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Overexposed
M.J. Benn's debut novel, Overexposed, is a cheeky, irreverent, friends-to-lovers romance that explores what happens when life's best-laid plans fall apart.
Emma Moore has a simple plan: Her childhood friend and professional photographer, Ty Carter, will take risqué photos of her to sell on the Internet. It can’t possibly get complicated, right?
After getting laid off from her nursing job in small-town New Hampshire, Emma Moore needs to figure out how to pay rent. When she finds out about the website VIPsOnly, Emma hatches the most absurd plan of her life.
What's supposed to be a straightforward partnership with one friend taking steamy photos of the other turns into a complicated mess of emotions. If the plan doesn't work, Emma will be back at square one—unemployed and scrambling for rent money. Worst of all, this plan could ruin her lifelong friendship with Ty.
Emma Moore has a simple plan: Her childhood friend and professional photographer, Ty Carter, will take risqué photos of her to sell on the Internet. It can’t possibly get complicated, right?
After getting laid off from her nursing job in small-town New Hampshire, Emma Moore needs to figure out how to pay rent. When she finds out about the website VIPsOnly, Emma hatches the most absurd plan of her life.
What's supposed to be a straightforward partnership with one friend taking steamy photos of the other turns into a complicated mess of emotions. If the plan doesn't work, Emma will be back at square one—unemployed and scrambling for rent money. Worst of all, this plan could ruin her lifelong friendship with Ty.
270 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 24, 2021
11 people are currently reading
60 people want to read
About the author
M.J. Benn
2 books6 followersFor his entire life, M.J. has dreamed of writing quirky, funny stories of new love. Raised on a diet of romcoms, he is always daydreaming about fantastic love stories. When he met the love of his life, he didn’t stop daydreaming. His amazing partner convinced him to start writing down those daydreams in the form of books.
When not writing, M.J. lives with his partner in the quiet hills of Vermont. He enjoys the outdoors, reading a lot of books, and taking pictures of mountains.
M.J. is always looking to connect with fans, receive feedback on his work, and chat with other authors about the craft. You can reach him at mjbenn.author@gmail.com.
Or find him at his website – where you can see all the news about upcoming releases and join his mailing list.
Website: mjbenn.com
When not writing, M.J. lives with his partner in the quiet hills of Vermont. He enjoys the outdoors, reading a lot of books, and taking pictures of mountains.
M.J. is always looking to connect with fans, receive feedback on his work, and chat with other authors about the craft. You can reach him at mjbenn.author@gmail.com.
Or find him at his website – where you can see all the news about upcoming releases and join his mailing list.
Website: mjbenn.com
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 28, 2022
Cute story with a bit of spice!! Interesting take on OnlyFans or as the book refers to as VIPsOnly!! Love the friendship between Emma and Callie!!
September 11, 2021
A Surprise Attraction . . .
Losing her job puts Emma Moore in a bad situation. She has to find a way to pay her rent. Discovering a website named VIPsOnly, Emma devised her outlandish plan. She would ask her childhood friend, Ty Carter, who is a professional photographer, to take some naughty photos of her that she can sell on the website. Simple!
But as she and Ty start to work together on her plan, things get sort of emotional. Where did these feelings come from? Could this plan possibly ruin their long-time friendship? Or might it instead make them aware of something even better waiting ahead for them?
Losing her job puts Emma Moore in a bad situation. She has to find a way to pay her rent. Discovering a website named VIPsOnly, Emma devised her outlandish plan. She would ask her childhood friend, Ty Carter, who is a professional photographer, to take some naughty photos of her that she can sell on the website. Simple!
But as she and Ty start to work together on her plan, things get sort of emotional. Where did these feelings come from? Could this plan possibly ruin their long-time friendship? Or might it instead make them aware of something even better waiting ahead for them?
January 27, 2022
Cute read
I enjoyed this premise and the characters quite a bit!! Cute story! Where can I find a Ty for myself?? (:
I enjoyed this premise and the characters quite a bit!! Cute story! Where can I find a Ty for myself?? (:
September 9, 2021
A Delight!
