Review: In Her Service by various

Collections of short stories are always a bit hit and miss. In Her Service is no different. Another femdom labelled offering from Mischief books, I picked this up eagerly.

Predictably, Charlotte Stein's story is wonderfully awesome. A pegging story, with romance and anticipation and all the good things that a sexy story should have.

The next story is a switch girl to switch girl story, with feathers and serious stuff like that. I found it rather dull. And yet again, why are the women always switches?

The Perfect Mistress by Monica Belle is an amusing reflection of gender assumptions, those that are prevalent even (? - especially?) in BDSM type communities. David thinks his domme should lose a little weight, be a bit more beautiful and feminine and closer to his fantasy Domme. She is justified in being totally furious and enlists help to teach him the error of his ways. A little predictable, but no worse for that.

A Gift by Willow Sears is not predictable and surprisingly quite good in the same kind of way a horror film is. It does involve brother/sister and non-consent sex, which I squick badly on. But it's well written and funny and the narrator is such an over the top total bitch I found that I enjoyed it despite myself. It does however have that 'domme getting dommed' thing which I feel pretty uncomfortable with.

Chameleon by Lara Lancey is quite interesting, as it has a bit of a twist about who the heroine is. I won't spoil it, but I would say - you wouldn't see many stories where a Dom was like that. Oh no. Men can be normal and dominant, it's only women who have to be nut jobs if they're dominant.

The next story passed in a bit of a blur of nothing specialness, narrated by a forgettable female submissive characters.

The Houseboy by Aishling Morgan is a 'school for naughty boys' type fantasy. Not my thing.

Teasing Timmy by Primula Bond is apparently what happens when two women go and decorate a small cottage in Cornwall. Eye raising but entertaining.

Another 'domme getting what she deserves' type story finishes off the book. I find these really difficult.

So. Overall. I loved Charlotte Stien's story, but the rest was a bit meh. C.


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Review: Beyond Temptation by Lisette Ashton

The tag line is: there's only so much frustration a girl can take. I couldn't agree more.

I was attracted to Beyond Temptation as I'd had a good experience with femdom labelled books from the publisher, Mischief (aka Harper Collins). The period look of the cover suggested to me that it was set in 1930s, or similar. Actually it's mainly set in present day Scotland. Bit of a let down. Anyhow, the plot.

There are several plot lines that come (alright, cum) together at Manor. This means quite a lot of switching around of third person pov and it made it difficult to keep track of. There are also about six million characters and they have a lot of sex. With so many characters, it was difficult to get to the point of really feeling for any of them. Or understanding them.

The story also tried to pack in a fair amount of convoluted plot. It was a bit overwhelming. Half the interest in the plot (as opposed to the erotica) is driven by a ex-lover of Amelia and Yale, who is she who must not be named (SWMNBN) so that it can create suspense in the plot. It would work if it wasn't pretty obvious who SWMNBN was. The other bit of plot is Robyn and Harold, owners of an art magazine - Art (good name eh?!). Harold says that he's fed up with their open marriage and issues Robyn with an ultimatum - stop fucking other men, or he'll divorce her. Since Harold sounds like an prat, I'm never quite clear why she would actually want to stay married to him. Harold certainly doesn't - he actually wants to marry his secretary Sheridan, who is a rebellious but virginal pain in the ass.

Robyn goes to blah manor to get some space. She's followed by Yale and his devotees, who barge in and create erotic chaos. Robyn is trying to be faithful, but Yale won't back off. There's combinations of nearly all the characters in some sort of clinch, at some point. Some of the sex is good, some of it is so-so, other bits are bordering on rapetastic. There's certainly very dubious consent where Robyn/Dominic/Yale/Amelia are concerned.

The leading women in the book are actually quite interesting characters. Sheridan is totally immoral, using and manipulating men and women alike. She's smart, but makes stupid impulsive decisions, which are not really in character. Robyn is okay at first, teasing the men she wants and demanding what she likes. Amelia is good too, a sadistic Domme who takes out her pain on others.

However, they all are totally spineless when it comes to erotic artist Yale.  They worship at the mighty wang of Yale. They let him do whatever he wants and he's unreasonable and dictatorial. To complete strangers. This Alphahole behavior spoils the whole book for me. He's a complete asshole. I guess a lot of people love that arrogant artist trope, but it's really a turn off for me.

The other problem for me is that the motivations for the people in this novel are paper thin - they rely on most characters being really dumb and overly emotional. Pretty much irrational. Yale is supposed to love the Manor sooooo much. It's never clear why. He's in love with Angelica but still totally hung up about SWMNBN. Angelica was SWMNBN's submissive and is possibly still in love with her and is also in love with Yale. She's a dominant to the two submissives, but for Yale's mighty wang, she's submissive. The two submissives are just foils to show that Angelica isn't a 'real' domme, she's just mean and bossy (or something, they don't like to take orders from her) unlike Yale who is a real Dom TM.

I enjoyed the bits where Amelia was domming, but otherwise the pervasive mighty dickhead that was Yale and Yale worshiping was rather dull and frustrating. I wanted more Amelia. It's a short novel and there's not much space for character development, there's quite a lot of contrived plot sooo many characters.

