Review: Untamed by Anna Cowan

A cross-dressing Duke hero. That alone had my interest before anything else was said over at Dear Author. This book defies gender stereotypes in many, many ways and has genuinely interesting characters, who grow throughout the story. It's a tough read in places, for various different reasons, but it's still one of the most original books I've read in a long time. And the heroine is awesome.

Kit is in London with her sister Lydia, who is having an affair with the Duke of Darlington. Lydia's husband is furious. Kit realises that she needs to save their marriage, by calling the Duke off Lydia. The price he extracts for this favor is that Kit take him back to her county home. What she doesn't realize, is that he will turn up as a woman. What he doesn't realize is that her home isn't just not fit for a Duke, they are outright in poverty. That's the beginning, but a whole lot of other things are going on.

What I love about this book is that the heroine, Kit, really is the heroine. I mean that in the sense that she's the one that saves the day, in every way. Kit must be described as strong about a dozen times and its justified. She is robust both physically and metaphorically. She also does traditionally 'male' things. She goes out and chops wood in the rain while Jude looks on; she swears; she competently manges the family finances. Jude on the other hand lounges around, pouts, and causes more problems when he tries to help than if he'd just left well alone. Kit shoves Jude up against walls and won't take any crap. I understand that some people found Kit rather unsympathetic, or unrealistic. I didn't at all. I was with her every step of the way. She made tough calls but I felt that she had grit and integrity.

The other female characters are also good. More strong, well rounded women who are distinct and human, rather than wallpaper in dresses behind the main characters. Kit's family play a big role in this book and Sophie (Kit's mother) and her sister Lydia are both characters that at various times you are repulsed by and endeared to.

Jude is a bit of an arsehole. He's morally dubious, and not just in a vague, 'Oh he's a rake' kind of way. We seem him do things, including things to Kit, which are highly questionable. On the other hand, there is an awareness of his arse-holery in the book. It's not ignored, or passed off as him being an alpha-male. So although I was occasionally uncomfortable, actually I didn't mind, because I thought that Kit could manage him. He was brought pretty low and she was always portrayed as strong. (No crying in the corner for Kit, oh no, that's Jude's role.) He was quite gender queer, passing himself off as a woman (Lady Rose) for much of the book and was quite effeminate even as a man. I didn't quite understand his 'dark side', which was a meaner, slightly dominant version of himself. It felt a bit like shoe-horning a bit of male dominance in for effect, but there was very little of it and Kit usually pulled him up on his bullshit quickly.

The weakest part of this book is definitely the historical aspect. It seems to be set in a sort of regency-esque world, but it's never at all clear when (I think this is deliberate). It would have been better set later, maybe late Victorian, as some of the things that the women do in this book (particularly Kit, but also Lady Marmotte) are so anachronistic for the regency style setting, it makes them a little difficult to believe.

Another problem is some things that are made a big deal of and then dropped. Threads are left hanging. Jude's name takes practically a whole chapter for Kit to get out of him, but then it seems that everyone else knows it, which rather ruins the feeling that Kit is being given something special in permission to call him by it. It's never clear what Jude's motivation is to start doing a lot of things and that makes the ending slightly hollow. Hints early on that Jude is almost bankrupt actually turn out that he has money (or enough money anyhow). Kit's brother is an anonymous but successful author, but nothing is made of this, and it's not clear where the money he earns really goes. And there are plenty more things like this. For nit-pickers like me, this gapiness is frustrating.

Some I'm sure will be uncomfortable or disbelieving about a hero who cross dresses. Personally I think it's eminently believable - the male/female false dichotomy has always been evident to me. Women being passed off as men is so ubiquitous though, this seems like very fair turn-about. But if you disagree, it needs some suspension of disbelief.

The beginning is slow but persevere, it quickly becomes compulsive. At some points it makes you laugh, (Jude's pig, Porkie, is awesome). Other times, it deals bluntly then delicately with issues like rape, domestic violence and child abuse. Not only that, it skims lightly over homophobia (a bit too lightly really), greed, gambling, etc. Between this, and the strong personalities of the characters, along with some political plot lines, there's a lot going on.

TL;DR: A gender stereotype and trope breaking book with a heroine you'll want to team Domme with/have Dominate you. A deliciously androgynous hero, who she has to sort out. A difficult book with some plot problems, it's held up totally by the originality of the concept and the portrayal of the characters.

Overall, it's a difficult book to grade. It's emotional and gripping, but the protagonists are fairly messed up, so the HEA hard fought. I do believe in the HEA though, and I think that both Jude and Kit, as well as Lydia and James, deserve it. There's an acknowledgement that life isn't easy though, and that there will be arguments and tough times. I like that. Although there is heat, attraction and sex, it isn't primarily erotic. There are some gaping plot holes, but it gets away with it because it's so character driven. Though not really femdom, it features female protagonists who are strong, sometimes sadistic, belligerent and control their men. I'm conflicted. I didn't always enjoy this book but it is outstanding - it stands out. Overall, a B perhaps?


By the way, I've never quite established whether the character on the front of the book is supposed to be Kit or Jude. I like to think it's Jude - and that is hot.

Fifty Shades of Women taking Control: Hidden Femdom in Romance

I think that women in control is more common than we think and becoming more common. In bed as well as outside of it, women have more agency than at any other time in history. Obviously, there is a some way yet to go (the rant about how women are seen as less competent than men was last month). But there are lots of things to celebrate, many ways that women take control in novels in subtle, hidden ways. One might almost say, fifty shady ways that women are more dominant than we realize. ;)   (Actually, it's going to be three today. Otherwise this will be yet another TL;DR).

Women in control does sell, can sell, in romance. That was my conclusion last month and I'm going to try and justify it. Exhibit A is a romance book that is in practically every top 10 romance novels of all time. Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels isn't even kinky, it isn't subtle femdom, but it is an example of a heroine in control. Jess is the together, competent and clever one in the relationship. She seduces Dain, outwits him, takes everything in her stride while he is left reeling and ultimately he gives in and just does what she says. In a kinky re-write of LOS Jess would be the dominant, even if sometimes she let Dain be the top. Loretta Chase books are full of strong women who tell their men what to do. Chase's latest book, Scandal wears Satin, features a smart, competent woman and a man whose main strength is braun rather than brains. Yes, of course these books are vanilla through and through, but hidden in some of the most popular books is women taking the lead in life. Taking the lead in bed is a logical corollary.

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant, unlike LOS was published this year, features on plenty of top romances of 2012 lists and is wonderful subtle femdom. Any book that features a man who gets turned on by servicing a woman in a Queen/stablehand dynamic and refers to clubs in London where men would pay to be scowled at, surely counts as subtle femdom. The hero is confessedly a feckless idiot and the heroine is severe and bends things to her will. This isn't a book that is as universally liked as LOS, but it has had considerable acclaim this year, along with an acknowledgement that even last year, it might not have been published. A Lady Awakened is a step forward for romance as a genre.

Finally, why have I included a cheap reference to Fifty Shades of Grey? To me, (not having read FSOG), it seems like the antithesis of femdom. A weak, silly girl and a stalking, obsessive alphahole man. And yet I noticed that the image on the official FSOG sex toys is of a woman dominating a man (top right). This is pretty interesting, as it is seems to be the direct opposite of what FSOG is about. What this image suggests to me is that, one: it's women who are instigating BDSM type activities in the bedroom (by buying the toys) and two: women are turning the toys they buy on their men. FSOG is rather interesting from this perspective - the book may be all about a weak woman, but the consequences, the talk about it, and perhaps even the merchandise IS ALL ABOUT WOMEN. Ana is the embodiment of naivety, but for the women who read FSOG, it is all about knowledge. And everyone knows, knowledge is power.

Femdom Fifty Shades of Grey?

I've noticed a steady stream recently of searches for "fifty shades of grey femdom" or some variant, landing on this site. In case you have been hiding under a rock and not heard about this phenomenon, the Fifty Shades of Grey series is a trilogy which follows the developing relationship between an overbearing man who self identifies as a dominant, and a younger woman who is too inexperienced to self identify as anything (so by default she is vanilla (?) ). He pursues her and introduces her to sex and bdsm (with a full time slave contract - no shades of grey there then...).

