This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Jenni Cahill
Alexandra and Jeremy have been best friends since university. They have always been close, becoming lovers and experimenting as well as pushing boundaries with one another, but their lives have taken them in different directions. At 36, Alexandra is a wife and mother of two, working around her family’s needs and always putting them first, while Jeremy is a widely acclaimed doctor. Alexandra is just beginning to realise her marriage is lacking in both intimacy and excitement when her work brings her back into contact with Jeremy. With her husband and children away on a trip, Alexandra flies to Sydney for some meetings and plans to meet up with Jeremy while she's there for drinks and a catch up.
Alexandra is both nervous and excited to be seeing her old friend and lover again. They shared some amazing experiences together when they were younger, but times have changed and she is now a married mother. So when Jeremy asks Alexandra to cancel her work commitments to stay with him in his luxurious penthouse suite for 48 hours, Alexandra is torn. She still has strong feelings for Jeremy – both emotionally and physically – but her actions will have consequences for her marriage and her children’s lives. Alexandra has never been able to say no to Jeremy and so she ends up agreeing to stay with him. Later, as they share a sensuous bath, Jeremy requests two more things from Alexandra. Will she agree to give up her sight and ask no questions for the entire 48 hours they'll be together?
I’ve seen Destined To Play compared to Fifty Shades a lot over the past week or so but, as I haven’t read Fifty Shades (yet), I am judging the book on its own merit and without comparison. Destined To Play started off quite tame as we are introduced to Alexandra and Jeremy, but it soon began to heat up, building in intensity with each hour that Alexandra spends in Jeremy’s company. We see how their relationship developed while they were at university and how Jeremy’s dominance began to rise to the surface. Alexandra has to put all her trust into Jeremy as without sight, she is completely at his mercy. To begin with she struggles with her loss of power and independence and refuses to let go, but she goes along with Jeremy’s plan and in doing so she begins to unlock the person she once was before work, marriage and children changed her.
Destined To Play has plenty of graphic scenes but it isn’t just about the sex. By stripping away all her inhibitions, Alexandra begins to discover who she is and re-evaluates her life. There is also the pull she feels towards Jeremy, the bond she still feels even after all the years they have been apart. There were two very slight downfalls for me – Alexandra’s lack of guilt at cheating on her husband and the science parts relating to Alexandra’s and Jeremy’s professions. If I’m honest, most of it went way over my head, but I got the gist of what was happening and that seemed to be enough to follow the plot and so it didn’t really hinder my enjoyment of the book
7/10
INDIGO BLOOME'S PAGE AT HARPERCOLLINS