In summary, there's lots going on. If you like complicated menage with super horny people all round, with convoluted plots and machinations then this might be for you. I found it very frustrating - I never understood enough about any of the characters to see what motivated them (beyond sex, obviously) and it skipped around between all the characters so much, I never really engaged with it. Except to shout at Yale. Arrogant rapey dickhead. I wanted Amelia to put him in his place, but she turned out as idiotic as the rest of them.

It sort of classes as femdom as Amelia is dominant most of the time and when the female characters aren't around Yale, they're pretty strong. But as a whole, there was much too much of Yale (did I mention that I didn't like him?) and male dominance with an undertone of rape for this to be particularly enjoyable.

C.

Review: The Sweetest Revenge by Dawn Halliday

We have all read wonderful stories about the handsome rakes and dashing scoundrels; the debauched dukes, the wicked earls, and the roguish viscounts. In these stories, the mad, bad aristocrats find the woman who ultimately tames them, who turns them into a monogamous man, a loving husband and father.
I have always wondered, though, what happened to all those women who came before that woman who tamed him? What happened to those poor souls he debauched and ruined? How did they survive the scandal? How did they go on after the rake left them behind?
This is the story of three women in that exact situation—three women who’ve been the victims of one rake who has compromised them all. These three women have decided that enough is enough, and while they can’t take on society, perhaps—just perhaps—they can change one man. This is the story of his reformation.

The author's prelude, along with a man tied up on the cover, made me pretty excited about this book. An original concept and so obvious. The whole thing of promiscuous men being glamourized, this one woman being 'different' and all the women of his past just melt away has always bothered me. And who could resist this?:

This book does not shirk away from the dark consequences of a dissolute rake’s behavior. It contains rough language and erotic situations. You’ve been warned.

The biggest strength of this book is the concept - original, it had me wondering how things were going to sort themselves out. Telling you about the plot though requires some spoilers.

Three wronged women from Lord Leothaid's past kidnap him: Isabelle, Anna and Susan. Isabelle was Leo's young love, but after he writes her an explicit letter which is intercepted she is ruined and exiled. He didn't come for her. Anna's ruin is more recent; Leo slept with her then ran away when he realized that she was a virgin. She was shunned by her family and ended up as prostitute. Susan was ruined in a different way; she was emotionally destroyed. A widow, Susan and Leo took up together and she began to fall for him. Leo squashed her hopes cruelly and consequently Susan doesn't believe in love or men. Susan is angry at Leo's treatment of all three women, as well as all the other women he's discarded.

So they kidnap him, to give him some uncomfortable treatment to go with the uncomfortable truths. Revenge, in other words. Susan orchestrates his physical discomfort - a cold cellar, bread and water, her beefy french lover to beat him up. Anna's revenge is humiliation. She brings him almost to orgasm then leaves him tied up with his pants around his ankles and frustratingly aroused. (Fun! Hot! Yay!) Isabelle's main role is to be the timid wet blanket. Okay, actually, I think the idea is that she provides emotional torment. But she does this completely passively - she touches his foot gently and he is inexplicably set afire and remembers his first love, now dead, who broke his heart so thoroughly that he became a complete bastard. Can you see what is going to happen? Oh yes.... Poor Leo. He thought that his 'Belle' was dead, but everyone lied and conspired to keep them apart. This is frankly improbable.

The main romance is Belle and Leo's convoluted route back together. Realizing that Leo knows who Belle is and is besotted, Susan plans the perfect revenge: Belle will seduce and desert Leo, breaking his heart like his has done to so many others. Without this inspiration, I'm not quite sure whether Susan's cold floors and progressive feminist reading and Anna's increasingly kind sexual torture would work. Well, not the way they were doing it. I think a lot more could have been made of Susan and Anna's revenge. Instead, the focus is on Leo's desperation to see Belle and the unravelling of the past relationships of the protagonists.

There are also some sub-plot romances for Anna and Susan. Poor old Susan has no character or plot development at all. She begins widowed, with a lover and a cynical attitude towards love and marriage and ends exactly the same. Susan is pretty sane although her advice to the other two women is rather questionable. Anna on the other hand seems remarkably unharmed by her traumatic year as a prostitute and falls immediately into the arms of Lord Archer, a rakish compatriot of Leo. Susan goes to all the trouble of giving Anna a new, respectable identity, only for Anna to throw it all away by becoming a mistress. Susan is annoyed and points out that Lord Archer is no better than Lord Leothaid. But Anna acts like an impetuous child, insisting that she is 'healed' and wants Lord Archer. The mind boggles.

The other sub-plot is the rivalry between Mr. Sutherland and Lord Leothaid. They compete over women, and that ends up including Isabelle. Mr. Sutherland is set up as the villan who led Leo astray and then tries to steal away his first love. Susan encourages Isabelle to become Mr. Sutherland's mistress (I'm not sure about the wisdom of this advice) and when Leo doesn't come for her, Isabelle gives in. Now is the time for even bigger spoilers than I have already told. Look away now if you don't want to know.