I'm sure that searchers for "50 shades of grey femdom" have so far left this site unsatisfied, as the post I mention the series in is a moan about not being able to find femdom books. I ignored these searches for as long as I could, but it's gotten to me eventually and I think I can do better.

The question is though, what are people searching for femdom and fifty shades of grey really looking for? I don't know for sure, but here are some of my ideas:


Is there a book like Fifty shades of Grey, but the other way around - with a female dominant rather than a male dominant?

This is the most obvious interpretation, but also the most difficult. What did you like about it? If you simply want an erotic book with explicit bdsm femdom, then Natural Law by Joey Hill is for you. Both characters indentify as Mistress and submissive from the beginning and it's wonderfully erotic, well written, with enough kink to satisfy as well as a strong romantic relationship.

If you liked the concept of an older, authoritative dom introducing a younger vanilla protégée to bdsm, maybe you would like Rebecca's Way by Rynna Cress, where an experienced Mistress introduces a wayward man to being submissive.

Did you like the student and authority figure dynamic? Maybe The Cruel Dr Fox by SM Calor would be your thing. That features a college professor who takes her student in hand in a servant submissive relationship.


My wife/girlfriend read Fifty Shades and liked it. I want to introduce femdom to her. Maybe I could find an equivalent fifty shades book with femdom and she would like that too?

There are lots of good options here, depending on what her normal reading matter is. If she likes historical books, then A Lady Awakened is the one. A subtle femdom book, the heroine is very controlling and controlled and likes sex only on her terms.

If she normally likes other modern/contemporary novels, then try This is What I Want, or Taking Care of Business, both by Megan Hart. Taking Care of Business is a dual story line book, with a femdom relationship which sizzles and a maledom relationship which isn't so good. This is What I Want is less explicitly femdom and more about a woman sharing her fantasies, both ones where she is in and not in control (though mainly the former).

For a book where a woman discovers her dominant side after being submissive, then Power Play by Charlotte Stein is the hottest example of this. Switch, again by Megan Hart, is a tamer example with only subtle bdsm undertones.

For a woman discovering her dominant side from being vanilla, Taking Her Boss by Alegra Verde is worth a look. Giving by Charlotte Stein features a woman introduced to femdom bdsm by her boyfriend's confessed fantasies.

If she likes the purple prose and hyperbole of Fifty Shades, then she might like Evangeline Anderson erotic sci-fi books. There's a lot of male service elements in these books, which are otherwise mainly maledom.


Does Fifty Shades of Grey feature any femdom?

I haven't read the books, but nothing that I've read about them gives me any hope, no.  


Is there a 'mainstream' femdom book, similar to Fifty Shades of Grey, that I can buy at the store? With a tasteful grey cover perhaps?

Not really, no. Natural Law is the only straight femdom book I know of at the moment that really justifies general consumption. But then, it's not really about a book being good, is it? It's a right place, right time thing and we're not there yet for femdom. And no femdom book can have a tasteful cover. Ever. 


So that's it. If you reached this page through a search, let me know in the comments if I answered your question. If I didn't, do ask.

The Underworld Series by Kelley Armstrong

I completely loved these books and I found some femdom in them. Not an erotic kind of femdom but just a strong female character kicking ass in a patriarchal world, with her pet boy by her side (kind of literally in this case). This is another of those reviews that frankly, I'm not sure if you'll be interested since it isn't full on erotic femdom. But I kind of think it deserves a place here, in the subtle femdom category.

This review is completely riddled with spoilers which are necessary to explain why this series is that subtle femdom which can be soooo good. I will flag up the spoilers that will significantly affect your enjoyment of the series. I should add, I'm only really talking here about the werewolf books of this series, specifically: Bitten, Stolen, Broken, Frostbitten, Hidden, Beginnings from Tales of the Underworld and the free online graphic short story Becoming.

