TEST
Uncommon Passion is one of my very favorite romances. I’ve read it again and again—it’s my favorite of Calhoun’s books and has been since it was first published in 2013. It’s a virgin/rake story and, like the best of that trope, is a testament to the redemptive power of love.
Rachel Hill, age 25, has recently escaped the Elysian Fields Community of God, an isolated religious community in rural Texas where she grew up. Rachel left Elysian Fields because, as she says,
They needed me to be someone I am not. They expected me to surrender all choice and control in my life to God, and if God’s direction wasn’t clear, my pastor or my father would explain it to me.
One choice Rachel’s never made is to touch or be touched by a man. In Elysian Fields, all sexual contact is saved for marriage and Rachel, who stayed stubbornly unwed, is a virgin in every sense of the word. Rachel’s ready to change that and, one night, while working at a charity bachelor auction, Rachel decides she’s ready to get rid of her virginity (and a large swath of her savings) by bidding Ben Harris, a sexy SWAT officer up for auction. Ben looks to Rachel like the perfect man for the job.
Perfect, because she’d just bet two thousand dollars that he had no interest in a relationship, no sense that sex was something special reserved for the marriage bed, no inclination to call again.
Ben doesn’t give a fuck. Not about anything but his job and his brother. He sure as shit doesn’t give a damn about the women he screws. But when he wakes up the morning after bedding Rachel, he’s first shocked and then furious to see blood on his cock. He tracks Rachel down and asks her what the hell she thought she was doing. She tells him her virginity was hers to lose and, anyway, she didn’t think he would know or care. Ben, angry and intrigued, tells her he wants another shot, that he’s got what she needs.
“You don’t know what I need,” she said as she glanced toward the barn….
“I remember,” he said without lowering his voice, “how you were shaking under me at the end. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t need more.”
She went still again, stiller than he thought possible….
“I want an explanation. You want to do it again. Longer. Slower. Hotter. This time we’ll both get what we want.”
Ben, who has slept with so many women he can’t remember their faces let alone their names, finds making love with Rachel disorienting. For him, sex is a means to keep emotion at bay. Fucking Rachel is terrifyingly different.
Rachel uses sex the way she uses everything: as an implement for self-discovery. As Ben watches Rachel push herself to experience all she was denied at Elysian Fields, Ben starts to see himself differently. Rachel lives life authentically and Ben, whose self-imposed limits are destroying him, finds himself longing for what Rachel demands for herself.
It’s profoundly satisfying to watch Rachel evolve. Every experience Rachel has, whether it’s watching the way the Texas A&M boys working at the farm for the summer play poker or taking in the expressions of amateur poets at open-mike night at her favorite bookstore in Galveston, Rachel uses it to build on what she’s previously seen and felt. Rachel doesn’t need rescuing–she’s compently and curiously creating a life with meaning.
It’s Ben who needs saving. His reckless bravado hides a complex, angry man. He’s estranged from his family and has spent years punishing himself and his father. The man he is in the beginning of the novel is sexy to Rachel–and to the reader–because of his confident diffidence. But the Ben the novel slowly reveals, the man Ben begins to understand he can be, that man, a Ben loves and lets himself be loved, is spellbinding.
Ms. Calhoun’s writing thrills. Every scene feels necessary to the storytelling; her descriptions broaden the novel’s emotional scope. The sex scenes are lush, erotic, and singular. The pacing layers the narrative; the ending holds a sense of sweet inevitability. If you’ve not read Calhoun or if you’re just searching for a love story with verve and heft, check out Uncommon Passion. It’s superb.
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Grade: A
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 05/12/19
Publication Date: 09/2013
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
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I finally got around to reading this book and I really enjoyed it. Apropos of a recent discussion on healing etc, I thought the author effectively explored how long it would take both Rachel to find her way and Ben to work on his own recovery. I highlighted a line I loved, which was Ben saying he was doing the work “Because Rachel shouldn’t have to save him.” Yay!
It’s one of my all time faves–glad you enjoyed it.