I loved it! The characters are charming and well developed, and the premise was unique and interesting. It was such a blast to read — equal parts sweet, steamy, and fun. Highly recommend for anyone looking for a well-written, cheeky romance!
I loved it! The characters are charming and well developed, and the premise was unique and interesting. It was such a blast to read — equal parts sweet, steamy, and fun. Highly recommend for anyone looking for a well-written, cheeky romance!
September 12, 2021
3.5 Stars
Emma, after being let go from her nursing job, is at a standstill with no clear path forward. She bumps into Callie, an old friend she lost touch with who is raking in a hefty amount of money creating content on the internet, which plants an idea in her head. And when she catches up with Ty, another school friend who is making a living as a photographer, she proposes forming a business partnership. Of course, there’s bound to be a bit of tension when you’re naked around someone for large chunks of time.
I enjoyed this story, I found the characters relatable and I loved the theme of female sexual empowerment. I really liked the friendship between Emma and Callie.
I thought that the pacing was a bit off, slow in the beginning and then too fast and choppy towards the end. It could have been fleshed out a little more.
Great quick, fun read!
Thank you to the author and to Booksprout for the reviewer copy.
Emma, after being let go from her nursing job, is at a standstill with no clear path forward. She bumps into Callie, an old friend she lost touch with who is raking in a hefty amount of money creating content on the internet, which plants an idea in her head. And when she catches up with Ty, another school friend who is making a living as a photographer, she proposes forming a business partnership. Of course, there’s bound to be a bit of tension when you’re naked around someone for large chunks of time.
I enjoyed this story, I found the characters relatable and I loved the theme of female sexual empowerment. I really liked the friendship between Emma and Callie.
I thought that the pacing was a bit off, slow in the beginning and then too fast and choppy towards the end. It could have been fleshed out a little more.
Great quick, fun read!
Thank you to the author and to Booksprout for the reviewer copy.
March 13, 2022
Adored this book
Adored this book! It was sexy funny touching and unique. Ty is one of my new fave book men! This concept is so different but worked
Adored this book! It was sexy funny touching and unique. Ty is one of my new fave book men! This concept is so different but worked
May 21, 2022
This was a super enjoyable book that I could not put down. I loved the HEA ending and was shocked to see this was written by a man(a very woke man!) Superb read and definitely recommend
December 19, 2021
NO NO NO, MY FIRST DNF IN A WHILE
I’ve been looking forward to reading this for a while and was really glad to see it on kindle unlimited. I loved the idea of an onlyfans romance.
Unfortunately, this book appears to have been written by someone who has literally no idea how to write a paragraph never mind a book. I got to around chapter 4 before I gave up, I even skimmed ahead to see if it got any better, it did not.
I genuinely thought this woman had no idea how to think internally for the first 2 chapters, why does she say literally everything out loud even when she’s alone? It’s so weird, it’s not even like a word or two it’s like “I will go to the gym and then get my dinner and on the way back I will walk by the lake” STOP IT. Then out of nowhere it said “she thought” and I was like OH, THE AUTHOR DOES KNOW THEY CAN DO THAT 🤦🏼♀️ It’s just so painfully boring and poorly written, the characters are really awkward and I’m assuming it wasn’t intentionally written that way. Like there’s a bit where she bumps into the guy I assume she eventually falls in love with… the conversation with him reaches its natural conclusion a good 3 or 4 times and neither of them move. Ugh, it was just really weird and wooden.
I want someone to write this book, in first person, with fully fleshed out characters because it really could be awesome, unfortunately it really was a waste of time even reading 3/4 very short chapters
I’ve been looking forward to reading this for a while and was really glad to see it on kindle unlimited. I loved the idea of an onlyfans romance.
Unfortunately, this book appears to have been written by someone who has literally no idea how to write a paragraph never mind a book. I got to around chapter 4 before I gave up, I even skimmed ahead to see if it got any better, it did not.
