A young man’s flight of fancy. A series of sensual encounters. An epic journey that will either lead to destruction, enlightenment, or both.
He loves exotic travel and alluring women, preferably together. Embarking on a lifelong journey across the world, a razor-sharp academic delights in highly sensual encounters with the opposite sex. As each experience deepens his philosophy, he experiments on a quest for something more, suffering several hard landings along the way.
But drink, ambition, and tragedy eventually send him down a bumpy path of self-destruction. If he doesn’t moderate his excesses, his original journey will only go in one direction… into a death spiral. Will a determined man learn from his travels or will his hedonistic vision send him crashing down to earth?
Turbulence is a rich and poignant literary novel. If you like sizzling indulgences, intriguing encounters, and anti-heroes with attitude, then you’ll love Bruce McLaren’s extravagant adventure.
What did I think?
I have to
admit that I was drawn to this book because of the author sharing his name with
a Formula 1 legend and Turbulence does actually have something in common with today’s
McLaren – neither of them are very racy! Despite being described as an erotic novel, Amsterdam Press
took a chance on this book and wow, am I glad that they did. I can totally see
the publisher’s quandary; Turbulence does not fit into any one genre and it is difficult to
market a book that doesn’t fit into a particular category. I’m sure this isn’t
an isolated incident and I’m so sad that readers could be missing out on some
great books so…how about we create a new genre called ‘Unique’. See, Turbulence fits perfectly there!
Both the
author and the ‘nameless’ main character are both archaeologists, which made me
wonder whether this was more of a memoir.
As he travels round the world for work, he inevitably meets a beautiful
woman on each flight and, more often than not, they end up meeting for sex at
their mutual destination. Bruce McLaren
doesn’t go into details, sparing our blushes and leaving most of it to the
reader’s imagination. Although there are
a lot of these encounters, by not dwelling on it, you know that this isn’t the
main focus of the story. We are free to
discover some of the amazing cities through the eyes of this philosophical man,
which I found both educational and fascinating.
I wasn’t
really sure what to expect when I agreed to read Turbulence, but I certainly didn’t expect something so deep,
meaningful and thought-provoking. It was
actually really refreshing to read something from a man’s point of view; they’re
not as confident as we think, ladies! It’s
a short read at only 194 pages but I found myself pausing after each chapter to
savour the sounds and smells of the city we had just virtually visited through the all-encompassing faultless prose of Bruce McLaren.
So pack
your passport and pick up a copy of Turbulence;
the book that takes you on a virtual tour of the world as you follow one man’s
quest to charm the birds out of the sky.
I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
My rating:
Buy it from Amazon
