Sweet Filthy Boy

I’ve read several books by the authors but I must say, this is by far my favourite. The voice and the interpretation is amazing. Definitely a must to listen or read.

Oh my goodness, I can't even express how much I love this story! It's quite beautiful and perfectly narrated too.

Chefs kiss. This is the third book from Christina Lauren I have read, and it has been the best. A-1 smut

The MC is my ideal guy!! I will dream about him for days to come I’m sure!! I very much love this book and the chemistry. The spice is amazing

Narration was fantastic!!!

I just wish we could have heard his POV.

Mostly sex and not enough storyline. I love a romantic soft porn but this…..it was all sex.

Really enjoyed the interaction. Love does concur all. Left a smile on my face

Loved this story. Also LOVED the narrator of the audio book. Using voices and accents for each character made it so much easier to keep track of the characters.

While I do wish there had been male narration with the French accent, I did love this book. Looking forward to the rest of the series

It’s the perfect book, a good amount of romance with smut equation I love it

Why did I wait so long to listen to this?? Not at all what I expected. Plenty filthy. But a lot of LOL and coeur, aussi.

Awful. Do not waste your time. No plot. Just sex

Why 2 Stars?

If you love extreme angst (75% of what I listened to) and tons of negative head banter, this is a great story for you. I made it to the 65% mark by skipping every time the angst parade started.

The storyline is good and the author has talent... Oh but the angst! ?

Fun story line, great page turner! I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next!

Lots and lots of sex. Thought the reading was ok, did a better job on the guy than the girl

This well-researched but still speculative contemplation of the life and writings of Henry James was fascinating to me. Toibin meticulously painted a portrait of a reflective man who relished his undisturbed life. The author integrated the influences of life on art showing how James incorporated his astute observations in his creative process. The Master was an excellent character study utilizing flashbacks and bittersweet vignettes to reveal the inner life of a conflicted author.This is a book to be real slowly and savored. Highly recommended to lovers of literature.