***Spoilers***
It's the end of the book, Susan and Anna consider Leo 'cured' of his misogynistic and unacceptable behavior. Leo has been searching for Isabelle and begs Susan and Anna to tell him where she is. Susan throws his own words back at him:

"Go find a whore, then. That'll satisfy. All women have the same basic parts, after all, don't they, my lord?"
Anger rose within him, an instinctual response. She mocked Belle, said she was no better than any common harlot.

That doesn't sound to me like a man who has gained any respect for the situation that women find themselves in when men take advantage of them. By throwing back his own words at him, Susan doesn't (imo) suggest that Isabelle is a 'common harlot', but that every woman deserves more respect than Leo previously gave them. It seems to me that far from having any change of opinion or sense of remorse over his treatment of women, Leo is still an idiot.

It doesn't get any better. Leo arrives at Mr. Sutherland's house, just in the nick of time to stop Isabelle and he consummating their relationship. And he's furious. They fight over her and she stands there wringing her hands like the object girl that she is.
***End Spoilers***

The problem for me is that this isn't truly a story of redemption or reformation, as Leo is still a dick. It isn't an effective story of revenge either. This book takes a revolutionary premise and then tries to execute it in a standard cookie-cutter romance novel way. It's a pity, because even without the amount of kinkiness that tying up a Lord in your basement invites, this is nearly inspired. The emphasis is just too much on the rather boring and sappy Isabelle. I think I would have liked to see her show some gumption and run off with Mr. Sutherland, but no such luck. She lurrrves Leo and so he gets much better ending than he deserves. Nobody really gets the revenge on Leo; not Mr. Sutherland, Isabelle, Susan or Anna. Everyone except Mr. Sutherland ends the book pretty happy and I think that is supposed to represent that they have forgiven him his misdeeds and moved on. Personally, I think the victims of rakes deserve rather more revenge, sweet or not, than these characters got. This book suggests at, but doesn't deliver, what a rake really deserves in terms of punishment and redemption.

C

Review: Sweetest Mistress by Skye Warren

This is a book of contrasts. The writing is interesting and engaging and it's written in the first person, from the point of view of the male submissive. On the other hand, while the characterisation of the main character is strong, the female lead is a cardboard cut out, the plot is promising but turns out very weak and chiched and I just can't really believe in the relationship at all. I could probably deal with that but as usual, there is a subtext of a sort of anti-femdom which spoils it for me.

The story starts out with a great premise: Wyle, a male submissive, going on a blind date. Wyle thinks that Melissa is out of his league but she takes him home and invites him to do whatever he wants to her. This is a fun scene where he expresses how he feels the pressure to do what she wants. Everything is going pretty well, he seems pretty into being dominant, then she stops him and says it doesn't feel right. She asks what he really wants and he confesses that he wants to be spanked. I enjoyed this and I was intrigued by the idea that maybe she already knew he was submissive. It set up the potential for a conflict that was something a bit different.

Their relationship progresses quickly, with several hot scenes and a phone sex session that was really nicely done. Then it all goes wrong for me.

***Spoilers***

He begins to get suspicious when she knows what he likes for breakfast and the friend who set them up lets slip that she asked about him a lot. He convinces himself that she is after his money and shuts her out. When he goes over to confront her, he loses his temper and beats and humilates her as 'punishment'. She takes it meekly and is turned on by it. Then he actually bothers to ask why she asked about him. She is his kid neighbour from back home and she's had a crush on him for years, blah de blah. He feels bad and asks her to punish him as retribution. She does so but by this time I don't know that she likes being dominant or that he likes being submissive. Frankly, it's a bit confusing.

Instead of Melissa being a strong woman who hears about a submissive who could be right for her, she is a tired trope of childhood love. She's not really a dom, she's doing it to please him. Similarly, Wyle defaults to being dominant and inflicting pain and Melissa has so little backbone that she takes it without complaint. She even says at one point,

"Okay Wyle. Whatever you want."

It seems that she lurrves him sooo much that she'll do whatever he wants - be a dom, be a sub, make him breakfast, forgive him. Perhaps some people would enjoy reading this but personally, a sex scene when the woman is just a vessel for playing out the male character's fantasies, whatever they might be, is not for me.

The implication is that actually they're going to 'default' to him being dominant and her being submissive, as that's the roles that they instinctively take on. I have no problem with the female character discovering that she likes being dominant or submissive or both but the suggestion that a woman in love is so pathetic that she will do whatever a man wants in order to obtain/keep him really irritates me.

It bothers me too, when we hear first hand that he is enjoying their first sexual encounter, that she somehow telepathically knows that actually he wants something different. I bought it when I thought she was a dom and already knew he was a submissive, as there was a reason for her to know that he was holding back. With Melissa having a childhood crush on Wyle, the device has no credibility - how on earth would she know? Her saying, "It doesn't feel right", is not enough to convince me when just lines before he is thinking how good it feels.

***End Spoilers***

All in all I'm really quite disappointed with this story. It was promising, really very good and hot in the middle, had a great voice but fell down totally flat for me at the end. It was well written and engaging, both of which are distinctly in its favor. But the characterization of Melissa was so weak and the subtext really quite irritating, so I much as I wanted to, I can't like this book much.

C