I genuinely thought this woman had no idea how to think internally for the first 2 chapters, why does she say literally everything out loud even when she’s alone? It’s so weird, it’s not even like a word or two it’s like “I will go to the gym and then get my dinner and on the way back I will walk by the lake” STOP IT. Then out of nowhere it said “she thought” and I was like OH, THE AUTHOR DOES KNOW THEY CAN DO THAT 🤦🏼♀️ It’s just so painfully boring and poorly written, the characters are really awkward and I’m assuming it wasn’t intentionally written that way. Like there’s a bit where she bumps into the guy I assume she eventually falls in love with… the conversation with him reaches its natural conclusion a good 3 or 4 times and neither of them move. Ugh, it was just really weird and wooden.
I want someone to write this book, in first person, with fully fleshed out characters because it really could be awesome, unfortunately it really was a waste of time even reading 3/4 very short chapters
February 14, 2022
So, the concept behind this story was really interesting and it had all this potential to be really good. Unfortunately it just didn’t quite deliver. The dialogue and writing in general was all quite immature even though the main characters were in their late 20s. I did love that this story was set in New Hampshire, and I can totally relate to Emma’s career/identity/direction struggles, but it lost me with its writing style and lack of focus.
February 24, 2022
Not bad, but still missing a little something. I read this book because the premise intrigued me, as the author mentioned VIPsOnly was inspired by OnlyFans. All I know about OnlyFans comes from an article I read where content creators told their stories of how they came to use the site and got into sex work, some of whom are students who need a way to pay for their education. It’s an interesting subject, and I appreciated discussions of sex work/the porn industry in another romance novel I’ve read (The Roommate Experiment by Rosie Danan), so I was curious about this book.
Up front, we do get an author’s note that mentions this wouldn’t be a deep dive into the topic, so that set some expectations, which I appreciated. In that sense, I wasn’t disappointed, as we did get a positive view of VIPsOnly in the opportunities it provided for Callie and Emma to make money. I liked Emma’s friendships with both Callie and Ty, although I feel like they could have been developed and fleshed out more on page, since we’re told that they were old friends and Emma used to be good friends with both of them growing up; however, we don’t really get to see that beyond the glimpse of the old home movies Ty and Emma watched together. I wanted to really believe that they were once close and knew a lot about each other back in the day, or at the very least got to know each other well in the present.
For instance, the book tells me that Emma feels comfortable around Ty, more comfortable than she feels around anyone else. But why is that? Is it his approachability? Their old friendship? How he doesn’t judge her? I feel like it was missing something; we get a peek at why Emma didn’t hear from Ty for years after he ghosted her because of his old girlfriend. But what happened there? That felt like a set-up for a conflict that never happened. At the very least, I expected Emma and Ty to talk about it, because it felt like some of the uncertainty she felt about getting in a relationship with Ty came from there, but it was mentioned once or twice and then never brought up again. The conflict we did get, about Ty not having told Emma that he was moving at the end of the summer for that job, also felt kind of sudden. I believe early in the book Ty mentions that Emma needs to stick around because he’d like to stick around in their hometown even when the summer ended. Sure, maybe it was said offhandedly, but it felt inconsistent. Like way before they were confessing to each other, Ty was talking about staying because there wasn’t anything in New York for him, and then after they have sex and say they like each other he’s just bringing up that job offer? When he didn’t even enjoy the photography job at the Hamilton? Perhaps the book would’ve benefitted from having Ty’s POV as well.
Another thing the second POV might have helped with was building the sexual tension, since we don’t really get to see what Ty felt about being Emma’s photographer and how he felt editing her photos and flirting with her via text. It’s a trade off when you have one vs two POVs. I did like getting to see Emma’s growth, learning to be more comfortable in her own skin, finding out that identity isn’t so clear cut and most definitely doesn’t have to be the same as one’s occupation, and that people and circumstances change. Her confusion over how to adult felt relatable and sincere. I appreciated the bits we did get to see on that front, although it did feel a little mood swing-y in terms of how Emma came to do some introspection. Not unrealistic, but it didn’t quite flow as well as it could, I guess?
