Call Me Cat by Alex Lux

I swear, more often than not it seems like the quick romance reads that I assume will be mainly sexy but lacking in substance that end up surprising me the most. Just goes to show, you can’t always judge a book by its synopsis!

What’s it About?

“Make me forget about everything except you.” Catelyn Travis is a good girl who gets good grades in law school, doesn’t date and never gets into trouble. But when a run of bad luck threatens to destroy everything she’s worked for, she’s forced to become Cat, phone sex goddess who fulfills the fantasies of her clients night after night. When she meets Ashton Davenport the Third, bad boy biker billionaire, she knows to stay away. But when he calls her alter ego, Cat, she has no choice but to fall for the sexy stranger. Now her life is spiraling out of control as she struggles to keep her two identities separate, but there’s one person who knows her secret. And he’ll stop at nothing to destroy her, just like he destroyed her parents. Threatened at every turn, her life crumbling around her, Catelyn must decide who she can trust, because the wrong choice could end her life. Contains mature content, recommended for adult readers. Trigger warnings: Sexual assault and animal abuse.

First Impressions

So, we have a young college girl down on her luck financially who needs to make some cash, and fast. Sounds like the set-up to an average porno, doesn’t it? After reading the synopsis and downloading this book for free off BookBub, I figured it would be a nice, mindless read to enjoy in between my romance author review requests. However, before you know it you’re quickly enthralled by a cold case murder mystery, a sadistic stalker, and a blossoming romance shrouded in secrets. Well smack my ass and call me Judy! Actually, please don’t do that.

What to Do?

Something that I really enjoyed about this novel, other than the unexpected suspenseful plot, was our main character Catelyn, or Cat, as she is known to her naughty callers. This isn’t the first novel I’ve come across where a female character has turned to phone sex in order to pay the bills. However, I think I can honestly say this is the first one where I felt like she legitimately had no other options. Hear me out!

Catelyn has already maxed out on her student loans during her undergrad at Harvard, and she is unable to take out any more for Harvard Law School due to the fact that she has no living relative who could possibly co-sign a private loan for her. She’s sought in vain for additional fellowship opportunities (which are already being reduced), her professor is already paying her out-of-pocket for her TA duties, and campus jobs are few and far between. Short of dropping out of school, this seemed like a viable option.

Time to Study

The other thing I loved about Catelyn was that she was a student, through and through. She’s never had sex before, or a long-term boyfriend, so she doesn’t exactly have the necessary dirty talking skills to be a phone sex operator. Does that stop her? Hell no! Catelyn hits the library and checks out as many romance novels and sex guides that she can get her hands on. After taking avid notes, she has multiple script options ready to go. She stumbles a bit at first, and it was actually kind of funny to see her try and find her rhythm, but by God ya gotta love the girl’s tenacity.

Can’t Put it Down

Best piece of advice I can give you when it comes to this book? Be sure to read it on a lazy day at the beach when you have about three uninterrupted hours to spare. That’s about how long you’ll need to finish it. I made the mistake of starting it pretty late in the evening, thinking I’d just read a few chapters before bed. Next thing I know it’s 1:00am and I have work the next day. I had to stop reading 82% of the way through, or else risk showing up to work looking like a zombie. Not only does the book itself end on a cliffhanger, but so does every…single…chapter! I kept telling myself, “Just one more!” Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Keeping Secrets

Catelyn finds herself in a difficult situation with our main male lead character, Ash, as she starts to fall for him in real life, yet he also happens to be one of her late night callers. She’s hesitant to reveal her true identity to Ash as his local phone sex operator, fearing that he might prefer her sexy alter ego, Cat, to her true self. She wants to think she’s nothing like Cat, but in reality Cat is just the hidden, sexy, carefree side to Catelyn’s own personality. Cat may seem the confident phone sex operator while Catelyn is the serious academic, but they are truly one and the same. Pretty deep for a short romance read!

Series: Call Me Cat Trilogy, book 1. I got this first book for free, but I immediately went and bought the rest of the trilogy.

Should you read it? I always say the sign of a good mystery novel is when you suspect just about every character in the novel of being the killer. That definitely happens here! I think we still have a lot to learn about Ash, especially when he discovers that Catelyn is actually Cat. Can’t wait to find out more in the next book!

Smut Level: Some of Cat’s clients are raunchier than others. Dirty talk guaranteed. The calls with Ash were surprisingly romantic as he creates sex scenes for them all over the world.

Get it on Amazon: Click Here. FREE. Daring Books Publishing. 200 Pages.