South of Bixby Bridge -- A bait and switch?

I was on Facebook a few days ago and one of those annoying little ads on the side of my news feed caught my attention. Normally, I ignore them, but this one I couldn't.  It read: If you liked Fifty Shades of Grey, you'll love South of Bixby Bridge by Ryan Winfield. So of course I had to check it out. It was only $3.99 for the Kindle version. I bought it and started to read it the next day.

I finished within a couple of days and I have very mixed emotions about it.

First of all, I bought it because I was expecting it to be like Fifty Shades of Grey. I was expecting an intense love story with lots of graphic sex. South of Bixby Bridge didn't have any of that.  (I know, I know, shame on me for not reading the product description or any of the reviews before I bought it, but I'm really glad I didn't because if I had, I probably wouldn't have read it.)

Yes, it was a shocking, raw, gritty tail of addiction and the lengths one man will go to for a fix. Yes, there was a slight love story to it and yes, there was some sex in it. However, I didn't buy into the love story between the main character, Trevor, and his boss's wife.  I believe that Trevor had a physical attraction to her and that he was infatuated with the image she portrayed, but I just didn't find it believable that they loved each other enough to run away together.

As far as the sex goes, the author took a "fade to black" approach. He would clearly state that there was sexual activity going on, but he didn't give us any real descriptions. I found that to be a huge disappointment. Okay, I realize that coming from me, this is a very biased opinion. But seriously, considering how shocking the entire book was, a few really descriptive, hard-core sex scenes would've made it so much more awesome!

With all of that said, I'm glad I read it. I found myself both hating Trevor and rooting for him all at the same time. And even after having read the book almost a week ago, it still sticks with me. That's the sign of a great novel.

Now that I have an idea of what kind of novel this is, I'm going to re-read for what it is, which is not Fifty Shades of Grey, but that's okay. South of Bixby Bridge is a great novel by a very talented (and sexy) new author. I've already recommended it to a few people and I will continue to do so.