Review: Red Grow the Roses by Janine Ashbless

I think I promised this review back in January. Sorry about the delay. Bad reviewer. Very bad reviewer. <Guilt /> One of the reasons for both the delay and the description of this book as "epic" is the impressive list of kink that it caters to. It think I counted: femdom; fighting; vampire biting; multi-partner M/M/f,  M/f/f/f/f/f, M/M/m/f; a cougar (sort of); humiliation (f); anal (m and f); forced seduction; bondage; rape (or possibly dubious consent); slavery (f); blood; corporeal punishment; torture of the not all that sexual type; torture of the sexual type. And a dual theme of power and roses. That might be it. But I can't guarantee that I haven't forgotten something that might squick you. (Though presumably you don't squick on roses....)

I'm always a bit wary of things that try to do too much (in both life and books) and thus other things have risen in the TBR pile, which to be honest, hasn't been well attended to anyhow (hence the lack of reviews recently.)

The way that Red Grow the Roses deals with the plethora of subject matters is by dealing with each chapter as almost a short story in its own right. Each chapter has a different first person narrator (and I don't think, given the heavy hint about the vampire and blood theme, that it's too much of a spoiler to say that several people, including some first person narrators, end up snuffing it). There are also several (six, one for each vampire I think) extended descriptions from the omnipresent author/god telling the reader about the vampires and where we might encounter them. A sort of intermittent field guide to vampires. If all this sounds a little disjointed, then that's about right. Though I think it is intentional and the threads of the story become intermingled and gradually it becomes (more) clear how everything is connected.

Perhaps you understood this from the long list I began this post with, but this doesn't actually feature a lot of femdom. There are really only two chapters you could tenuously describe as F/m. One ends on a bit of downer by saying that the Domme doesn't really identify with being female anymore. The other is first person from a female character who likes to be in control, but the scenario strips her of any power or agency. (I'm trying not to put in spoilers. I'm really trying.) So as far as femdom goes, this is a total fail. For the femdom aspect, I'd give it a C. It's okay, but it didn't really show femdom in a positive light. I suppose that really it suggested that all power is transient, but the F/m part of this didn't really do it for me. The rest of the book is mainly a combination of male/vampire dominance and women who like being bitten and fucked. Fine, though not my thing. There's some plot, later on in the book, which justifies some of the gore. Some bits are quite sweet: when the alpha vampire submits to having a blow job from his secretary (it's rather more lovely than it sounds). All the humiliation (of a woman) stuff wasn't for me. The male vampires dominating other men for whatever reason was pretty hot, even when it was quite violent. Other parts will turn sensitive stomachs, though its no worse than a standard-ish horror, which mixes up violence, sex, pleasure and pain until you're not sure what is what anymore.

TL;DR: Male vampire perpetrated biting and sex, in all orifices, with varying numbers of partners and degrees of consent. Not femdom. Not really worth getting through all the other stuff for the femdomish bits, unless you like the other stuff.

I don't know if a grade is very meaningful to this. It held my attention and squicked me, but didn't actually stop me reading, which is a testament to the good writing. I was engaged with some of the characters (though sadly not the dominant women, as there's almost nothing about them). It felt like one of those horror films that captures you and you can't look away. I was reluctantly intrigued and aroused. It didn't fill me with fury, like some books have (Ds, Es and Fs, I'm looking at you). So I guess that it's a C-, with a whole stackload of provisos.

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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: For Her Pleasure by Kyoko Church

There is a lot to love about this book. It's difficult to find well done humiliation fantasy and Church makes bold decisions in this book and makes them work. Despite the title though, this is more 'humiliation is a hot game for her amusement' than 'surrender is a gift for her pleasure'.

Colin sees Mistress at a sexual harassment in the workplace meeting (irony applied with a spade, yes?) and she has that psychic knowledge that some Dominant women (in fantasy) have and knows that he's a horny little submissive. Joan wastes no time in having him confess to his most mortifying secret: he's a premature ejaculator. Deliciously embarrassing scene after scene follows. This book doesn't skimp on the humiliation. Joan heaps it on. Knickers, denial (no chastity device though <sad face>), teasing, public revealing acts. All of that, and it's a lot of horny submissive fun. It's written first person from Colin (Sub Peter)'s perspective, which gives the embarrassment quite a nice immediate feeling.

