The Research Project (The Research Project Trilogy Book 1) by Sarah Fawcett
Summary
“It seems like a good idea. Psychologist Colleen Couisneau is organized and logical. She even schedules date nights with her husband Steve once a week. Unfortunately, Steve leaves Colleen, stating that her robotic and methodical behaviour is the cause of his unhappiness.
Colleen believes that her lack of experience in the bedroom is the root cause of their split and recognizes that she needs to improve her repertoire to reconcile with Steve. She decides to begin a research study about casual sex.
New environments and testing her limits are all key to the research. The samples and data she collects open her eyes and lead her to form new hypotheses about what makes a marriage work.
As Colleen learns about her own wants and needs, she starts to reevaluate her own life. Will she be able to put the new theories to the test?”
Review
Ms. Fawcett contacted me asking to review this book for her and I am sooooo glad she did as I loved it. It does fall into the erotic romance genre, but it did have a lot more going on as well with the whole relationship aspect.
It follows Colleen who has a horrible husband and he leaves her because she is supposedly mechanical in sex, though you find out more is happening later, and she decides to go and explore her sexuality and figure out what she’s doing. I really did like the protagonist because I was able to connect with her because she was so real. She didn’t seem to be this extraordinary woman and she was easy to connect to.
One key thing I also did like in the writing was there was a lot of verbal communication and the use of protection. A lot of romance stories assume that the woman says yes and, I’m guessing, assume that protection is used. But if it’s not there, then I usually assume it didn’t happen. So I was really happy that it stated that protection was used and there was verbal consent as it also made it more realistic as well.
There was a lot going on in the book too. Colleen was searching for her sexuality and finding her way which was nice but she was also doing it for an interesting reason. She wanted her husband back, after everything which happened. I did want to sometimes shake Colleen and make her see what her husband was truly like, but of course I can’t do that. I did like that the story evoked many emotions in me. As a reader I don’t want to be reading it and just reading it for that purpose. I like to feel something or many different something. And when I can dislike a character I really like the story more because I can easily like character, but disliking them is sometimes hard, so I did like that aspect.
But my main love for this book was the whole consent aspect. With sexual assault being a massive issue and some of the new sayings being ‘If she doesn’t say yes, assume it’s no’, I liked how with all of the guys she had relations with they always were asking about consent and that really was comforting. While it isn’t completely realistic in every case, it was nice to ready a story where the consent was obvious.
Overall I really did enjoy the book and do recommend it. I really want to read the other two books in the series to see where it all goes as I’m extremely curious. Enjoy and happy reading!