In contemporary 21st c. writing, it is a High Crime not to acknowledge that the historical, such as an actual subject, the novelist Henry James of PORTRAIT OF A LADY, is separated from fiction, such as THE MASTER by COLM TOIBIN, for "never the twain meets." Now we know from Toibin that the art of writing, as a matter of survival, in the truth-telling business of every day life, like that of high science, must follow other rules, which change, for the survival of the species involved. The realization of each and both -- literature and biographical/auto-biographical history -- together consists of tissue thin sensitivities of the physical and the nonphysical (non-material to our five senses but not to the sixth). Nevertheless, independantly and together, the knowable through scientfic observations, testings, and theories,that have independently been come together is a rather fresh if not new kind of literary and historical fact of life in Toibinʻs hands. THE MASTER, as Colm Toibin crafts the novel, is a literary testament to Sir Cyril Burtʻs late 19th and early 20th c. understanding of the unseen forces of physics and psychology (conceived then as science and meta-physics (suggesting a kind of factual voodooism?) such as "the Ghost in the Machine" (as Arthur Koestler reported it in his modern scientific physics, chemistry theory and experimental historyical account, THE ROOTS OF COINCIDENCE (1972.). Actuality, by common sense perception of the world as subject, like the human reflections upon the nature of Nature, of which is Henry Jamesʻ studied perception of the people around him is merely one instance of the case -- is more lie than truth, but far from worthless. When literary characters are presented in their psychological forms -- Henry James in a cocoon of stolid, formidable disciplined New England characteristic reserve and his family memories in his and Aliceʻs and othesʻ lettered memories, and through the intervention of author Toibinʻs researched information long after, we onlookers have very little to say for we are captives of the traced memories that weave in, out, through, over and everywhere of the footnoted histories and our impressions of the subject and his world. So we are left to register responses rather than review Toibinʻs Book. it is experienced phenomena on multiple levels, spaces, and times more than as categorical literary fare, like a straightforward narrative. We are given a fiction that is also non-fiction, true or false and both. What falls between and around their connections is also tenable, yet firmly not dismissable because unclassified with certainty. It is not phantasy, not dream, not art, not science but a groping for what is there, if clear as well as confusing in parts. Because the subject, Henry James, known to the author Toibin in his own special relationship to James, is unknown to us except as some other person, independently, we think, of what Toibin brings to us as his experience of Henry James, Fact And Fiction.Everything Toibin says is Possible as meaningful idea and experience. The verified facts, like those of his birth and non-marriage, are trite. But the verified facts of his time, like the end of the 19th c. and first part of the 20th, are not. The context of Henry Jamesʻ social life, from sheer repetition of other lives like his having been Possibly gay and suffering, is temptingly verifiable; yet we cannot actually affirm that categorically. Toibin combines the Possible with the verified trite to the suspected Implied or the understandably Inferred --in a way that makes us hold our opinion or judgement because they are of no consequence. Delectably, they are real. The surprise gives pleasure because honest, among other things that might be said about it -- half truth, seductively, merely, but enough not to be a abandoned. There are few enough pleasures in life, proferred by art, literary being only one, and not second to biographical and auto-biographical, one is tempted to dismiss criticisms that warn because what is at the end of the rainbow is the dreamed pot of gold. Possibly.So we are seductively led to infer (that is. short of believing? but not quite) that Henry James was closer to the women in his life than to the men. For he, too, like the women of the time, suffered the personal outrages that the assumption of male superiority clamped down upon them -- his sister Alice, for example, repressed from being the unseen person in the family of four boys; his cousin Minny, because, like Alice, she is presumed to be "inferior" to all males, regardless of her demonstrated greater intelligence than theirs; the noble born woman friend whose husband, a British military officer of somewhat high rank, has in her employ a soldier-manservant named Hammond, perfect to the sensibilities of the famous writer Henry James himself, one and contentiously the same in life and in fiction, a male/female/male -- the only true gender, as the biological African EVE of modern anthropology proposes . . . .Toibin masterfully binds one to his artful telling so that there is little resistance to the marriage of fiction and history but rather a willingly acquiescense to both as not only inseparable but the only true Possible, in his depiction of Henry James, the preserver of virtues the chiefest of which is his integrity of person, i.e. his body, mind, and spirit, which was/is gay. Possibly. All fiction owes its truth-telling to the reality that is supposedly non-fiction. But the body is not merely skin, bones, organs, in movement in time, we do know, but how do we account for what we are not sure we know or do not know of half-knowing states and conditions? Henry James is less of an enigma than before Toibin begins his artful exposition of the inside realizations of the man as he encounters different persons (Toibinʻs Possibles) -- it is a kind of make-believe truth-like telling biography, helped by autobiographical elements like Jamesʻ letters to and from relatives and friends. We are led to encounter forms of a famous writer at his sparest moments of responding to persons intent on insulting him (like Mr. Webster, the high government official that he is introduced to at a British military officerʻs party in Ireland who reveals he knows the Jamesʻ Irish origins as so humble, they migrated) or connecting with him without a single word uttered (Hammond, the soldier-manservant) or his brother William, who, with him, the last of the surviving James Senior family gives advice that younger brother Henry finally rejects for advice of his own devising. In that, he is a free person, finally, coldly rational and (at last) resentful -- in self-defense. In writing. Which is a kind of silence, unspoken but plainly indicative of the person Henry Jamesʻ displeasure, manifest, for certain, for once.An LT viewer named V.V.Harding thought the fictionalized Henry "tame" considering his A London Life. I have not read a London Life. I would say Henry James is never tame, not even by comparison with other writings, and Toibin never mistakes Jamesʻ long suffering withholding of committed responses for meaning nothing at all. He shows James at his most deeply troubled -- a descendant of the Puritans, famous for their formidable coldness in society, developed out of bitter, long winters, originally in (as they conceived) hostile Indian territory, and a life build out of a wilderness, far beyond anything that their former civilized life had ever allowed as Possible . . .which fact did not, notwithstanding, prevent them from converting the Indians even if they did not, as the pilgrims, amicably befriend them. Jamesʻ sense of person was carried by an indomitable Will, and formidable Harvard education, at the time represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson, his outer ego Henry Thoreauʻs show casing the simple life in less than simple Walden Pond, not far from bustling Concord, Oliver Wendell Holmes . . .for which background there had already risen in a kind of simple majestic purity of voice a Nathaniel Hawthorne and sensitive Longfellow . . . . Henry James was gifted, rightly by culture, also through the impenetrable self-righteousness of the tight-lipped migrated religious Englishman who loved freedom to worship so much his love turned to a passion for political justice that settled an indomitable will known to the world since as American Puritan. Toibin, who is Irish, as James, both of whom knew suffering subjections by demand of Powers greater than they, understands the temperament: its signature is Silence with a Will to Freedom to life as their need demanded, despite ridiculed, as by the official Webster, or charmed and encouraged, as by calm, focussed, friendly soldier-manservant Hammond.Toibin introduces a new genre: the combination of fiction, biography, autobiography, and history, often enough inseparable in the narrative of Henry James, Person who is Writer. He does so more openly than the Russian Bulgakov of THE MASTER AND MARGARITA. But James is very much an American at his best, as Toibin proves is Possible to understand, as Bulgakov, infinitely more repressed and utterly oppressed as well also shows of a later succeeding generation from two very different national and personal histories about which we gain an inside viewing late, but grateful.THE MASTER was short-listed title for the Booker Prize. In my mind, it is a Booker Prize winner,excellences being always, to me, incomparable. Only the unreality of practicality presumes that art that is excellent is comparable -- which no one believes, as I, emphatically, do not.