But.... Ah, you knew there was a but coming right? (Puns aside...)  There are a couple of things that didn't work for me, which are the kind of thing that I think some people will find difficult. As ever though, these are spoilers.

***Spoilers***
Colin has a wife, Anne, whom he loves. And although his relationship with Joan doesn't involve penetrative sex, Anne is realistically furious and hurt when she finds out. So... I'm not keen on cheating as a scenario, but plus points for not belittling it and having Anne immediately join in like some sort of Femdom fantasy automaton. The way the story develops from here is interesting, but again doesn't shy away from controversy. Anne teams up with Joan - they both care for Colin and Anne seems genuinely interested in saving their marriage. But when Colin walks in on Joan and Anne, he thinks that they're ganging up against him rather than teaming up for him, so runs off and calls Joan's best friend. He goes over to her place and comes over all 'rah and manly', beginning to fuck her over the sofa. He begins to cry (I suppose that this is supposed to indicate that he really is submissive <rolls eyes>).

Joan is understandably upset, but somehow, Colin seems to be such a wonderful person and submissive, she gives him another chance. So we skip to the epilogue, and Anne and Joan have been successfully team dominating Colin and he's a happy submissive puppy. If only it ended there. For me, this next bit was a WTF moment. All the way through, there have been bits in italics from a female perspective. First it seems as if they are Joan, then Anne. They don't really add much to the story, so I didn't pay much attention to them. In the epilogue, they come to fruition. It's Joan's best friend who is obsessed with Colin and thinks that Joan and Anne are forcing him to be submissive. So she turns up at Joan's with a gun - as you do - to 'free' him. Anyhow, it turns out okay, except that Anne didn't know that Colin had (attempted to have) sex with her, and is pretty pissed. So the book finishes with Joan assuring Colin that Anne will come round. So there's no HFN and I'm not sure he deserves one.
***End spoilers***

So in summary: The plot is eye rollingly silly and not for those who are looking for any integrity in their male submissive. Neither of those things are unique to this story, so I know I sound like a broken record. Apologies. The sexy humiliation is uber fun. So, yeh, overall there's a lot to like in this book. I think it's a B-. That grade that says, there's really good bits. But depending on what presses your 'Oh for fuck sake' buttons, there might also be things that you're not going to like.

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: O Come all ye Kinky edited by Sarah Frantz

Looking for kinky Christmas season themed Femdom reading? Well, this isn't exactly it, but it's close enough to be satisfying. This is a fun collection of heart warming stories, just long enough to keep you entertained, but short enough to read in quiet moment (if such things exist at Christmas).

Of the 8 stories, 6 are M/m, 1 is F/f and then there is a M/F/m. The F/f and M/F/m are rather anomalous - I don't really understand how they fit in. If you want to read about men and women in the same book, then why not a F/m or a M/f story as well? I don't really get it. A purely M/m book probably would have made more sense to me. If you can get yourself into the headspace of the appropriate man and enjoy the stories, these are good fun and pretty hot. If F/m is the only way you can enjoy kinky Christmas fun, then these will not be for you.

Anyhow, the stories.

Twas the Night by Ava March (M/m)
A period tale of a gay couple, I really enjoyed this. Sweet, obviously, with a nice telling of the tentative push and pull of a developing relationship - that moment when both parties realize that yes - you're for me. Love that.

Tree Topper by Jane Davitt (M/m)
An argument about whether a fairy or a star is the right tree topper is the prelude to a bigger row about whether Stan will really accept Martin as his Dom. This was great too, for a similar reason. The insecure Dom and big misunderstanding isn't a trope that I particularly like, but here it works well.

Fireworks by Katie Porter (F/f)
Set on New Years eve, this is another well known trope of the repressed 'nobody loves me because I'm unworthy and scarred' dominant. I'm not so keen on either this trope (especially in females) or F/f, so this wasn't particularly for me.

Candy Cane by L.A. Witt (M/m)
In Candy Cane there is tension as the couple try to escape family to be on their own for Christmas. And there's a sexy male sub being caned with peppermint candy. Awesome.

