you for the first time made me think about sex. Screaming, sheet-clawing sex.”
“I saw that.” His [Gideon’s] hands slid up either side of my spine. “And I knew you saw me, too. Saw what I am . . . saw what I have inside me. You saw right through me.”
There is an overemphasis on what each character eats, wears, and drinks in each scene, and abundant inappropriate word choices (what mature, professional woman regularly uses the word stoked, both to her boss and her clients?). The tone of mutual dependency is worrisome when it’s not juvenile, and the misrepresentation of BDSM relationships is irritating.
Character development is weak, typified by revelations like this:
“Gideon straightened, shrugging off his brooding sensuality and instantly capturing me with his severe intensity. So mercurial—like me.”
From the first page to the last, the characters choose to repeat patterns of scary infatuation, lying-for-your-own-good, fights, and sex-to-make-it-all-better.
And there is the meat of Ms. Day’s problem: the sex. For the right reader, all issues with character, dialogue, and tone can be forgiven if the sex is good. There is a lot of sex in this novel; the reader is presented with a colorful variety of positions and sites.
The problem lies in presentation—though copulation takes place all the time, there is rarely any reason, aside from what seems like a metronomic “it’s time for some sex.” Ms. Day has substituted naughty words for believability. Because of that, these scenes are boring, repetitive, even plodding as the pathway to the meandering, uncomfortably icky conclusion.
No one learns. No one grows. Nothing much happens—except a lot of bad sex.
On the positive side, Ms. Day was blessed with a good copy editor. This novel is free from technical errors—spelling and punctuation are good, and there are none of the repetitive word use errors that tend to plague books like this. It’s too bad that she wasn’t similarly blessed in a substantive editor who could help her resolve some of the other issues.
With all of its problems with the narrative, Reflected in You is not a reflection of anything but another slipshod book in a popular genre.