McSexy

Racy romance set in Ghana

Content warning: sexual themes

I received a copy of this book courtesy of the author.

“McSexy” by Sianah Nalika DeShield is a romance novel set in Ghana about playboy millionaire Mike Frimpong and PhD candidate and children’s book author Lily Annah. Although Mike has everything, all the important people in his life keep nagging him to settle down, marry and have children. With his masculinity called into question, Mike accepts a bet that he will have a baby before the year is out. After making the bet, he meets the beautiful, intellectual Lily and sparks fly immediately. However, Lily’s family is experiencing serious financial problems and she secretly applies to an advertisement for a very unconventional job.

This is a fun, light-hearted novel full of drama and with an outrageous premise. DeShield is fearless when it comes to pushing her characters to extremes for comedic effect. However, even though it certainly had a much different tone, this book reminds me a little of “Letting Go” where the success of the characters is a given, but their ability to form and maintain relationships is the area in which they struggle. I particularly liked Lily because even though she has academic and writing success, she doesn’t yet have financial success, which created some interesting class tensions in the book.

However, I think it needs to be clear that this is not a serious book and both Mike and Lily are ultimate Mary Sues and in particular, Mike’s sexual prowess and financial acumen beggars belief at some points. Although an enthusiastic writer, DeShield does a fair bit of telling rather than showing and there were points where felt she could have dialed the description back a little and relied a bit more on suggestion, such as during the sex scenes.

A fun and entertaining story, that is a refreshing take on the romance genre.