Submissive Angel by Joey Hill (M/m)
I was looking forward to this, as I love Joey Hill's F/m full length novels. But I'm not so sure about Hill's short stories. I found this story a bit too heavy handed, cliched and smaltzy. Calling the submissive 'Ange' and have him dance in the snow - just in case you didn't get it HE'S AN ANGEL - he's the perfect submissive who will unlock Robert's frozen heart. I felt rather like I was being beaten around the head by sentiment. A total lack of subtlety. I also squicked every time Robert called Ange 'Kid'. I couldn't get into Robert's dominant headspace, despite most of the story being in his third person pov. He just seemed like a bit of an emo whiner. Also - both men were big cliches of gay men (braces? Kind to children, fancied by giggling women?). Sorry. It wasn't for me. Your milage may vary.

Open Return by Elyan Smith (M/F/m)
The story involves Zack going back for Christmas after 10 years, to his small-town teen loves, Laura and Scott, a dominant pair. His recollections are a bit disconcerting and read like typos until you realize that this is a trans story (the he/she issues, as well as Zack having a pussy). The relationship between Scott and Zack is emphasized, at the expense of Laura and Zack. Laura always seems like a bit of an afterthought, a tag on. There's very little dealing with the issues of 1) running away for 10 years, and all the emotions (including anger) that might bring up 2) small town prejudice (there's an incident, but it isn't resolved) 3) potential jealousies that might arise in a 3 way relationship 4) how Zack might be explained to Laura and Scott's kids 5) what happens next? The ending is sex scene, which presumably is a HFN, or is perhaps intended as a HEA. I'm not convinced. 

His Very Last Chance by Kim Dare (M/m)
If New Year is about anything, (aside from fireworks and getting drunk) it is about redemption, correcting mistakes, forgiving and forgetting and starting again with misconceptions corrected. Drew messed up. He boasted that his Dom wasn't into love and romance (making him even more Dom-ly, of course). Kingsley is upset that all the little ways that he's indicated to Drew that he values him beyond anything or anyone else have gone unnoticed. He's hurt and angry (mainly at himself). After licking his wounds alone over Christmas, he decides that New Year is make or break, and orders Drew to meet him. I really enjoyed this story, and found Kingsley's Dom headspace a very pleasant place to be (via the third person). He is nervous about finally revealing himself, but more sarcastic and sadistic than whiny. And the descriptions of the het up sub are nice. I wouldn't mind one of those over New Year.


If I had my time over, I'd have read to the end of Candy Cane, then skipped to His Very Last Chance, and ended with a nice sexy Christmassy feeling of things coming right, despite all too fallible human nature. B-

Review: Lessons on the Edge by William Gaius

I don't think that I'm the target audience for this book. It's a first person 'memoire style' in the past tense, from the point of view of a submissive man/boy. It's set in the early 1980s and features an 18 year old boy discovering his sexuality with his 37 year old family friend, his 'Aunt'. So if you're a submissive/switch man, in either your early 20s or 50s, who kinks on older women family figures, then maybe you'd like this.

I seem to have ended up with the wrong idea about this book before I read it. I thought that it was going to be about a loving relationship, but although there is insta-love, there's no HFN and it isn't romantic. I thought it was going to be realistic, but the characterisation is inconsistent and some of the things that went on were had me scratching my head. I understood that it was straight femdom, but actually it's a switch story. These expectations have inevitably colored my opinion of the story.

The protagonist, Barry, is college age and is in love/lust/crush with his Mom's friend, his 'Aunt'. When he goes to college, he moves in with RoseAnn and they begin a sexual relationship, with increasingly heavy bdsm and domestic service. Meanwhile, at college, he meets Gloria, a wealthy young woman who is interested in him and is dominant.

The main theme of the book is Barry's sexual awakening, at the hands of an older woman. Essentially, this is one sexy time followed by another in quick succession. RoseAnn demands cunnilingus, denies Barry and manipulates him into doing the domestic chores (naked, of course).

There are several sources of conflict in the book: the age gap between RoseAnn and Barry; Barry's potential relationship with Gloria; RoseAnn's previous relationship with her ex-husband, (who sexually and physically (and perhaps emotionally) abused her); and RoseAnn's position regarding screwing her friend's son. Plenty of emotional conflict then. Some of this is conflict was explored, some not, but none of it rang true to me. 

