Geisha for Hire by Shawn Bailey

Summary:

Jayce Ito thought there was nothing he wouldn't do for his childhood best friend, Marley Bonds, until she asked him to help her out posing as a geisha for a client's birthday party. He'd done a lot of foolish things for Marley, but this just bordered on insanity--especially when the recipient of the gift turned out to be none other than his new boss, Reuben Danza. Reuben Danza had received some outlandish birthday gifts in his thirty-two years on earth, but when his best friend Payton Roberts hires a beautiful geisha to perform at his birthday party to impress some important clients, the drunken Reuben decided to let loose a little and show the Japanese men that he really knows how to have fun. But the plot backfires when Reuben gets interested in the geisha and wants to date her.

 Reviewer: Red Dragonfly

I'd recommend this book for someone who is interested in reading a yaoi novel (which it's listed as on Phaze's website) because if I hadn't  known this was written by an American author I would have thought for  sure it came from Japan. It had a lot of things that I consider normal  in yaoi novels (rape, mc in denial, mc walked all over, everyone in love with mc) but for some reason in this novel those things bugged me. 

The main character for the novel, Jayce, is not only pushed around by his best friend and mother (who convince him to dress up as a geisha  multiple times even when he keeps saying he doesn't want to do it), but he is also pushed around by his boss Reuben and an author that he edits for. He also continues to state that he is a guy and not gay almost the entire book even when he is having sex with a man. One of the biggest problems I had was that the first time Reuben and Jayce have sex, Reuben pretty much rapes him and never remembers it happening because he was so drunk. I also had a problem with how many times Jayce almost slept  with Genji, the author he was assigned to edit for, and how often he got turned on by him when he was supposedly with Reuben and in love with him. I just didn't feel like he loved him.

I normally love  Shawn Bailey's books and I've read everything that the author has  written but Geisha for Hire wasn't one of my favorites, this novel had a  few things that bugged me so I'm only giving this book 3 stars. 

   

Publisher: Phaze                          
Source:  Manic Readers