Last Friday we continued our blog swapping series with the ladies over at A Good Hostess. Below is a preview of my post.

So if you read my blog, you know that I have a slight obsession with erotic fiction. One of my best friends said to me, but it’s so not like you, to which I said, no, I think it actually kind of is. It’s a recent development that started with 50 Shades (shocker) and grew into a full on obsession (thanks to Amazon’s related recommendations) and now I can’t stop. In fact, I already have two posts dedicated to what to read if you’re going through 50 Shades withdrawal (Part 1 and Part 2), and have a third and fourth on the way. And as I referenced in Part 2, between all my erotic reads (umm, 18 so far?), I have read some more classic fiction, and I wanted to share three that I liked!

In The Kingdom of Men by Kim Barnes (liked)
The opening lines of the book are what drew me in: Here is the first thing you need to know about me: I’m a barefoot girl from red-dirt Oklahoma, and all the marble floors in the world will never change that. Here is the second thing: that young woman they pulled from the Arabian shore, her hair tangled with mangrove – my husband didn’t kill her, not the way they say he did. What I loved about this book was the subject matter. The story begins in 1967, when Gin, a poor girl from Oklahoma, marries the hometown golden boy, Mason. Their life is turned upside down when he is offered a job with the Arabian American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia. They move into a gated compound where they can live an opulent American lifestyle amongst strict religious and social standards. I really liked the relationships between the characters in this book – trying to strike a balance between classes and genders in a world where they don’t really mix. What I didn’t love about this book: the ending. I was so emotionally involved with all the characters and plot lines, and it just…ended. No resolution. Damn that’s frustrating! But overall, I liked it enough to recommend it.

Check out the rest of my post to read my thoughts The Shoemakers Wife and The Tea Rose. Have you read any of these books? What did you think?