Judge This Book By The Cover

My title “Judge This Book By The Cover” has a point, and I will get to that, but I want to qualify my review to say that this was my first experience with an “erotic” novel of this nature. I am a big fan of paranormal mystery and love Iris Johansen, Heather Graham, and Kay Hooper. This author ranks right up there with them, but with the added component of “caution: graphic sex”. I will admit to blushing because her sex scenes are on a whole other level than my experience, but when I downloaded the sample, I was taken in by the skill of the writer (lol….reminiscent of the guys who say they read Playboy for the articles?)I do not want to spoil the book for anyone who wants to read this, so I am not going to talk about specific examples in the book because I believe my star rating speaks for itself. I do want to say, for those who may be like me and not a fan of “graphic sex” for “sex” sake, the content of the book was such that I was okay with the sex. Perhaps it is because I am a returning college student, and have been exposed to some books in my literature classes that were far more graphic and offensive than what I read in “Max Starr” series. But for those who can’t stomach it, just hit the arrow over button on the Kindle. The book is that good. Also, the sex scenes do not detract from the meat of the story which is a paranormal suspense mystery at its core.I also want to applaud whoever it may be that chose the cover to this book. There are many authors I would love to read but I won’t when I see some of the covers. I grew up reading series romance, and every now and then they are a guilty pleasure, but the reason I downloaded Ms. Haynes “Max Starr” series was because it presented the “mystery” and not “erotic sex”. In my opinion, Jasmine Haynes book gains credibility because she did not need to rely on an “image” for her cover.The only criticism (if you can call it that) I have is because this book is so good, that I would love to recommend it to people I know, but because of the graphic sex I know they would not read it. Particularly, my 70 year-old mom and 65 year-old aunt, or even my 26 year-old. Yet, I also appreciate artistic freedom. As a writer, I love the images that are painted with words, and I would not want to take away the liscence for creativity entitled to an artist for their craft; and perhaps Ms. Haynes does not want to be main stream.That being said, I would want to say to her, if it were possible, have an “uncut” version and a version that I think would allow this series to make it to the NYTimes best seller list. I believe this book is that good. Ms. Haynes, you are just too good to hide your light under a bushel. I honestly cried for Max Starr and the love she has for her dead husband. It takes a lot to make me cry in a book.I look forward to reading more suspense books by Jasmine Haynes. I have already read the first four of the series, and I am holding off on the last one because its the last one, and I want more mysteries. I saw the other books, and they do not interest me, but Max Starr or another heroine in the making…does….the paranormal the better……