Callie and Ty weren’t as multi-dimensional of characters as I’d have expected them to be as well. After reading the book, I can’t say much about either of them, except that Callie likes clothes and her independence, and Ty likes… films? Photography? Running? And why does he like Emma? That’s not something I feel like I know by the end, either. The dialogue is sometimes a bit awkward/clunky, but for the most part I didn’t mind, otherwise I likely wouldn’t have finished.
Overall, it’s not bad, but it lacks the depth in character development/growth/romance development and even friendship development that I think would make it great. It could also use a few more rounds of editing for some grammar mistakes and extra words that didn’t get deleted/corrected. I did appreciate the clever title, though! I love some good wordplay. It did make me wonder if other people Emma knew would find out about her VIPsOnly account, too, but I’m not upset that that didn’t happen.
Up front, we do get an author’s note that mentions this wouldn’t be a deep dive into the topic, so that set some expectations, which I appreciated. In that sense, I wasn’t disappointed, as we did get a positive view of VIPsOnly in the opportunities it provided for Callie and Emma to make money. I liked Emma’s friendships with both Callie and Ty, although I feel like they could have been developed and fleshed out more on page, since we’re told that they were old friends and Emma used to be good friends with both of them growing up; however, we don’t really get to see that beyond the glimpse of the old home movies Ty and Emma watched together. I wanted to really believe that they were once close and knew a lot about each other back in the day, or at the very least got to know each other well in the present.
For instance, the book tells me that Emma feels comfortable around Ty, more comfortable than she feels around anyone else. But why is that? Is it his approachability? Their old friendship? How he doesn’t judge her? I feel like it was missing something; we get a peek at why Emma didn’t hear from Ty for years after he ghosted her because of his old girlfriend. But what happened there? That felt like a set-up for a conflict that never happened. At the very least, I expected Emma and Ty to talk about it, because it felt like some of the uncertainty she felt about getting in a relationship with Ty came from there, but it was mentioned once or twice and then never brought up again. The conflict we did get, about Ty not having told Emma that he was moving at the end of the summer for that job, also felt kind of sudden. I believe early in the book Ty mentions that Emma needs to stick around because he’d like to stick around in their hometown even when the summer ended. Sure, maybe it was said offhandedly, but it felt inconsistent. Like way before they were confessing to each other, Ty was talking about staying because there wasn’t anything in New York for him, and then after they have sex and say they like each other he’s just bringing up that job offer? When he didn’t even enjoy the photography job at the Hamilton? Perhaps the book would’ve benefitted from having Ty’s POV as well.
Another thing the second POV might have helped with was building the sexual tension, since we don’t really get to see what Ty felt about being Emma’s photographer and how he felt editing her photos and flirting with her via text. It’s a trade off when you have one vs two POVs. I did like getting to see Emma’s growth, learning to be more comfortable in her own skin, finding out that identity isn’t so clear cut and most definitely doesn’t have to be the same as one’s occupation, and that people and circumstances change. Her confusion over how to adult felt relatable and sincere. I appreciated the bits we did get to see on that front, although it did feel a little mood swing-y in terms of how Emma came to do some introspection. Not unrealistic, but it didn’t quite flow as well as it could, I guess?
Callie and Ty weren’t as multi-dimensional of characters as I’d have expected them to be as well. After reading the book, I can’t say much about either of them, except that Callie likes clothes and her independence, and Ty likes… films? Photography? Running? And why does he like Emma? That’s not something I feel like I know by the end, either. The dialogue is sometimes a bit awkward/clunky, but for the most part I didn’t mind, otherwise I likely wouldn’t have finished.
Overall, it’s not bad, but it lacks the depth in character development/growth/romance development and even friendship development that I think would make it great. It could also use a few more rounds of editing for some grammar mistakes and extra words that didn’t get deleted/corrected. I did appreciate the clever title, though! I love some good wordplay. It did make me wonder if other people Emma knew would find out about her VIPsOnly account, too, but I’m not upset that that didn’t happen.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 5, 2022
I had a soft spot for this story taking place in NH since that’s where I’m from. Was a quick easy read with an intriguing modern day concept, but the book overall had a very highly dramatized feel to it that isn’t quite my cup of tea.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews