Girl Next Door by Lyra Marlowe
Ellora’s Cave
Erotic Contemporary with a scene of M/M/F
ISBN: 9781419936968
Reviewed by Shayna

Paramedics Nolan and John are not only partners and best friends, but opposites in many ways. Nolan is a traditional romantic and gay while John is a casual sex only kind of guy who believes he’s completely straight. But lately John has grown bored with the women he’s picking up. What’s more, he’s been secretly fantasizing about Nolan. He doesn’t know that Nolan wants him as well – though even if Nolan knew John was interested, both men would worry too much about destroying their friendship to go for it.

Then Nolan’s best friend Lucy comes to town and turns the guys’ worlds upside down. With Nolan’s permission, she and John hook up and enjoy playing out their deepest erotic fantasies. Just like John, Lucy doesn’t do relationships. But when she learns that John wants Nolan, Lucy is determined to get these two into bed with each other…even if she has to join them to get them to do it.

Girl Next Door is a difficult book for me to review because I felt like I was only getting part of a story. Lyra Marlowe sets up Nolan, Lucy, and John’s characters very well and I loved getting to know them and finding out a bit about their pasts (mostly John’s). There are a lot of different kinds of love showcased in Girl Next Door, something that I really liked. But very few of these love stories got to shine. The traditional romance between Nolan and John is definitely in the background and I wish I’d gotten to see more of just the two of them once they decided to make a go of it between them. Lucy is the catalyst for the two men getting together, but it still left me wanting that the majority of the book was divided between scenes of Lucy and Nolan and Lucy and John. The sex scenes are almost entirely between Lucy and John, with one ménage scene. I don’t need sex in my romance, but if it’s an erotic book I would have liked to see more of a climax (no pun intended) in the Nolan/John relationship.

There’s a lot of room in Girl Next Door for a sequel. Indeed, I’m hoping Ms. Marlowe writes one because I felt like there was so much left unsaid and undone at the end of this story. That doesn’t mean that I thought Girl Next Door was a bad book. It’s actually quite entertaining – just incomplete (to me). I’d love to see what happens next with Nolan and John and I’d like to see what happens to Lucy. Ms. Marlowe is an author whose books I always look forward to reading, so here’s hoping she has more in store for the sexy paramedics of Girl Next Door.