The emotional story here is confused at best. Barry is immediately in love with RoseAnn and declares as much. She eventually also declares her love, simultaneously tells him that it's impossible because of their age difference, pushes him towards Gloria and tells him that he's just her f-ck toy. It's impossible to get a handle on what any characters' emotions are. Barry is essentially already in love with RoseAnn at the beginning of the book and repeatedly giving her oral sex confirms this. I'm not sure why RoseAnn falls in love with Barry. What Gloria sees in Barry, I have no idea. Apparently he's attractive, but otherwise he seems like a bit of a dork. The relationship with Gloria is set up, but never taken anywhere and consequently, I feel that she's a bit of a non-character.

There's a lack of realism in many of the scenes of this book - primarily due to inconsistencies in characterization. The portrayal of the women veers wildly between quite recognizable and completely alien to me. For instance, Barry is exploring his room in his new flat share with RoseAnn:

My lust got the better of me. I felt like a burglar as I opened a dresser drawer and found some underwear, somewhat the worse for wear. Clearly, this was her old stuff, stored in this spare room.

I don't keep my old underwear, especially not the 'worse for wear' stuff. I don't keep old underwear in the spare room. And I definitely don't keep old underwear in my spare room that's being sub-let by my potential boy-toy. That said, just after reading this passage and wondering WTF, I read this post by DumbDomme, where she's putting old underwear into her spare dresser. Clearly storing old underwear in the spare room is something women do. But seriously, worse for wear? I can't find anything sexy in that.

Another moment left me not just confused, but actually concerned. RoseAnn takes Barry to a sex shop, blushes when she asks for a whip and the shop assistant blushes as well! (Really!???!) But more to the point, Miss Mary at the shop gives RoseAnn a free ball gag with her whip, with this comment to Barry:

“That? It’s a ball gag. It muffles your screams so the neighbors won’t call the police. We recommend that beginners use it until they find the level of pain that’s right for them.” She smiled wickedly at me. “Some free advice for you—a good slave tries his best not to scream. If he truly loves his mistress, he’ll want to challenge her to whip harder and test his limits.”

Me, I think that sounds tantamount to emotional blackmail and dangerous advice for a sex shop to be dishing out. I have a problem with technical errors or misleading statements in fiction, because although I appreciate that it's fiction, I know for myself that I take inspiration from what I read, so I really dislike anything that I feel might have led me to believe that something was safe, which wasn't.

On the other hand, some of the behaviour of RoseAnn as a grown up woman and domme and the confusion of Barry, a young man as ignorant as most young men are, is just inspired. When RoseAnn makes Barry promise not to masturbate and begins the process of tease, denial and domestic servitude, the portrayal of the discussion which leads to Barry becoming RoseAnn's domestic boy was pretty amusing. It really captures something of the assumptions and knowledge differences inherent in an older woman, young man, relationship.

"...I suppose you expect me to do your laundry, too?"
"You’re not?" I made it a joke, although I hadn’t even thought about how my laundry would get done. My folks worked long hours, and we had a housekeeper for the everyday chores.
"No, in fact, I expect you to do mine."

It's fun to see RoseAnn's demands of service and experience against Barry's naive hopes and expectations. RoseAnn's introduction of denial and domestic chores, including washing RoseAnn's "brassiers" and other underwear is unequivocally because she kinks on it. And he finds that he kinks on it too, describing his day for his reader in detail.

“I see that you behaved yourself today.”
“I finished my work and I didn’t masturbate, if that’s what you mean.”
“I know. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be on your knees without being told, doing what you’re doing now. You spent the whole day thinking about me, didn’t you? Thinking about what we might do when I got home?” She touched my cock with her foot, and giggled at my sudden gasp.

*** Spoilers ***
But in many other ways the characterisation of RoseAnn is totally confusing. She repeatedly mentions her ex husband who hit her and forced her to give him blow jobs. Consequently, she hates the taste of semen and tells Barry that she won't let him come in her mouth. She's strongly dominant in the first part of the book, so the WTF when she asks Barry to dominate and rape her is very high. He dominates her again when she comes home in a bad mood and demands sex. He whips her, forces her to suck him off and swallow and she loves it - says that it was just what she needed. I don't understand why Barry does this, because he says that his fantasies are submissive. And when she comes home dominant, how does he know that she needs to be submissive? I don't really get that spontaneous telepathy. Neither is RoseAnn's state of mind any clearer, as the story is first person from Barry's point of view, the reader has no way in to RoseAnn's emotions or thoughts when this switch occurs. It's apropos of nothing.

