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: 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: The Wicked Sex by Lance Porter

Wicked is a bit of an understatement. The women in this book of short stories are mean and without compassion. They are wicked in the real sense of the word: evil, or intended hurt someone.

There are six 30 odd page stories in this book. Some are quite contemporary / realistic, others are fantasy / magical. 

I'm not sure what to think about the fact that one or two of these stories have stayed with me, even though I didn't like them very much. I read this book a while ago and The Land of Giant Supermodels and Mistress of the Hunt I remembered, though the others I had to remind myself of to write this review. That is testament really to how well Porter writes, that I found myself compelled despite myself.

Bound by a Woman
Bee, a mail order bride, turns out to be rather less biddable than her purchaser Gunther expected. She ties him up and steals his money. The scenario is designed for me to feel sympathy for Bee because Gunther has unpleasant expectations of her. But she's such a bitch I don't feel a lot of empathy for Bee, so I feel rather sorry for Gunther.

Teen Tease
 A spoilt, bratty teenage girl teases all the older men in the vicinity. Including her Stepdaddy. And her Mother is complicit. This sort of thing squicks me a lot, especially written in the first person as this is.

The Land of Giant Supermodels
Gullible men end up magically shrunk and slaves to normal sized supermodels. The women use them up like disposable tissues.

Heartless
Detective Angel falls in with women who tease and torture men while investigating a murder from a hotel. Well, sort of. This story again is rather twisted.


Mistress of the Hunt 
An idealistic young man joins a riding stable run by gorgeous posh women who have their stable hands lick their boots clean. But there's a surreal fantastical twist.

Imperatrix
Two dommes in competition - which one can make the most men come from strap-on sex? Fun, and even more fun when they get distracted by each other. I enjoyed this.

I think the problem that I have with these stories is the total disrespect shown for the men. The women are domineering but awful and I don't empathize much with them. The frequency of death of the men in the stories is also an issue. They are powerful stories, but I found them quite unpleasant.

C-

No such thing as a free read - or why I write this blog

Free stuff - it's great, but it can be difficult to find stories that are really good (or in some cases, even striving towards adequate). So if you've read a good femdom story on literotica, bdsmlibrary, or similar, please share it in the comments. Yep, I mean you. Just keep scrolling to the comments at the bottom of the page. Don't hang around here. There's nothing to see in the rest of the post except a load of pontificating.



That was a bit blunt wasn't it? Sorry about that. This post has been through numerous incarnations - I was finding it difficult to get down what I wanted to say. That first paragraph was what I really meant, without ifs and buts and ands.

I tend to read ebooks from major retailers, but I've been wondering about that recently. Essentially there are two categories of online reading: There are various sites which allow users to share stories that they've written, from literotica to fanfic sites, and they're almost always free. Then there are 'books', often procured through that well known online retailer and almost always paid for. There is also obviously some crossover: ebook retailers often have some books available free for a short period of time to gain exposure and reviews; the extensively discussed 50 Shades of Grey started off as free online fan fiction and is now a paid book bestseller. So there's a sort of continuum between paid/not paid.

When I started reading books online, I never paid for them - ever. Several things changed that.  My financial situation eased, I began to get fed up of searching through dross to find something good to read and my tastes in fiction became more specific and so 'free' became an untenable criteria. But I appreciate that many people will still be in the situation I used to be in, especially that first one. So, given that reviews should help people find good stuff to read, should I review freebies?

I tend to think no. If someone has been kind and brave enough to put their work up for free, I think they deserve to not have it picked over by fussy people like me. If you're looking for money for it, I think that's different, because an exchange of money has an implied contract about the quality of the goods. I think that also goes for books which are briefly free but normally paid, from ebook retailers, because the intention is for the freebies to generate paid sales.

So I'm not willing to review free reads but I still I want to know what the good free reads are. Why? Because it isn't just money that you invest in books or stories. There's the time that you spend reading synopses, samples, the first few paragraphs. Then there's the emotional investment that you input when you're engaged with a character's welfare or the outcome of the story, the anticipation that you think you've found a new author that you'll like. And if you're like me, you'll analyse a book extensively afterwards.

So there are different costs involved with free books. When you read the first few paragraphs of a sample of a paid book, you get return: you know whether you like the author's style or writing and whether you're likely to enjoy the book. From the investment of a few paragraphs, you might well get a return of 200k words of enjoyable reading. The short stories available free online by comparison, usually need the same amount of time reading to establish the same facts, but are often only 1-2k long. That is to say, for the same investment of time, you get a much poorer return of enjoyment for free reads.

So how do people discover new stuff to read? If you're representative of book readers in general, mainly it is through word of mouth. But that's frequently not an option. (I can just imagine me asking my vanilla friends if they can recommend a good book where the heroine pegs the hero and he loves it. That'd be an awkward silence.... ) So with real life recommendations not an option, that leaves online reviews and recommendations - from retailers, blogs etc. On ebook retailer sites, I find reviews to be inconsistent in their veracity. Sometimes, the reviews are as a fictional as the novel. Ditto with starred recommendation systems like goodreads - they're easily manipulated. The reviews of femdom books I found on blogs tended to be sincere but from M/f bdsm reviewers, who obviously have their own take on femdom which doesn't really work for me.

Ultimately, I couldn't find a reliable source of reviews or recommendations for femdom books or free stories and that's why I set up this blog. I hoped that people who wanted similar things out of their fiction would stumble across this blog and let me know what they've read that they liked.

So I'm asking. Please. Tell me what you read - free, paid, whatever. If it was good, share it. To get started, here are some literotica stories that I've enjoyed:

The Third Way by AAkasha  A Mistress pup-naps her submissive and non (ish) consentually rapes him. Three ways. A delicious female first person pov piece.

The Shower by ExoticNeurotic  Quite a subtle short story of a shy submissive. Written as the domme speaking directly to her nervous new sub.

The Executive by Bootfrau  A violent but nicely written non-consent kidnap story.


All the above comes down to this. I don't think that it's appropriate or worthwhile to review free short stories, but I do think it would be useful to create a list of recommendations. If you would help me with that last, I would be very grateful.

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+