So the one choice this woman, Rachel, is trying to make is to sleep with a man without marriage. And this book, while on the surface supportive of her choice, goes out of the way to make her end up saddled with the guy after all. How is that romantic? Why are women not to have that choice? Why does her first lover have to be her permanent one? Shouldn’t she have the right to experiment?
That’s not what happens in this book. Rachel wants to get rid of her virginity and begin to live a life she thinks is normal. She picks Ben and asks him if he’s willing and he says yes. They get into a relationship–marriage never comes up–in which they slowly fall in love.
That hardly makes a difference…
I liked this book, though I found The List, written after this one and switching the roles of the main characters, to be even stronger. The heroine in that book is emotionally tormented and the hero is the grounded one searching for ways to help his partner. I do remember that the resolution to Uncommon Passion is sweet and lovely and much needed after so many bleak moments.
Like others, I’m sorry to see Calhoun stop writing. She was quite prolific in the period in which she was writing, and so it’s been odd to have her simply vanish.
I love THE LIST, but I do think it’s a book where you see Calhoun really struggling with the conventions of the romance genre—specifically the HEA. I’m convinced that had THE LIST been written as Women’s Fiction (or just all-purpose general fiction) the main characters would probably not have made it as a couple, they’re just too different in upbringing and outlook.
My favorite Calhoun is actually her last published novel, TURN ME LOOSE, which features two people with a fraught past connection, fake relationship, enforced proximity, and so much unresolved sexual tension you could cut it with a knife. So good!
Oh Anne, please come back—romance readers need you! And please bring Jill Sorenson and Cara McKenna back with you.
I can see The List as straight fiction rather than genre romance, though I did feel satisfied with the messiness of a complex relationship with complicated partners. I think it’s her best book. Having said that, I haven’t read Turn Me Loose yet even though I purchased it when it came out. From what you’ve described, it sounds great.
I sometimes have this question pop up in my head – can AAR reviewers reach out to MIA authors or their agents for updates on their professional status? I’m guessing no is the answer, but I have wondered from time to time if authors are ever contacted by reviewers when they drop out of sight.
We’ve asked on Twitter before but never reached out to an author that has vocally said she retired.
I haven’t read this. …but reading about finding the blood after their night together would have been the point where I threw the book across the room. (Metaphorically of course, since I read digital books only.)
Yes, sometimes bleeding does happen with first intercourse. Hell, sometimes it happens with 300th intercourse.
…but it usually doesn’t, and using that trope in a contemporary romance just rings false to me, like the author is bending reality to suit a narrative.
I dunno. I have several friends that had significant bleeding their first times. I will say that Calhoun isn’t super interested in the virginity concept–it is just a place where her story starts. But we all have things that are no gos for us–I hate stories where the heroine demands the humiliation of the hero in order for him to prove his love–so this book sounds like it’s not for you!
I just clicked on the Amazon link(the AAR link) and see that I bought it in 2013! One of the gifts of getting older is that I don’t remember it and just retrieved it from the cloud. Your review made me definitely want to re-read it.
I agree with all the positive things said about Anne’s writing. My own favourite book of hers, and one which I re-read often, is Unforgiven.
I like Unforgiven a lot too.
A wonderful review of a great book—but I’d like to make one slight correction to your review: Ben discovers Rachel is a virgin when he sees the bloodied condom in the trash the morning after they have sex; I don’t think he finds blood on himself. I love Anne Calhoun’s work and this book is a great example of her talents: well-written with excellent character development, intelligent people, and realistic, adult situations and responses. Ben also appears as a secondary character is Calhoun’s UNCOMMON PLEASURE—two interconnected novellas, both featuring M/F/M ménages (Ben is a participant in one of the ménages—an incident which is referred to rather obliquely in UNCOMMON PASSION).
I love Anne Calhoun and am sorry she’s no longer writing (her last book was published in May of 2017) and appears to have gone completely off the grid (I believe she closed all her social media accounts). I hope she’s ok and doing whatever it is she wants to be doing.
Actually both things happen. He sees blood on his cock and then sees the blood in the trash can from the condom.
I agree about missing Anne Calhoun. She’s such a strong writer–I too hope she’s in a good place and may some day write again.
I stand corrected. Obviously, I need a reread. Lol.
It’s a great reread. So many lovely pieces.