Wife Number Seven

Wife Number Seven

by Melissa Brown

Genre: Romance

Synopsis:  Lipstick. Bright, red lipstick. Nothing but lipstick. 

Even though it’s against our faith to wear a color that screams of sexual promiscuity and deviant behavior, I’m not allowed to protest. 
But, I want to. 
So badly. 

You see, there’s more to me than the braid that spills down my back. 
More to me than the layers of heavy fabric that maintain my modesty. 
And so much more than the oppressive wedding band that adorns my finger--the same band that each of my sister wives wear. 
So much more. 
To protest would be sinful. 
I must keep sweet, that is my duty. 

So I’ll wear the lipstick. I’ll do as I’m told. 
And I’ll do my best to silence the resistance within me, to push him from my mind. 
If only my heart would do the same.

from GoodReads

Review:  First off I have to start by saying that this is not my typical genre although I do rarely read light sexy romances.  My review and rating will be based on my limited knowledge of this genre.  I found this book because I recently became friends with someone and discovered that she is an author.  I was curious to see what she writes so I purchased this whole series.  To be honest, stories about polygamous sects in the FLDS church really intrigue me and I am drawn to reading them.  I read this book throughout the course of a day so clearly it was engaging!  

This is the story of Brinley who is in her very early 20s and is the seventh wife to a much older man.  She lives a submissive life in an FLDS compound with an occasional trip to the outside world.  At the beginning she is somewhat accepting of her lot in life, except for one rebellion, but then changes happen in her family and she starts to think about what more there is in life.  She comes across a man who used to be part of her church but is now a drug addict and things escalate from there.  The relationship between Brinley and Porter seems to come out of nowhere but romance novels work that way!  I got caught up in the story of Brinley trying to figure out what she wanted to do.  This book is full of drama, passion, sex, and romance.  The story leaves you wanting to know more about some characters and hoping that they are the subjects of the next books in the series (which I will be reading but not sure if I will be reviewing or not)!

Based on the storyline, I would rate this book a 4 but there were some quirks with the writing style that made me lower my rating.  These were things that bothered me as a reader but may not bother other readers.  This book was written from the first person point of view of Brinley but there were a couple chapters that were from a third person point of view and were about side characters.  The information that was presented was necessary to the book but having chapters that changed perspectives was distracting.  There were also times where there were flashbacks and we knew they were coming because of the ellipses.  Those could have been left out!  There was a fair amount of swearing from one character which I don't like but other people may not mind.  Overall this was a good read for a sexy romance novel.  There were steamy moments but not too many where the book was only about that.

Rating: 3.5 stars