title: Slate
author: Brian Rowe
genre: fiction/humor
published: 2011
pages: 308
source: sent by author for review
first line: I am a star.
rated: 3 out of 5 stars
Hollywood casting director Vivien Slate thought she had it all, until coming home one day to find her husband cheating on her with a younger woman. With her marriage on the rocks, she decides it’s the perfect time to recapture her sexual identity... by finding a younger man of her own.
Vivien realizes she has a dating service right inside her own office—she’s a casting director, after all. She devises a scenario to make the town believe her newest film project is as real as any other. She populates the cast with male characters spanning the ages of twenty to forty and begins holding auditions with hundreds of Tinseltown’s most eligible bachelors.
Vivien stops at nothing to find her perfect younger man, even if it means leaving her morals behind and ultimately putting her life in danger.
About the story:
Vivien Slate is a well known and respected casting director in Los Angeles. She seems to have it all, a good career, a teenage son, a beautiful home and a steady marriage to a husband who brings home the dough. However, when Viv comes home unannounced and early from work one day, she catches her husband having sex with his young secretary in their new jacuzzi.
Naturally Viv is furious and heartbroken, but she goes back to work and all hell breaks loose soon enough. Viv decides she wants to get payback and have sex with a younger man herself.
After trying to get back into the dating scene with no luck, Viv has an epiphany. She decides that if she can't find the perfect man on the dating scene, she will cast him in a fake movie instead. She gets her assistant to come up with a fake movie script, then she holds auditions for the leading man.
Viv has plenty of actors vying for a role in the new film, and she sets her eye on a few of them. She goes on a few dates with these younger guys. One date is unsuccessful, but another leads to a one night stand. After this, Viv realizes she wants to find a steady relationship, not just a Mr. Right Now. However, things take a turn for the worse and Viv finds her life in danger.
My thoughts:
Slate was a pretty interesting read. I laughed out loud during a few scenes.
I enjoyed Viv's antics and was impressed by her gusto. When Viv catches her husband cheating and she goes to grab the baseball bat, I cheered for her. I like that Viv was a no-nonsense kind of gal. When she decides to find a man, she goes all out.
Author Brian Rowe successfully incorporates several characters into the storyline, all revolving around Viv. I almost felt like this book could be made into a mini-series.
Now, I'm no prude, but I didn't like some of the sexual descriptions in the book. I also found some of the behavior from certain characters to be hard to believe. I won't go into too many details, but at one point a male character forced another male to do something that made me say "whoa" as I was reading. That scene immediately pulled me out of the story and just put me off. Some of the insights to the a few of the characters thoughts were TMI as well.
I did keep reading though because I wanted to find out what happens with Viv and her search for Mr. Right. I was also interested in Viv's assistant Brandon, and the things that were happening to him. He cracked me up at one point with his reaction to something his boyfriend did. I won't say anything else, so not to include any spoilers.
All in all this was a fun read, with some humorous scenes. If some of the sexual scenes were toned down I would have given Slate a higher rating.
Special thanks to author Brian Rowe
for kindly sending me a copy of his book for review. Brian will be stopping by tomorrow for an author interview!
