REVIEW: Ice Cage by Yamila Abraham

Ice Cage by Yamila Abraham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I rarely read ménage fiction, yet what lured me to Ice Cage was the smutty cover depicting a ménage à trois and the book description telling me it is about a ménage à trois. For the most part, the book gave me what I expected — graphic sex scenes of ménage à trois. There was a total of two graphic sex scenes, one in the middle and one at the end. Yet, there was something else I didn't expect.

The 7000-words story is told in 3rd PoV from Tyler's side. In Ice Cage, Tyler is trying to fend off Mikhail and Sebastian's seduction. Because the story starts off with Mikhail playfully spanking Tyler as some sort of joke/present/flirting for Tyler's birthday, I could tell Tyler was reaching his tipping point where he could no longer resist the scientists' amorous advance... or his own sexual needs.

Ice Cage has three characters. There was Tyler, a poor Italian ESL teacher who just turned 27 years old. There was Sebastian, a gay 47-years old Austrian scientist with a neat-freak tendency. Finally, there was Mikhail, a married 53-years old Russian scientist turned "prison gay" during the 50 weeks a year stuck in an isolated igloo for some science thingy.

What I did not expect was a romance between Tyler and Sebastian. Mikhail acted as a third wheel; he was just there for sex's sake satisfying his own sex drive. The romance between Tyler and Sebastian pleasantly surprised me. What also surprised me was how I didn't find Mikhail to be intrusive. Perhaps, I did find Mikhail to be unnecessary and probably would like the story better if the sex was just between Tyler and Sebastian (though, tbh, I'm not sure if that would make sure sense plot-wise). But for sure, I didn't Mikhail's presence intrusive.

To reiterate, Ice Cage was a short story of approximately 7000 words. This was 3/4 of the book, the last 1/4 of book was an excerpt from Incubus Master: Scor's Story by the same author. Overall, Ice Cage was a smutty, slightly sweet read. I rate it three stars for I liked it. I would have liked it some more if it was longer, i.e. a third sex scene, or had graphic illustrations because the cover-art was hot! Regardless, I found the HEA ending wholesomely satisfying.