Maggie has a thriving business, a bookstore, good friends and a generally happy life yet, she wants more. In Maggie’s characterization, Mayberry has created a “modern-day virgin” in her lack of sexual fulfillment. They want to round out the gamut of their experiences, not to miss out on anything life has to offer. The attraction of Mayberry’s heroines is how well they know themselves and how resolved they are to seek the changes they deem necessary to making their lives more fulfilling. In both cases, what they learn is that the best part of getting what you want and need is what you discover on the journey there. In Alex’s case, it was a child … in Satisfaction‘s Maggie’s case, it was an orgasm. They’re not hard, cold women, nor are they neurotic they’re unique, feminine but not caricaturishly so, consistently independent and established. Miss Bates loves that about Mayberry’s heroines. What she loved about Best Laid Plans was echoed in Satisfaction, a heroine who decides what she needs and wants and sets out to get it. In the course of this practical arrangement, they fall in love the theme of getting what you want and finding what you didn’t expect was wonderful. She loved the story of the thirty-something Alexandra who is determined to have a child and arranges to be artificially inseminated with the co-operation of her colleague, Ethan.

The first Mayberry novel Miss Bates read was 2010’s Best Laid Plans. Satisfaction accomplishes both: to be familiar and tell a fresh story. Moreover, one of the coolest things about being familiar with an author’s work is being aware of her preferred storylines, characters, and themes … if an author is re-inventing and not repeating them, this is sheer pleasure. This can’t only be a review of Satisfaction, but an assessment of how good Satisfaction is in light of the reader purrs other Mayberry novels have coaxed from Miss B. Because Mayberry’s one of Miss Bates’s favourite romance writers, a new book is scrutinized in consideration of the impressive body of work and slotted into a place in Miss Bates’s hierarchy of beloved Mayberry novels.

Miss Bates read Satisfaction with reader avarice for the only romance author she’s ever glommed without losing patience, or enjoyment. That’s the gist of Mayberry’s sexy new novel, Satisfaction the pleasure of it is in the myriad ways our hero and heroine discover how to lead full lives in and beyond the bedroom. The Rolling Stones sang you “can’t get no” and Mayberry’s latest says take it for yourself.

She's Got It Bad by Sarah Mayberry