Official Review: Polyandress by Robyn Michaels

[Paige Alvarado]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Polyandress" by Robyn Michaels.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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In Swahili culture, men must request to be married to a woman by paying a bride price and gaining acceptance from her family. At 24 years old, Amara Glazer has already experienced both marriage and divorce. Fourteen-year-old Daler requests to escort Amara on a trip to another part of Africa. During the trip, Daler seduces Amara, asking her to teach him how to make love to a woman. Over the following week, the two share moments that they won't soon forget. Completely infatuated by this encounter, Daler asks his family to figure out Amara's bride price, only to be rejected by his parents because her previous marriage indicates a lack of purity.

Many years pass and Amara now lives in the United States, grooming and training dogs. She begins a six-month contract in California, during which she agrees to train the three Rottweilers of an NBA star. One day, Amara sees a man singing on television and recognizes him to be Daler. The two reconnect over email and catch up on life. Will their age and lifestyle differences ruin their chance of a romantic relationship?

Polyandress is an erotic fiction story, based on events in Robyn Michaels' life. The word "ployandress" is defined by the author as a woman who has multiple sexual partners. It is a play on the word "polyandrous", which is the marriage of a woman to two or more men at the same time. Amara identifies herself as polyandress because she has ebbed from tradition and has had more than one sexual partner. A lot of the book includes phrases written in Kiswahili. My favorite thing about the book was the glossary at the end. This helped to translate some of the dialogue. I also enjoyed reading about the cultural differences between Africa and America.

Amara's passion is dog training and grooming. Robyn Michaels has a clear knowledge of these skills and describes in great detail the responsibilities involved with them. My least favorite parts of the book were the parts about the dog shows. They were excessively descriptive, in my opinion, and somewhat tedious to read about.

Being that this is an erotic book, there are very graphic sex scenes all throughout the text. Additionally, there are brief references to marijuana and heavy profanity. For these reasons, I would not recommend Polyandress to young or immature readers. I do believe that anyone interested in a steamy romance, African culture, and dog grooming/training/showing would enjoy this one.

It became clear to me rather quickly that this is an early version of the book. It was abundant with typographical and grammatical errors, and the formatting was a bit off. For example, new chapters would begin in the middle of a page. I do not believe that it has been professionally edited at this point. Overall, it was an enjoyable read, and I could tell that Michaels was very passionate about writing it. At this time, I am only able to grant Polyandress with 2 out of 4 stars. I took one star for the lack of editing and an additional star for the sort of boring parts of the book. I would happily read a revised version of the book and adjust my rating accordingly.

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Polyandress
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[Frannie Annie]

I'll check it out. The cultural differences makes the topic of multiple sex partners even more interesting. Thanks for the review!

[Ngozi Onyibor]

Though I am African, I'm not of Swahili heritage, but our cultures are similar. So I think this is a book that will resonate with me. It's a shame it has grammatical and formatting errors, I hope the author will take your review to heart and make the necessary changes.