Elena is a reluctant werewolf, has been a werewolf for 10 years and is living in Toronto. A crisis calls her back to Stonehaven, the pack's home with the pack leader Jeremy and Elena's ex lover/best friend/adversary/worst nightmare, Clayton. They're part of a small pack of werewolves, keeping a low profile and protecting humanity from the rogue idiot werewolves who think it's fun to kill people. The major part of the story for all the books is how the pack neutralize these threats. That is to say - the major part of the books is paranormal suspense thriller. The thread through all the books is the relationship between Elena and Clayton. Elena and Clayton have a difficult fucked up relationship with a complicated history.

All the books are first person narratives from the pov of Elena and don't shy away from letting her solve her own and other peoples, problems. That I think is one of the things I like about these books. Elena has support, is part of a team, but she also strikes out independently (sometimes unwisely, but never TSTL) and does things. She has agency and power and courage and she uses them.

These books don't pull punches on people dying or being hurt on both sides of the them/us divide. There are numerous fight and hunting scenes, with somewhat dispassionate descriptions of the 'gore'. Elena is not a shocked girl who faints at the sight of blood. Actually, she revels in it. Again, I rather like that. It's refreshingly honest somehow that a (were)wolf, a predator, is unabashedly a predator and not just a big dog who runs around.

One of the most interesting things about this series is that in some ways it's all about Elena's journey to accept her anger, her violence, her strength and power and the agency that this gives her. She is concerned in Bitten about being 'normal' and comes to accept what she is and accept Clay's adoration too. Elena struggles against Clay because he relishes her excitement at that part of their life. For Elena, he comes to represent 'not normal'. She feels unlovable and unfeminine because of her liking of violence. I think that there will be dommes out there who have been through, or are currently going through, the same sort of emotional conflicts that Elena has (though probably they don't have the added challenge of changing regularly into a wolf).

Most of the main issues are resolved at the end of Bitten, but there are lingering problems, which are then resolved through the next books. All the books are really about Elena's coming of age (yeah, even 30 somethings can come of age).

***Spoilers***
One of the issues that although Elena for the most part solves her own problems, she's essentially still an underling in a male patriarchal system. Much of the 'action' is actually Elena on her own - not with Clay, or the rest of the pack. The obvious solution? Elena becomes the pack Alpha. It's the last step in the journey really - from denying who and what she is, to being the leader of the pack in the last book.

Elena's relationship with Clay mirrors the journey that Elena has. At the end of Bitten, their relationship is still tentative - Elena has admitted that she loves Clay, but he is still the one pushing towards a relationship and she's holding back. Clay is always pulling Elena with him in terms of commitment - he proposes apropos of nothing, (this is a big spoiler, you might want to skip over it) then he bites her committing her without her knowledge to life as a werewolf, then tries everything to get her to stay with him, wears a wedding ring even though they aren't actually married, wants to have children, etc. etc. Elena is wary at every stage and it is Clay who is pushing the emotional intimacy as well as the physical intimacy. In Frostbitten, they have this exchange:

"...we're making little steps. Saying you love me. Saying you want to be with me. Saying you trust me. And now saying you miss me. The next big hurdle is saying you like your life the way it is."

"I love my life."

That really sums up Elena's journey with Clay. It's a journey to acceptance and happiness (even though that sounds really naff, it's not written like that at all.) Part of that acceptance is accepting that she likes being a werewolf and the strength and violence that comes with that. Clay is the foil to Elena's convoluted and complicated nature. Clay has long accepted who he is and is in some ways Elena's mentor, helping her to be the leader that he needs.

Clay is such an unusual and brilliant character. Not only is he a werewolf who is NOT an 'Alpha', doesn't want to be and is happy following Jeremy and then Elena. He's always in the supporting role rather than 'White Knight'. In several of the books, Elena saves Clay. In Stolen Clay spends most of the book sedated by Jeremy because he's going so mental that Elena is missing. He's Elena's henchman, backup - in short, her husband. In Hidden, Elena describes Clay as:

..the ideal beta-second-in-command, Pack enforcer, Alpha's bodyguard.

