Casual sex, lesbian sex, rape, anal sex, incestuous sex, s&m sex, gang-bangs, money, drugs, celebrity, a marriage proposal out of nowhere AND a HEA, to boot! Pretty heady stuff for a 12 year old. No wonder I loved the book so much! Only Rosemary Rogers, she of the overwrought dialogue ("Good God, you bitch! You witch-woman, Eve!") and use of the romance novel as an endurance contest for abusive behaviour, could write a book like this. I've just re-read it for the first time in about 15 years, so here goes....
The Insiders is the story of Eve Mason and Brant Newcomb - she is a television reporter and former model, he is a gorgeous bad boy millionaire wanted by everyone.
This book spends a lot of time (the first 18 chapters, as a matter of fact) introducing us to a whole bunch of people mostly having a whole bunch of sex with each other. We meet Marti, Eve's lesbian roommate; David, Eve's ex - a sexist jerk with a madonna/whore complex; Stella, fair-weather lesbian and secretary to David; Gloria - slutty "assistant" to the senior partner at David's law firm; Peter, Eve's sometime lover and psychiatrist friend of David's; and Francine - David's messed up little sister. All of these introductions involve LOTS OF SEX.
We spend a few chapters finding out what a doormat Eve is for her boyfriend David. We also find out a bit about Brant's past - he was raised by a millionaire grandfather and has become jaded and arrogant.
We watch as Eve is manipulated into going to find Francine, who has run away. Eve finds her at Brant Newcomb's mansion being auctioned off to a stoned group of partygoers. Things go from bad to worse -- Brant offers her a drink (drugged, of course) and takes her to his playroom for a "little talk". Little talk becomes a gang-rape, with Brant the last to have her. David, of course, does not believe any of her story. He blames her for the events of the evening and breaks up with her.
A week or so later Brant sits beside Eve on an airplane and, then, apropos of nothing, he PROPOSES! He tells Eve, "no swinging parties, no 'old friends', no drugs". He asks her to think about "the whole, old-fashioned bit...marriage, kids, no other women for me and no other men for you". WTF!? Turns out, he admires her spirit - she never gave up fighting during the gang-rape, so why not get married? HUH?
The last 100 pages is the romance between Eve and Brant -- not much time to redeem himself for leading the gang-rape, but he almost does it. There is some conflict in the last chapter (again with rape and anal sex, yikes!) but they make up and there is an HEA.
Buried in these pages are the beginnings of a pretty good romance novel. Too bad Rosemary Rogers didn't finish writing it. This book gives us a skewed picture of love - the idea that the guy leading the gang-bang is the love of your life is just messed up. Reading it as an adult I would have liked to have seen more pages written to disabuse us of that notion, and to tell more of the love story between Eve and Brant. As a 12 year old it was more like "who cares, more SEX!"
Having said that, it was written in 1979, it is a Rosemary Rogers novel, and it is still pretty sexy. I think I remember all of her books having this "flavour" to them.
I don't love this one as much as I did, but love it still I do.
This book review has been provided by the No Book Left Behind Campaign - A Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous group initiative to review the un-reviewed.