RoseAnn is an odd combination of extremely confident and clever, and rather, well, weird. The style of RoseAnn's flattery of Barry (saying that he could have any woman he wanted, asking if he'd performed oral sex before because he was so good at it) and the slightly self belittling style of these comments (saying that a woman of her age doesn't get to see a young man naked very often, chastising Barry for not taking the initiative and kissing her when she hints that she wants sexual relations) doesn't sit very well with me. She's disgusted when Barry eats her out when she's on her period:

"Whatever comes from your body is sacred to me."
"Well, that’s generous, but it just about makes me sick to think about it."

The inconsistency of RoseAnn's behaviour continues when she agrees at the end of the book to get together with her boss Steve, who appears mid-story to be an asshole creep who Barry has to help her get rid of. She doesn't like Steve, and says earlier in the book that she's in demand and doesn't need this job. So... I'm confused about the her motivation here. RoseAnn loves Barry remember - but she encourages him to get involved with Gloria, mainly because she's rich I think. The reason RoseAnn gives for this is the age gap - 19 years - between them makes a relationship unfeasible. But she didn't seem to have any qualms about that age gap when she set out to seduce him in chapter one. She also had no worries about the idea of keeping him as her boy-toy for a couple of years earlier in the story. Never mind too that she is friends with Barry's mother - surely that's an unforgivable betrayal of trust? To seduce your friend's son?

Other characters are no more realistic. Barry lets slip to his parents that he's going away for the weekend with their friend and his landlady, RoseAnn. His mother's immediate assumption is that they're sleeping together and immediately checks that they're using protection (they're not). I find both the immediate assumption of a non platonic relationship and her only comment being about protection, totally crazy. Most people that I know would assume that they're just going away together. As friends - you know - like people do in real life rather than erotica. And EVERY mother I know who found out that their friend was sleeping with their son, would go mental. Probably homicidal.

*** End Spoilers ***

I found some of the phrasing a little crude and occasionally rather hackneyed. For example, Barry is in a bar and a man he doesn't know says to him in reference to Gloria:

"You smell of cunt, and I happen to know that she likes nothing better than having her twat licked."

Other class phrases include: "Oh Barry, this is the best ever." , liquid brown eyes, the most beautiful God ever made and the dense black bush between her legs.

Ultimately, the biggest problem for me was that I discovered that I squick terribly on any sort of familial style relationship being mixed up with sex. I'm totally squicked by even faux incest. I thought that since it wasn't a close or blood relation or man, I would be okay with it. Not so much. RoseAnn is 37, but by some of the things that are said in this book, you'd think that she was 50. I know that the taboo is part of the attraction, but when RoseAnn is mistaken for being his mother, it freaked me out a lot. 

TL,DR. This wasn't what I expected and the whole 'Aunt' thing was the antithesis of sexy for me. There are some moments of hotness and there are some nicely observed younger man/older women moments. But ultimately, this book just didn't work for me at all.

Perhaps I could have forgiven the faults if my expectations had been different and it hadn't triggered all my 'yuk' buttons. Or maybe I just needed to be the target audience. For me though, it was a C-.

Review: F-ck my Pussy or Else by Kathy Love

I know, right? The title should have given it away. Blogger won't even let me put in the real title in the post title. Amazon (from which I downloaded, in a moment of madness, this story from) doesn't even sell it anymore, presumably because of the ridiculous title. Or possibly because the story inside is no better.

At 48 kindle locations or about 1k words long, I'm not even sure if this qualifies as a short story. It's going to take me substantially more time to write this review than it took me to read it. I picked it up because, hey, it was free and it looked like it was femdom. And because I quite like the demanding female boss dynamic, and this sounded like it was going to be that. Actually, it's not. It's crap and derogatory, as well as derogatory crap. 