And this dynamic works perfectly for Elena and Clay as she likes to be in charge. As she says in Broken: 

Put Clay with a werewolf of roughly the same hierarchical position, whose judgement he trusted, and he preferred to follow orders...  which was fine because I preferred to give them. 

Clay does take the lead in their sex to some extent, but they fight for control and that is incredibly hot. They destroy hotel bedrooms and the naked rolling around 'play' fighting in forest is oh-so-hot. There is also development in this aspect of the story too. In the first book Bitten (and several others) Clay ties Elena up (for reasons that are major spoilers, so I won't go into) but by the last book Hidden, Elena ties Clay down to the bed - and Clay is happy about it. So Elena takes the lead in their lives and Clay is content in his beta/protector role.

So what else is unusual about Clay as a hero? He's a virgin when he and Elena get together and basically never been interested in or with any woman but Elena.  Clay might be antisocial, but his loyalty is never in question. He is fanatically loyal.

***End Spoilers***

TL,DR:  Werewolf thriller books, written from the first person perspective of the female protagonist who is awesome. A sexy sidekick hero. Lots of violence and sex in forests.

If I haven't convinced you by now, I don't think I will be able to. If you're not sure try Bitten, which is in some ways the most interesting of the series, and see if you get hooked.

Review: A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant

Hot, funny, touching, a controlling heroine and featuring scenes where she ties him to the bed.

I thought I'd get that in right away, before you look at the cover and title of this book and think WTF. But this book is not quite what you expect, whatever you expect. Clearly this is a more of a historical romance than anything else, but the love scenes are subtly femdom, as is the whole relationship dynamic.

Martha has been recently widowed and when she discovers that the heir (her late husband's brother) is rapist misogynistic pig, she has to do something to protect the female servants. 'Something' is hiring her feckless neighbor Theo Mirkwood to impregnate her so that she can have a son who will inherit. They're opposites - she holds herself tightly together, repressed even and antisocial. He's an aimless, reckless boy.

Martha (Mrs Russell) is determined not to enjoy fornication, and nothing Theo can do will persuade her. She's stubborn; he's stubborn. If you've ever read a romance novel you think you know what to expect - but no. They don't have fantastic sex their first time together and she isn't set alight by him when they touch. They both have (especially Theo) their own character arc, independent of the relationship. When they finally do fall in love, it's explosive. Martha is a strong, principled character and Theo has to find a way to work with her on her own terms, and he does this, without giving up who he is (a sociable, fun loving person). They genuinely meet in middle and the changes in power dynamic are great to read.

The reason I've included this otherwise straight romance book here is that the love scenes (as opposed to some of the sex scenes) have a definite femdom tint. The emotional relationship between the two protagonists also has a F/m slant. I don't want to spoil it for you if you read it (and I strongly recommend that you do) but if you need more persuasion...

****Spoilers *****
The love scenes of the book, unusually, occur late in the book. The concept is that Martha needs both to know Theo and to be in control - and that he needs to allow himself to trust her to be in control both in real life as well as in the bedroom for them to come together as a couple. And for her to come. So when he gets her to tie him to the bed, in some ways she has already decided that she wants to take her pleasure with him. In a lot of these 'men tied down' scenes I'm frustrated that the man is still running the show. But I didn't feel like that about this book. I felt that if anything, Martha was always controlling their sex - permitting him, paying him actually - to spill his seed, but controlling her pleasure and severely limiting his by refusing to engage with the process emotionally until she was ready.

In one of the other love scenes, they play out a scene of a stablehand servicing his Queen. That felt distinctly femdom! Early in the book he jokes that men pay good money in London for the scowls and hard looks she gives him - love that.

****End Spoilers****

This is a very unusual novel and will not be to everyone's taste. The phrasing, especially the use of 'one' (as in: 'One tries not to think of him') takes a little getting used to, but I like it as it is very much in character for Martha. Personally I love the jokes about 'duty sex' and the way that they begin to dispatch the sex in order to talk about agriculture. But I understand that some people might find this book a bit slow in terms of the 'good bits' (sex), or a little facetious.

The whole book is written beautifully - thoughtfully. It's a touching book but it's also laugh out loud. I couldn't stop reading.

A