I was impressed by this fictional bio of Henry James. Very subtle, very quiet, and well-executed. I really liked how we wove in various people and incidents that inspired James' work.

This is a beautifully written book - the sentences roll over you as you are reading them. And it's a sensitive examination of the way that James' life was echoed in his work, and the way his desire to observe, and write, led to a certain disengagement from the world - and made him let down the people who loved him. However, it seemed a little repetitive - the same events recur, with different protagonists. Perhaps this is meant to be cyclical - but James' approach doesn't really change, despite his guilt or shame about the events that have gone before. I agree with the comments of one of the reviewers below, that it ended up reading like an exercise in style rather than anything with real feeling.

Narration terribly slow. She Took a 2-3 second pause after every line. Drove me nuts. And so I finally tried putting it on faster speed but didn’t help.

I am not a Henry James fan and little happens in this novel. And yet I found it wonderful and hard to put down. Toibin creates a distinctive voice, and a powerful and very relatable sense of melancholy. This novel made me think a lot about loneliness, and family bonds, and selfishness, and fear, and how all of this seeming contradictory stuff, actually blends together. You don't need to have read James or admire him to appreciate this distinctive piece of fiction.

Mr. Toibin brings Henry James to life!

I'm a fan of Toibin but I fear this is not his best work. It seems an idiosyncratic of specialization that only the author and few people are interested in. There is nothing new or inventive about the novel, just a suturing of parts.

I found The Master, Tóibín's biographical novel about Henry James both fascinating and occasionally tedious. Tóibín uses a selective omniscient narrator to get into James's head to seemingly reveal how his reactions, musings and reminiscences informed the crafting of his novels. In actuality, however, what Tóibín has done is used the novels (and undoubtedly biographies and critical studies) to craft his own portrait of James in this novel. Tóibín creates a psychological portrait of James that resembles the kind of psychological portrait of characters created by Henry James himself. If that sounds circular, it is, but it is intriguing.The action of the novel takes place from 1895-1899 when James was in his fifties. However we learn much about James earlier in his life as he remembers incidents and people from his younger days. The major people with whom James interacts are his siblings, William and Alice; his cousin, Minnie Temple; his friend, the novelist, Constance Fenimore Woolson; and the Scandinavian-American sculptor, Hendrik Christian Andersen. But James seems unable to form deeply intimate ties with anyone -- he needs his own space and solitude. Tóibín does not judge the Master -- he seeks to understand him.As there are many allusions to the more famous of James's novel in this book, it helps to be somewhat familar with his work.

I love all of Christina Lauren’s books. Her leads generally veer from the tired trope of the woman who is saved by the man in the end.

It did not fulfill my expectations when I read it, but I am warming up to it as the time goes along. This is a creative biography of Henry James. It is as much about Henry James as about Toibin himself, I feel, and about the creative writing process. The book shows Henry James as an acute, albeit passive, observer of life. He doesn’t express opinions or take active part in any aspect of life from politics to sexuality. His life is full of avoiding life. It seems that he solely expressed himself in writing. He is shown thriving on stories and happenings of others which he reworks into his own literary creations. Some other famous personalities of the time are dwelt on briefly in the book, among whom Oscar Wilde serves as an anti-thesis of James, and at this backdrop Toibin ventures to examine Henry James’ thoughts on writing and success.On the whole the book did not meet my expectations, and it was its biggest fault, perhaps. Since Henry James came from a family of thinkers, I expected more philosophical discussions, witty remarks and arguments in the book, some of which could be found by the end. James himself is known for awfully convoluted speech and pompous behaviour, and there is none of it in the book. If I treat it as a novel, I am much more at peace with it, and able to appreciate its merits.The book’s strength is its style with subtle and elegant language.