This book is part of the "BM8 EROTIC BOOK SPIRAL".
Edit, January 17, 2009: The "adventures" of Natasha in France. Some french writing is horrible; the information on food and wines nice. But Natasha is really over the top with her behaviour! Incredible the fantasies writers can have. One more book for really open mided readers only!

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# 3 of the spiral is getting on the was - into the Swiss Alps: P. try to enjoy P. - a little bit...

Ah well, as they say in French, "jamais deux sans trois" so maybe we can move on to something else after this one? ;)
Anyway I do love the card... This has arrived in the very snowy Alps and will just have to wait its turn as several rings have slid in recently. Thanks for sending!

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Now on its way from the extremely snowy Alps to Greece... I think I've had my fill of Penny Birch, so maybe unless she radically changes her style, I think I can be skipped for future books by this author. I look forward to discovering others by different authors now.

Arrived in Athens.

Link to the spiral's journal.

By the end of this spiral I may be ready to write a dissertation on "Penny Birch"...
I prefer the novel narrative form, with a beginning-middle-end, to the fragmented stories of Tight White Cotton & In For A Penny.
In this 'novel' though the beginning *is* the end! What comes in between is...well, I won't go into details... Jut to note that most of the action is quite literal, rather than symbolic as in Tie and Tease. I know I criticised Tie & Tease for its filler scenes that took up pages of space but weren't necessary to the plot development. In retrospect though, Tie & Tease is the most tightly structured work, and whatever I said about Tie & Tease actually is more appropriate of this particular volume.
At times I sensed that Natasha's encounters in Temper Tantrum were being forced upon the reader (or shall I say force-fed, like the poor geese on the farm) without any particular 'narrative' purpose. The story starts off with the premise of a 'philosophical' wager, one in which Natasha wants to come out the winner, but up until the last scene, Natasha's troubles & triumphs don't have any real bearing on the conclusion. The reader knows full well how it's going to be, and sure enough, there are no surprises when the conclusion comes about.
In Tie & Tease, by comparison, there was a more entertaining (& structured) exploration of the supposed 'moral argument'; also, Penny (the protagonist of Tie and Tease) does develop and evolve, learning new tricks along the way. In Tie & Tease the final scenes, despite being quite extreme, are 'justified' by all that precedes it, and so the reader can laugh along with the farcical situations.
In Temper Tantrum, by contrast, even though Natasha's conflict with Jo had the potential to be climactic (plotwise) as well as funny and humorous...it wasn't as exciting or funny enough.

Received today!

I must confess I haven't finished reading it. I agree, the fantasies are incredible and worth attention at times, but what annoyed me the most was that so many pages were filled with unnecessary "plot", and it was quite weak in my opinion, so I even ended up skipping parts. The knowledge on French food and wines was quite thorough, but again, absolutely irrelevant in this case. For me "Temper Tantrums" was better than previous spiral books, but I can't say I would list Penny Birch as a top author of the books of this kind.

Thanks for a chance to read this, anyway!

Off to molekilby

Arrived last week and already started. So far the best of the Penny Birch so far (although still a little too much discipline) will journal once I've finished.

Same old Penny Birch. However since this had some sembelance of a narrative it wasn't as bad. I still can't understand why they enjoy the same type of sex all the time. No variety!

On it's way to the next in line.

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Enjoy

received in the post today

I'm so sorry - I thought I had journalled it when I received it - obviously not!! I thought I would like this better than the short story collections, but found myself a bit bored by the repetitive nature of the chapters. Although 'titalating', I ended up thinking it was less erotic and more just plain right shocking - and in a bad way. Once you've accepted what the heroine is, you can no longer feel anthing for the scrapes she gets into. So not a very good rating from me, I'm afraid, just because I have read more erotic stories by Jilly Cooper!

I will post this on ASAP.

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Passing to the next person on the list

strange...thought I had already journaled this book 2 days ago when I got book #2...oh well, it´s here:) and will be read really soon:)

I just ran quickly over this one as I could see from the first pages that is was really not for me. I think Penny always goes too far in her books except in Tight White Cotton which I actually liked alot. Sorry - I just thinks she gets a bit too disgusting for my taste at times!!

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The book will next travel to JennyC1230.

This arrived yesterday. I will read it soon and get it moving! Thanks!

I just skimmed this one, it didn't hold my interest.

I am planning to mail this book along with Tight White Cotton to kontessarose on Sept. 28th.

USPS - Media Mail - Delivery Confirmation #03080730000097437751

Update: Your item was delivered at 4:58 PM on October 5, 2009 in FORT HUACHUCA, AZ 85613