Satisfaction Guaranteed

Satisfaction Guaranteed is about Cade and Selena who are left a failing sex-toy shop and need to turn it around in 30 days before foreclosure starts. Despite being a successful businesswoman, Cade is inexperienced in the bedroom. Selena became close with Cade’s aunt and helped run the store. Selena is still getting over a horrible relationship and has taken a vow of celibacy until she has healed. She fears falling into her old traps of having one-night stands.

Three words to describe this book: Vulva. Painting. Party.

Cover: I love the color palate on the cover, but the illustrations left me wanting more.

Character Development: For a romantic comedy, I thought the author did a great job with both Selena and Cade’s character development by alternating perspectives. I loved how sex-positive this book was and how it explored some of the challenges around sex such as lack of confidence and emotional connection. I also loved how toys were used throughout the encounters in such an authentic way. I also loved the supporting characters that made up a beautiful chosen family.

World-Building: The author lives in Portland and gets the Portland culture from the first page starting at the funeral of Cade’s aunt where Selena delivers a unique eulogy. Everyone is decked in gold and a jar of edibles are being passed around at the funeral. The Portland queer scene is further developed throughout the book. I can just picture Satisfaction Guaranteed and the Merman Christmas tree.

Narrator: I enjoyed the narrator of the audiobook, but I think they missed out on the opportunity to have a different narrator for each main character.

Plot & Pacing: This is a slow burn romance that makes use of the opposites-attract trope quite effectively. The build-up was delicious. I thought the pacing was excellent and plot developments were placed throughout. The steam level is high with this book!

Verdict: This is one of my favorite books of the year. Please go and read or listen to this beautiful sapphic book!

ARC/ALC provided to me in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 Stars

This is was my first book by Karelia Stetz-Waters and I absolutely adored it. Maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked but unfortunately, I have bad luck when it comes to new-to-me authors.

“Satisfaction Guaranteed” is one of those books, in my opinion, you’re either going to love or hate. The humor is either going to hit or miss so my suggestion would be to read the excerpt to see if you’ll like it. If you enjoy the first chapter, you’ll enjoy the book. Alternatively, if you don’t like the first chapter, I really don’t have a lot of hope you’ll love the rest.

Looking at the cover and reading the blurb, I thought this was going to be fun and entertaining rom-com. And it was. But it also had a lot of heart and a theme of learning to love and accept yourself as you are. It’s a slow burn, opposites attract romance with a lovable cast of characters.

Cade Elgin is the buttoned up, serious type. She’s an accountant for god’s sake. (I say this, as an accountant.) She comes from a family full of self -described hippies. They’d rather smoke a little weed and have a good time rather than worry about things like work. Cade, being the opposite of that, has always considered herself to be the black sheep of the family. She’s 29 and has never had an orgasm. She’s gotten to the point where she feels like she won’t ever have love because she’s too dull and boring and all anyone sees when they see her are her famous parents.

Selena Mathis, on the other hand, is just about as opposite of Cade as she can get. She fits in well with the Elgin family in that she’s more of a free spirit who loves love and expressing that love. She’s also an artist but with the way her life is going, hasn’t been able to paint in a while. She thinks of herself as a mess and has taken a vow of celibacy until she gets her life straightened out.

Both characters are fully developed and I loved how each are portrayed. Neither one is really how they come across at first. Selena had more depth to her than I originally thought she would. Cade had a lot of heart and humor underneath her more stoic persona. Their insecurities were real and interesting. I enjoyed them learning to accept themselves but also letting others love them as they are. Figuring out you don’t have to change who you are for someone to love is powerful and I loved seeing how it changed how they see themselves.

They are forced together when they inherit a store from Cade’s aunt. But it isn’t just any store, it’s a sex-toy store called Satisfaction Guaranteed. The store is in debt and if they don’t figure out a way to get along and work together, they’ll lose the store. As you can imagine, there are plenty of opportunities for humor and funny shenanigans and I thoroughly enjoyed those moments.

I enjoyed this a lot and am excited to read more from Stetz-Waters. It’s one I highly recommend if you’re looking for a funny rom-com with some heart.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Forever Press in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my God. I love this book so much. It's the first thing I've read by Stetz-Waters, and I'm definitely going to seek out her back catalog, because this is just about perfect.

This is a lesbian romcom. The main characters are Serena, a free-living and (in the past) free-loving sex educator and artist living in Portland and Cade, a sexually inexperienced, buttoned-up, efficient businesswoman from New York. When Cade's Aunt Ruth dies, her will directs Serena and Cade to jointly run her feminist sex emporium, Satisfaction Guaranteed, and pull it back from the brink of financial ruin.

