The Machinist’s Daughter by Georgia Adler

A gritty, erotic, and heart-pounding read from Georgia Adler, The Machinist’s Daughter is an empowering story of resilience and hope in the face of impossible loss.

Desperately trying not to drown in self-pity and self-destruction, Jesse Thomas has been shattered by the past, but she isn’t willing to give up the fight just yet. The road to healing is hard enough, but the appearance of a disturbing stalker with an old axe to grind looms like a haunted storm cloud. Mike, an unexpected new friend, quickly blossoms into Jesse’s passionate protector, but that puts him squarely in the bull’s eye of her stalker’s vengeful obsession.

Though the work is labeled as fiction, the author explains that the events are loosely based on her own life, and that sense of intimate emotion is immediately obvious in the prose. The story may seem a bit cliché on the surface – a grieving woman finds unexpected healing with a handsome new man – but there is more nuance to this character-driven and vulnerably written story. The exploration of specific trauma and taboo experiences, along with powerful and sensitive storytelling around difficult subjects, gives this novel more impact and depth than one might expect from a work of erotic fiction.

While the shape of the story is engaging, the technical execution could be improved, as dialogue is sometimes formulaic or robotic, there is an overuse of ellipses, and there is too much “telling” of character emotions, rather than immersing readers in each scene. That said, the narrative tension is palpable throughout the novel and the climax is undeniably satisfying, for an emotionally complex and highly entertaining erotic thriller.