Author: Kate J. Squires
ISBN: 9781760300807
RRP: $3.99
30 Lays in 30 Days is not your every day romance, and it’s not really my usual genre. I’m not sure what I was expecting but the premise was intriguing enough that I had to give it a go.
Cat is a 29 year old divorcee who has spent a year wallowing over the end of her marriage. Her best friend advises her to go out and pick up, purge herself of her ex husband and start living again. What Beth didn’t plan on was that one random hook-up setting off a chain reaction of firsts.
Cat has only ever been with one man, her ex husband, so she has nothing to compare him to but she knows there has to be better than she’s been getting. Time and space have given her a little perspective and now that she’s out of it she can see just how toxic the relationship was.
Casual sex with a random stranger picked up in the pub awakens Cat’s sexuality in a way she was definitely not expecting, she races out his door directly afterwards to head home and start working on the brilliant idea that just jumped into her head. Cat is one month away from 30 and she spent most of her 20s married so missed that period of fun and frivolity, well now it’s time to make up for it. She wants 30 Lays in 30 Days before she turns 30, and she has a list of what 30 sexual experiences she wants.
You start thinking about 30 different sexual experiences and see where that takes you, it is certainly not going to be your run of the mill list with that many entries. The hot sex starts in the first half of the first chapter so you know that this one is going to be HOT. It’s going to take you out of your comfort zone and perhaps offer up experiences you never would have even thought of, I know there were some I wouldn’t have.
30 Lays in 30 Days is scorching, there is no doubt about that, and it goes into intimate detail; there is no fading to black for the good bits. After the first couple of chapters I started to wonder if I was going to be able to get through the entire book, there is only so much gratuitous sex I can handle. Then I started to pay attention to what was happening between the steamy scenes and became involved in the story.
This is a story of liberation and finding yourself; of exerting a new-found freedom and discovering that you don’t need to be alone to be free. Cat was a subservient wife, always bending to what her husband wanted. Their years together had destroyed her self confidence and their sex life was very perfunctory and ordinary, there was no passion and no desire – it was a chore expected of her as part of her wifely duties.
Cat’s list makes her look at herself differently, recognise the sexual power she holds and restore her confidence – not to mention teaches her to stand up to her ex.
The List includes experiences that I would have expected: join the mile high club, have sex in a public place, pick up a stranger, have sex in costume. There were also a lot of experiences that were out of the ordinary and will cater to those of all different sexual tastes, there were some I expected to find difficult to read but found they all flowed with the story and helped to flesh out the characters.
Cat heads out planning 30 experiences with lots of different people but things don’t quite work out that way. She finds herself in positions dangerous to her personal safety, being harshly judged, straining her friendships and questioning her own morality.
Squires explores consenting adults, sexual awakening and the ability to explore your freedom while finding yourself monogamous. I found myself enjoying this one a lot more than I thought I would when I first started. The sex is scorching, and prolific, but the journey to sexual maturity is combined with a journey of self discovery to find the strong, confident and assertive woman who had been downtrodden by her husband for so many years.
If you don’t mind high level sexual content and like a slightly unconventional romance then I think you will like this one.
30 Lays in 30 Days is book #38 for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2015.
Available July 23rd through Momentum.
Kate J Squires can be found on Facebook, Twitter and her Website.