The male protagonist (I don't think he has a name, sorry) is in financial difficulties despite having a very successful accounting job. He is in debt from fucking expensive women and thus doesn't have the money to pay for his mother's breast cancer medical bills. Presumably this otherwise irrelevant information is so that we can see that actually, he has a heart of gold and is good boy, even though he acts like a wanker all the way through the story. Kim, his recently divorced boss, offers to help him out if he becomes her lover. He refuses and instead siphons off money from her bank account. He uses the money to pay off the bills he racked up from the exotic holidays and to pay for his mother's treatment. Kim finds out and screams, threatens to call the police and then reiterates her offer. This time, he accepts. Then comes the most unsexy prelude to a sex scene I think I've ever read:

After dinner, which was prepared by her chef, we went to her bedroom and got undressed. I was going to give it to her hard. I was going to make her cry. Kim took out my cock (the cock that she had wanted for several months and started sucking it. [sic]*

Does she really want the cock of her accountant? The man who has already said no, and who has robbed her blind? TSTL. Who cares if she has a chef? And who cares that they got undressed in the bedroom? If it's going to be sexy, surely the reader wants to know how they got undressed, what they did, how he felt. Not only that, if they'd just gotten undressed, what did she take his cock out of? Does he have a little pouch for it or something?

And seriously, what a twat. She's going to pay all his bills and all he can think is that he's going to make her cry? He should be desperately, humbly, submissively grateful and begging her to make him do anything she wants. He should feel the draw of a strong woman who knows what she wants and is happy to manipulate and pay for a man to be in her thrall. Sucking his cock - sure - that's a position of power in itself - all that tender manly flesh at her mercy to give pleasure or pain as she wishes.... Mmmm...

I digress. Anyhow, there's a similarly perfunctory sex scene where tab A is put into slot B and then that's the end. I could give you more quotes of how stark and un-erotic and unromantic and dull this almost-story is, but I'd be wasting your time and mine.

I am beginning to notice a trend though. If any of the main characters in a story doesn't have a name, it's gunna be really bad.  And seriously, I'm never reading anything with a swear word in the title again.

F

*For the punctuation pedants amongst you people who have a basic respect for punctuation, no, the brackets are never closed.

Review: The Cruel Dr. Frost by SM Calor

Sam Gomez is a student in trouble. After being truculent and disrespectful all term in Dr. Julia Frost's English classes, Sam fails (under slightly suspicious circumstances) to hand in his term paper and he goes to her office to seek her compassion. He wants a drop-pass rather than a drop-fail for the class. Dr. Frost isn't amenable to this, so Sam begs. He'll do anything.

Dr. Frost has that sexy repressed teacher look thing going on, that Sam secretly finds very arousing. He also secretly likes her domineering and uncompromising attitude too. So when she demands that he proves that he will do anything and has him come around the desk to kneel. So begins Sam's semi-willing slavery.

The Cruel Dr. Frost is told in first person from the point of view of Sam and successfully walks the fine like between describing the WTF that would be natural to a naive student and the burgeoning excitement of submission. Most of the story focuses on domestic servitude. Sam cleans Dr. Frost's car, clears her garden and does her washing. But he also is engaged to lick his Mistress' pussy and ass and we hear Sam's internal monologue about how hot he finds her demands. There's also cock and ball torture, foot worship, humiliation and ownership. Quite a lot of kink in a short story.

Dr. Frost is unrepentantly dominant, mean, cruel and rather sadistic. Slightly shocked though Sam is by this, he responds to it. Or his cock responds to it rather. He finds that he wants to serve Dr. Frost. There's a more sensitive side to Dr. Frost too - she rather likes her slave. That's not to say that she's kind to him, soft, or submits at all to him. That's one of the really nice thing about this story. Dr. Frost isn't soft in the conventional feminine sense, but she is sexy and she is pleased with her slave when he does well.

So, overall, I rather enjoyed this. My reservation is mainly that the point of view didn't really work for me as a female. I think that male readers will enjoy this much more than I did. I also don't kink hugely on domestic servitude, so it wasn't really my thing. If domestic servitude, enforced sexual servitude, naughty pupil - kinky teacher dynamic and male discovery of submission work for you, then this might be for you. From me, it's a B-. It was good - rather forgettable, but neither did have any major problems.

Review: Serving my Mistress and Her Friends by Denise Smith

There are some books that I don't finish, but there are a lot more that I don't even start, (if you're into acronyms, it would be DNS, to complement DNF).  I decided early on not to post reviews of DNS books on the blog, because I think it would be tedious for all concerned. There are lots of reasons that I don't get past the synopsis or the sample of a book, the two most common being that either the heroine begins to fantasize about being submissive, or the writing is so bad I can't bear it.

