Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Too Many Temples
SERIES: World of Love | Bali
AUTHOR: Erik Swill
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 79 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 28, 2017
BLURB:
Looking to spice up his stagnant sex life in Brisbane, self-professed player Adrian takes a weeklong vacation in Bali, anticipating sun, surf, and plenty of no-strings-attached hookups. He doesn’t expect his attraction to the tour guide, Ketut, to become an obsession. As he travels around the beautiful Island of the Gods, Adrian is startled that he might be falling in love after swearing off relationships for good.
When Ketut opens a window of opportunity for a real relationship in Queensland after the vacation ends, Adrian retreats into his life of commitment-free fun. Unable to forget Ketut, though, Adrian strikes out to the remote Queensland town of Rockhampton to find the man of his desires—hoping he hasn’t lost the chance for true love.
World of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the globe.
REVIEW:
I have been a big time fan of the World of Love series. A chance to view locales from all over the world and learn their customs from the comfort of your reading device. Unfortunately this particular story fell very short for me.
Adrian is a self proclaimed player after his first love took his virginity and then left him. When his sex life turns stagnant he hops on over for a little vacation in Bali to peruse the new scenery and hookups. Near the end of his vacation he meets a young man, Ketut, that gives him a private tour of the island. “Too Many Temples” is the story of a self professed player who may have meet his match.
It wasn’t that the story wasn’t good it was just too internally heady. Instead of hearing about the locale and foods offered it was more of “woe is me…I’m not getting laid enough and what are these feelings emerging about this guy?” After awhile it got really repetitive and boring. And with only 79 pages to the story you don’t have time for that. I found Ketut interesting and if we had heard his side maybe the story would proved to have been a bit more interesting but sadly it was all Adrian. And speaking of 79 pages, it never should have taken me over 5 days to read this but I had to keep forcing myself to go back to it…not a good sign.
One of the things that turned me off right from the start was the lack of sexual safety. Ketut brings Adrian his breakfast the first morning and they wind up having sex with no protection and no discussion. It was that lack of personal protection that was appalling to me in this day and age. You are in a foreign country, with a guy you have never seen before, and you have full anal sex without any type of barrier seemed pretty risky to say the least.
I think it was the lacking of in-depth description of locale and foods that drew me up short from the many other “World of Love” stories. This could have taken place anywhere. I did enjoy the bit of heritage and customs that Ketut tried to show Adrian but his lack of regard made it hard to read. A no-go for me unfortunately.
RATING: 
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