Review: The Nekkid Truth by Nicole Camden

The Nekkid Truth - Nicole Camden

Quick review for a quick read. "The Nekkid Truth" is a stand alone novella by Nicole Camden and I actually thought this was a little better than the "Fetish Box" trilogy that I read a while back from the author, though I'll admit I still saw issues in this one that kind of plagued the aforementioned series. At least this was a stand-alone story that could be taken for what it offered on its own, and it had an interesting premise to go on.

I'm going to set aside the cover image because while that might be relevant to the steam factor in this book, it has a little less to do with the actual story in the book. The novella centers around crime scene photographer Debbie Valley, a woman who lacks the ability to recognizes faces after a horrible accident. Instead, she identifies people by their voices, scents, and more notably - their bodies. She leaves nothing to the imagination on the level of being able to identify her lovers by certain parts of their bodies...ahem. But on the whole, she's always had a thing for one of the detectives at the station she's lusted after a long time - Marshall Scott. So when opportunity presents itself while the two are working a case together, she jumps at the chance to make her move, though she has to reconcile some notable issues including her respective condition in the process.

I genuinely liked the construction of the characters in this novella as well as the heroine's voice - both of those stood out to me from the get go. I also thought the premise was interesting, since I'm fond of mystery/crime stories. I didn't mind the steam factor to go along with it (though maybe it was a little too obvious it would kind of go into certain mature humor directions - I was kind of hoping it'd do something a little different, but meh). The one issue that I think I had with this was after a time, the focal point of the plot got sidetracked a little by the steamy scenes between the leading characters. Don't get me wrong, they were good, and I was convinced of the chemistry between the leads for what the story offered, but where the external elements were in the forefront at the beginning of the story, they almost became background noise towards the end of the novella, so the consistency could've been a little better than what it was.

I almost think this could've been a fine crime/mystery/erotic novel if it'd been given longer treatment and development. The intrigue is there, but I think it almost passed a little too quickly in places for the story to feel a little fuller than what it did. Nonetheless, I thought it was a better experience than my first read from Camden, and I'd like to read more from her in the future.

Overall score: 2.5/5 stars

Note: I recieved this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Gallery/Pocket Star.