For Serving my Mistress, the sample was okay, but really very short, which generally suggests that the whole book is short, so it went into a sort of, meh, maybe of the price came down category, for me. When it was offered free for a short time, I thought 'why not?'.

So it isn't a DNS. And because it was very short, just an estimated 7 pages / 107 kindle locations, it isn't a DNF. It is femdom. And I think that readers would benefit from a review of it. I should review it. The problem is that I don't take pleasure in ripping apart someones hard work. I appreciate the effort that goes into writing and publishing and I don't want to disrespect that. On the other hand, readers put their hard earned money, time and emotional investment into books, and deserve pay off. So if you're likely to be offended by this review, please look away now.

This vignette is written in malesub first person pov and it really suffers from that. Everything is described and there is no dialogue which uses quotes. This makes it really hard work to follow who is saying what, because there is so much, I was told...... This has the secondary consequence of lots of very long paragraphs, which again, are difficult to read. I'm not going to continue listing the grammatical errors of this vignette, because the list would be longer than the piece itself.

Anyhow, the story. The protagonist (he doesn't seem to have a name) is sub to Mistress Laura and is ordered to his Mistress' house to show her friends what an obedient submissive he is. There follows a sort of 'domme off', where the Mistresses seek to outdo each other in front of a male audience. Then the male 'audience' take over and anally and orally rape him. This scene finishes with the other domme admitting that Mistress Laura has more control over her slave - presumably because she allowed the men in the room to take over. (Side note - is that really the sign of a great domme? That her malesub will accept other men taking over from his domme and raping him? WTF?!)

The last third of the vignette describes a separate scene, where the protagonist is again fucked in the ass, this time by and in front of several other male and female doms.

There were some amusing moments - the protagonist almost sneezing come out of his nose made me smile. But basically this was a ten minute stream-of-consciousness describing the protagonist receiving abuse from cardboard cut-out characters. There is no character development at all, no emotion and no relationship between any of the characters, meaningful or otherwise. To be honest, I didn't even find it hot because it was all rather: 'and then he did this, and then I did that'. For me to enjoy a description of degrading acts, I want to know not only what is done, but how the characters feel about it. Not just that it hurts, but how it hurts and how and why that feels good. Suffice to say, I didn't get any of that here.

If the writing had been better, I think I could have dealt with the lack of plot. If the plot and emotion had been stronger, I might have forgiven the awkward writing. If it was longer, I might forgive its current price on Amazon (just over half a dollar a page). I always aim for a balanced review, so I guess I'd better say something that I like about this 'book'. I like the woman on the cover. I also like the fact that Smith is a prolific femdom writer, because let's face it, there aren't very many of those. Unfortunately, though, this story is an F.

Review: Yes, Ma'am. Erotic Stories of Male Submission. Edited by Rachel Kramer Brussel

My husband has had this book for a while and it's a long time since I read it. It's odd, because I don't remember liking it, but re-reading it now, I realize that my recollection was completely wrong. I really did like this collection of vignettes, a lot actually. I think I was confusing this book with another, completely different, book of short stories.

There are 18 short stories, some of them only a few pages, others 30 or so pages. Like all books of short stories, it's a mixed bag. Some really good, some indifferent. On balance though, they're good. A lot are very short though, so it's a bit like eating popcorn - light, tasty and compulsive - you have one and one isn't enough, then two, three and before you know it you're at the end of the book. Again.

The stories vary in topic to some extent, but not in tone. That is to say, they are well judged by the editor to be about the same 'level' when it comes to their content. They're all pretty non-threatening, quite 'mild'. There are simple stories about a husband massaging his wife's feet, with a promise of something to come, as well as stories featuring bondage and humiliation. The mix of stories about new relationships/femdom as a new aspect to a relationship/established femdom relationships also really worked for me.

Nearly all the stories put the relationship at the centre; these aren't vignettes where the mistress walks in, fucks the faceless sub and walks out again. The focus of most of the stories is the emotion interplay and power transfer. This is something a little more nuanced than straight erotica and I liked it a lot. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't class these as stories as romance - not by a long shot - but they're definitely aimed to cause some emotional arousal as well sexual arousal.

B+

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