First Night (Seductive Nights)

First Night (Seductive Nights) - Lauren Blakely Kindle freebie and an introduction to the Seductive Nights series and the story of Julia and Clay. It’s the story of their first meeting and their one night stand. As such – an introduction to the series – it was good and makes one want to read the series. There was not much character development, but it does show the amazing chemistry the two have and an indication (I hope) of how the rest of the series will be like. That being said I did have some issues with it.


Julia is a bartender in San Francisco and isn’t looking for a relationship, just for:
Julia longed for eight inches.
Or really, eight inches and a brain.
Was that so much for a woman to want?

She has an extremely narrow minded view on what is ‘manly’ and what "real men" can do/act/drink without being perceived as a sissy/hipster:
The woman in her wished that one, just once, a guy would be a guy and order a goddamn beer.
She would never date a man who drank the sissy drinks she often served. She liked men to be men.

A real man kind of workout. Something hard and heavy that made him sweat and grunt to mold that kind of physique.

I’m glad you didn’t order [a Purple Snow Globe] because it’s nothing a man should ever ask for at a bar and expect a woman to want him

“What do you think a man should drink at a bar?”
“Scotch,” she said […] “Or whiskey,” she said, her voice a purr now. “Bourbon works too.”

Enter Clay, a lawyer from New York, who comes to her bar and orders…
“I’ll take whatever’s on tap.”
She froze on the spot
Beer? Really! Fucking beer? Someone came into a bar and ordered beer? Not a sissy, hipster drink? What a manly man! *sigh*

Since Julia’s sister told Clay to visit this bar where her sister worked, Clay knows Julia’s name, so she automatically thinks he’s a cop. All this leads us to some really awkward exposition:
Or wait. Her spine stiffened. Was he onto her? Did he know what she did every Tuesday night at a dimly-lit apartment above a greasy restaurant in China Town that smelled of fried pork?
Ugh. This is so overdramatized, exposition is obviously important, but this book is 53 pages long, and the details (down to the smell of the restaurant that is below the apartment in which she does something every Tuesday evening?) described are just not that relevant to the story yet, and do not make me want to read the first book any more.

Anywho, Julia and Clay get talking and she learns that he is in fact a lawyer and not a cop. Yay I guess? I'm kidding. He then makes it clear to her that he has no interest in drinking her Purple Snow Globe (the sissy drink that the hipsters like). And even better, his favorite drinks ARE scotch, whiskey, and bourbon! What a manly, man-ificent, man-tastic, manfully, manful, manly man! *swoon* Now nothing stands in the way of them having some hawt shmexy sex! Oh, and never worry, her eight inches wish is also to be fulfilled.
“More than eight inches, gorgeous. Don’t ever doubt that.”
Sexy times commence. And…some more cryptical exposition that wasn’t really needed.


So, the good: I fucking loved that Julia and Clay both enjoy being on top and on bottom, that they both like being tied up and tying the other up. I’m kinda getting sick of reading these romance books were the default for the woman is to be the more sexually submissive, and so this was a very welcome change!
She liked to dominate and to be dominated. She liked to talk dirty, and be talked dirty to.
They are equally matched and can both take as good as they can give. Julia knows exactly what she wants, and what kind of a man she wants (hint: hipsters and men who drink "sissy drinks" need not apply) and she isn’t afraid to make a move herself. We know less about Clay, except that he is more and more intrigued by Julia and likes "fiery women".

However, the way that this book portrays what "real men" are, how men should act, drink and dress if they are "real men" and the things that are described as okay for 'manly' men are all extremely small-minded and sexist. Also this book takes a huge dump on hipsters.


But, all in all, this book is short, sweet, hot and even has some tender moments. And even though it has its problems, it makes you want to read more about Julia and Clay.
“Let me get this straight. I’m being invited to the Big Apple for dinner, a movie and a little bondage”