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Review: Three, Two, One (321) by J.A. Huss


ONE GIRL

Battered, barefoot, and huddled under a bookstore awning in the pouring rain, Blue only knows one thing. After fifteen months of captivity, finally… she is free.

TWO FRIENDS

Self-made millionaires JD and Ark are not out to save anyone when they stumble upon a wet and shivering girl one early Sunday morning. But when you sell sex for a living and salvation rings your bell… you answer the call.

THREE SOULMATES

After years of searching, love lifts the veil of darkness, and three people—with three very big secrets—find themselves bound together in a relationship that defies the odds.

Or does it?

Love. Lust. Sex.

This trinity might be perfection… but not everything should come in 3’s.


I'm not quite sure how to feel after finishing this one. It definitely didn't turn out the way I expected, and I mostly consider that a good thing. Though now I'm talking only about the ending, everything before that has me torn.

If you start reading this story, you'll have to be very open minded. JD and Ark, namely make porn. Where JD is in front of the camera with a girl (or two), Ark is the cameraman. They've been doing this for a couple of years, and made a lot of money. The rules have always been the same, but when they stumble upon Blue, something changes. It really just starts as a coincidence, even a convenience for JD and Ark, though very fast develops into something more.

It's not clear where Blue is from, but she's hiding something, though so do JD and Ark. You might want to call it a relationship, though honestly I'm not comfortable using this term when it comes to these three. I was actually all for the dynamic between these three, and the dirty scenes were plenty and smoking hot. Until I read the author's note at the end. Here the author mentions that the sex wasn't important, more a means to an end, and that the motivation for the behaviour was important, that it was about the motivation of people to do certain acts. Except to me that didn't translate well.

To me the focus was very much on the dynamic between these three characters in the bedroom, and not outside of it. The motivation for that behaviour was minimal, or even barely mentioned. It's all clouded in a certain mystery that doesn't get explored enough. So therefor to me if the focus was supposed to be on that, the author didn't succeed, because the focus for me came across more on the erotica. The motivation etc. or overall plot, even seemed like an afterthought.

I also didn't quite feel that connection between the characters outside of the bedroom. At a certain point in the story Blue asks Ark if he actually loves her, or just what the three of them have, because she doesn't get that feeling from her. And I agree with her. I can see Ark cares about her, but I don't see the love from any of them. To me it almost feels as if Blue has another case of Stockholm syndrome, JD is too wrapped up in his own head to really care about someone else and Ark is the protector and keeps a certain distance from everybody.

Throughout this all there is a certain undertone of mystery that very slowly comes into play. Though it's so deep, down and under, that you only realize this is part of the plot about seventy percent in or so. Now I love a good mystery romance, but it almost felt like that part was added in as an afterthought. Or there is not enough mention and development for this story line from the beginning. The focus just suddenly switches from the three of them then to this mystery, without a transition.

Overall I liked the premise of this story, and I liked where the author got the idea from, only the execution was lacking for me. The sex scenes were splendid and extremely hot, and I would have been fine with it if it was simply erotica where the plot line doesn't really matter. Except the author herself mentioned how important the plot line, and mostly the motivation from the characters is, only I didn't see it. For me the focus was certainly on the erotica, and not on the plot. That is what I read, even though the author might have purposed it otherwise.

2.5




The Author
JA Huss is the USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty romances. She likes stories about family, loyalty, and extraordinary characters who struggle with basic human emotions while dealing with bigger than life problems. JA loves writing heroes who make you swoon, heroines who makes you jealous, and the perfect Happily Ever After ending.

Connect with J.A. Huss

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