Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Julian of Macedon was a Greek/Macedonian general, cursed into becoming a love slave to any woman who repeated his name three times in row. He's been imprisoned in a book for over 2000 years, and all he exists for is to be a love slave to the woman who unleashes him.

Grace Alexander is a seriously broken woman. Oh, she's a sexual therapist who spends her life helping others. But she has no personal life of her own. All her life, she was teased for having a slender body, freckles, and a small bosom. And her one sexual relationship was with a man who used her to win a bet and who caused her considerable pain when he had sex with her, and it's no surprise that she isn't looking to repeat that experience any time soon.

But when her friend Selena presents her with the book with Julian's picture inside it, the place where he is trapped, Grace thinks it is all a joke. It takes her being tipsy for her to go through with the ritual, and when Julian doesn't appear at first, she assumes it's just another failure. But when she's confronted by the completely naked Julian, she's appalled, and says she doesn't want him, because without love, sex is missing something.

Julian is rather puzzled by this. He's more used to women immediately dragging him to bed, and the idea of his summoner not wanting him is confusing to him. He tries to change her mind several times, but she isn't having any of it, and she tries to get him to cover up. But when he inadvertantly brings up memories of Paul, the man who had painful sex with her, she excuses herself and goes off to cry. But he realizes he has gone too far and comforts her. In that moment, she begins to fall for him.

But then he feels that he has become too close to her. And since he must leave after only a month, he cannot bear to lose someone else he's become close to after only a single month of being with her.

Well, perhaps there is some way to save Julian from from his fate? When Julian tells Grace about what his existence is like when he is stuck in the book, she is determined to save him for such a fate. And Eros, Julian's brother, delivers the grim news. There *is* a way. The first is to be summoned by an Alexandrite... someone with Alexander in their name, which Grace fits. But then, Julian must not be inside her for almost the full month, and when he is inside her, he must stay inside her until the month is over. But with Julian and Grace already falling in love, how can he live up to such requirements? And the urge to serve Grace sexually is overwhelming, and part of his curse of servitude. Can he endure almost a month without her, and without orgasm to stay with her forever?

Can he? And does he want to? When Athena offers to allow Julian to return to the world he came from, but there he must retire to his estate and never come out again if he wishes to return to the world he knew. If he does manage to overcome the curse, will he choose to stay with Grace in the massively confusing modern world, or will he choose to go home again?

I really enjoyed this book, and it was hard to put down once I had picked it up. The story came alive with the two protagonists, both of whom had led hard lives and been hurt by those they were close to. Even Julian was more sinned against than sinning, and his relationship with his mother, Aphrodite, was hard because of how she treated him.

In a way, Julian's story reminded me a bit of Acheron Parthenopaus's story. Divine mother, screwed-up relationship with her, physical beauty causing problems for the male main character... even Grace reminded me a bit of Ash's lover, in that both of them were scholarly and would stick up for people they loved without end. But while the depth of Julian's suffering during his mortal life was nothing compared to Ash's, the stories struck many of the same chords for me..

While unlike Acheron, this book didn't make me almost cry, I did come to feel very closely for both Julian and Grace, and the hurts each of them had suffered during their lives. I definitely wanted Julian and Grace to succeed and be together, but the story's ending needed divine help to come together, and that was okay, though again, some of the parallel's with Ash's story made me feel like it had been done before. And that was all due to the order in which I read them, as "Fantasy Lover" was published first. Having read them so close together in time also reinforced that impression.

But still, I liked this book a lot, and I will definitely recommed it to my supernatural romance-reading friends and co-workers. This was a nice book that made me very glad I had read it.