So far, so tropey. I laughed out loud quite a few times while reading the book, and I don't often do that. But it's also emotionally moving – sweet and touching and sometimes surprising (I think I actually gasped once or twice). As in any good romcom, the MCs are attracted to each other, but there are also initially factors keeping them apart – and those factors never feel forced, which can happen all too easily. And of course we have all those accidental touches generating plenty of desire – kept well under wraps for a long time but eventually, well...

Serena and Cade are interesting people who both grow and change over the course of the book. They sometimes rub each other the wrong way, but they're also both paying attention and listening and communicating. Both women have good friends supporting them. Both have struggles with sex (very different ones) and both sets of issues seem like ones real people often have. The sex scenes are gentle, caring, compelling, psychologically real, and well aware of consent and care for a partner.

Anyway. This is a delight from beginning to end – funny, kind, and full of both heat and heart. If you don't want to read explicit sex scenes, this probably isn't for you, but otherwise, if you love romcoms, you should absolutely check it out.

3.5 stars

Overall, this was a perfectly good romance, and I appreciated the emphasis on queer sex positivity. The romance itself was also sweet. My issue was that I never really got attached to either of the protagonists, or invested in the story. While I did like and would recommend Satisfaction Guaranteed, I liked Stetz-Waters’ other book, Worth the Wait, more and would suggest prioritizing that one. :)

Representation
-queer protagonist (attracted to multiple genders)
-lesbian protagonist
-queer side characters
-sapphic romance

Content Warning: sexual content, drug use, mentions of death and a toxic relationship (both prior to story)

Cade meets Selena when Selena does the eulogy at Cade's aunt's funeral. They learn the next day that both have inherited half of the aunt's home and shop. Cade is ready to sell it all and return to New York; but Selena knows if that happens, she will be out of a job and a home. She convinces Cade to wait for the month they have to turn things around. Both Cade and Selena being having feelings for each other but neither wants to be the first to say the words. When it is finally time for Cade to go home, will she?

I loved this book. Selena is one of the most endearing characters I have read. She is not conventional but she is fun. She does not see herself as others see her. Cade is uptight and she does not see herself as others do. Both see the best in each other but not themselves. I had fun watching them realize what they offered the world and each other. I was glad they finally had the courage to admit their love.

I loved that Selena had the courage to be who she was especially with the eulogy and their shop. I enjoyed Cade coming to the realization that her parents loved her and that she had the courage to go after what she wanted. It was beautiful!

The secondary characters were a hoot! Beckets and Roger and Pepper and Amy, as well as Ruth (Cade's aunt.) They added depth to the story and gave us insight into Selena and Cade.

This is a wonderful read!

I won this from the Goodreads Giveaways. This is my fair and honest review.

This book is so cute!!! I loved reading it! Would recommend

I loved this book. First time reading a book by this author and I could not put the book down. I already have another book by her in my cart! Great read!

Very cute sapphic story!
It was a great setting, love that they had a quest. Saving a sex shop? Please sign me up!
I enjoyed the characters, how silly they were, and how cute some scenes are.
Would have love something else for this book but it was okay!

I will totally be reading this book again. It's laugh-out-loud funny at the same time as being sexy. I will purchasing more from the same author.

Satisfaction Guaranteed made my heart SING. It is a story with significant sex and consent positivity that reminds us that who we are and what we create is beautiful. I have so many highlights from reading, laughed so many times, and got teary eyed at the end. This is my first book by Karelia but it won't be my last!

When Cade's aunt passes away and leaves her co-ownership of a failing sex shop, Cade immediately wants to sell especially because of her frustrating (and sexually frustrating) experiences with her co-owner Selena. But when Cade and Selena work together to turn the sex store around, they realize that they are each what the other person needs.

I adored both Cade and Selena - they are so different and I love seeing opposites attract in romance because it is so close to my real life. I really loved Selena's sex positivity, her dedication to using correct terminology for anatomy, and how outwardly confident she was even as her internal confidence was shattered. And Cade. WHEW CADE. Her frustration with not being what she thought her family wanted to be. Her struggle with intimacy. Her beautiful love for Selena. JUST heartstopping.

I also loved the frank discussions about inclusivity, or lack thereof, in the LGBTQIA+ community. "People won’t shop here because they don’t feel comfortable. Men, masc women, trans men…they won’t feel comfortable. Everything here says cis, white female Red Hat Society, YOLO. Literally everything says YOLO. All this stuff says one kind of person belongs here.” This was a great addition to the book and felt super realistic.

Read the acknowledgements and reading guide at the end. Don't be ashamed of getting to know your body sexually and what you need. And find someone who holds loving space for you the way that Cade and Selena do for each other. I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend!