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.

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: Power Play by Charlotte Stein

Reasons this book is exciting:

• It's only just published - March this year.
• It's by an author I've only just discovered, who has written other femdom books.
• It's part of a new erotica/erotic romance line - Mischief, which features more than one title labeled explicitly as femdom.
• It's very, very hot.

Power Play is a disingenuous title. Yes, there is definitely a theme of power games in this book, but not really play. Play implies light hearted and for me, this is quite a serious book featuring power games. In many ways, it is all the better for that. 

Elenor Harding (Ms Harding) is a editor in a publishing house and in the opening scene she is fucked up the ass by the boss, Mr Woods. Literally. In the next scene, she's fucked up the ass by Mr Woods metaphorically. Woods has left suddenly and Ms Harding has been promoted into his place and is left with a mess of a department since his alcoholism and D/s play has been higher on his priority list than doing his job. Despite her best efforts, Elenor soon finds herself following his example with D/s, (though thankfully not with the scotch) and engages in D/s games with Woods' PA (now her PA), Ben. As Ben and Elenor's relationship develops, it becomes clear that it wasn't just Elenor who was on the end of Woods' sexual power strings.

One of the delicious things about this book is that the build up is really good. Although it is packed full of very hot sex scenes, the beginning of the relationship between Ben and Elenor develops at a nice pace. Erotica can easily fall into the trap of being: meet, lock eyes, fuck, keep fucking, HFN. This isn't like that at all. They're work colleagues and there is a sense of that barrier and a natural progression from fantasy to reality.

I really liked the writing style and the fact that it's written in the first person from the dominant female character's point of view. This seems to be pretty rare, but it gives an awesome 'there in the moment' feelings. I never felt that I was shut out of the headspace of the submissive character, because he was written very much as a 'heart on his sleeve' kind've guy.

One little irritation was that the way that some of the sections/paragraphs were written, I wasn't sure how much time had elapsed since the previous scene, or sometimes even the previous sentence. Several times I ended up scanning back trying to figure out when things were happening.  It was only a minor thing, but it jerked me out of the book, giving me a 'huh, what's going on?' feeling.  

About mid-way through I had pretty much mentally written my glowing review, with my only reservation being what I felt was a token M/f anal sex scene at the beginning. This felt like it was tagged onto the beginning of the book so that there was a sex scene in the sample, but isn't really in keeping with the rest of the beginning of the book which is such a brilliant crescendo. Near the end though, a new question emerged, along the lines of WTF? This next bit contains lots of spoilers.

***** Spoilers *******
Everything has sort of come full circle and yet again, and Elenor is being fucked in the ass on the desk, rather like she was in the opening scene. Except this time, it's Ben, not Mr Woods, Elenor is in control and the whole thing feels much stronger emotionally - she feels out of control and about to bare her soul to him. Then Aidan, Elenor's second in command, walks in. Basically, he takes control of the situation. Oh, Elenor still has some agency but she has to fight for it and I don't really see that she wins. The thing that made me really uncomfortable was this:

'Enough,' I say, but this time he doesn't obey immediately. He waits - he actually waits - until Aidan suggests the same, which probably just makes matters worse. I'm very aware of how disastrous I look, how little power I now have, and I can't deny that those things contribute to the way I then behave.

 Elenor thinks of Aidan's look that,

It's too much like a challenge, which I unfortunately have to meet.

And goes on to order Ben to suck Aidan off, whilst clearly wanting Ben to say 'no'. So the scene effectively ends up being a kind of power struggle between Aidan and Elenor. Ben is suddenly side-lined to being Aidan's plaything and I feel really uncomfortable with that, though it's clearly consensual on his part. I think the issue for me is that I interpret the reason that this scene has Aidan (an otherwise wallpaper character) rather than say, Woods, in it is that it's supposed to be clear that he plays no emotional role. But all I can think is how on earth are they going to work together again?  Elenor allows her professional subordinate dominate her and her submissive, so I don't see how Elenor can continue to credibly be the boss professionally. This isn't resolved in the book, so as a reader I'm left with a big question mark about Ben and Elenor's HFN.

The other issue with this scene is that for a book that is otherwise quite strong on emotional sub-texts, this non-quite menage with a marginal character ends up quite incongruous. In a book full of scenes with just Ben and Elenor, the sudden appearance of this extra scene with another characters feels like it was an add on to fulfill the kinkiness quota. I understand that the point is that Elenor is trying to push Ben's limits to have an excuse to break off the relationship. But Ben doesn't say no, and I feel that it compromises Ben and Elenor's relationship in a way that is difficult to define.
*****end spoilers *****

Elenor is an interesting character. Since it is written in first person, it's actually difficult to really get a hold on what sort of person she is objectively. From inside her head, she's a bit giddy, almost panicky, that she suddenly has control and is constantly second guessing herself even as she's turned on by what she's doing to Ben. It's only really later in the story that we get little glimpses of how others see Elenor as an ice queen. There's also a late mention of a hard childhood. This feels like a justification, along the lines of 'the reason I'm a female who is into domination is because I had a tough childhood'. Yes, it's implied that this bad childhood is the reason for her ice queen-ness, but it's so briefly touched on it doesn't add any insight for me into Elenor's character. It's just there to 'explain' a personality characteristic which doesn't really need justifying or explaining. Elenor is in many ways portrayed as quite a vulnerable, perhaps even weak character. I'm sorry that she isn't portrayed as being a bit stronger and unapologetic for being dominant. Though to be fair I'm being pretty picky, she's an interesting, multi-faceted character, and that has to be a good thing.

Ben, by comparison, is the perfect beta male submissive. He's truly adorable: clumsy and impulsive like an eager puppy. He's not portrayed as stupid or weak, he just truly gets off on being submissive and humiliated. Yes, he tries to force Elenor's hand to get what he wants by deliberately doing his job badly, but I don't see him emotionally or professionally undermine her, so I can easily forgive that. If anything, he's a bit too perfect. But as a character, I love him for being so different to the composed, emotionally repressed dom male or the snivelling worm submissive. He's just a man and that's just wonderful.

I feel that there are unresolved power tensions at the end of this book. We have a nominal HFN for Ben and Elenor, and I believe in that. But are Woods and Aidan going to cause trouble for them? I don't know about that. It's not neatly tied up and in some ways that's quite a nice novelty, quite like real life. But I don't really read for real life, I have enough of that of my own!

All that said, this is great book. As straight up femdom erotica it is hotter and has a more cohesive plot than anything I've read for quite a while. I less read it than consumed it. If I have criticised it, it's because the characters are so engaging that I was disproportionately upset when I found things that I didn't like. Power Play is well written and incredibly visceral and arousing.

B

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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: 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

Review: Tempting the New Guy by Alegra Verde

This is a sequel to Taking her Boss, featuring the same cast, plus the title's new guy, Clement Johns. This review contains quite a few lots of spoilers. Ultimately though, it's a short story, (582 kindle 'locations' long), so everything you say about it is going to be a spoiler. Anyhow, you've been warned.

The brief synopsis is: Glory flirts with the new guy, she has a duty fuck with Bruce and he tells her that he doesn't want her seeing other men any more. She goes on a date with the new guy. She and Bruce have a pretty weird cunnilingus scene. She goes out with the new guy again, fucks him, then Bruce announces his presence at her flat. They make up and he leaves for the weekend. Then she hands in her resignation, resolving to be rid of the whole thing (Bruce, the new guy, etc.).

If that sounds disjointed, that's because it is. I want to like this book, really I do. But I was left profoundly unsatisfied. In case there's an doubt, the sex scenes are: a jealousy fuck with him in charge; a slightly odd her in charge sex scene; then a vanilla sex scene with the new guy of the title. In between these scenes, I'm not really sure where the story is going. We have relationship development between Glory and the new guy, but there's always Bruce in the background. And Glory's attitude is downright strange. Contradictory, or lying to yourself, I could deal with but she's rather beyond that.

I was beginning to feel like an indentured whore who'd let out her vagina for the duration of her employment at Davies and Birch. What began as a little fun was becoming a duty.

There's nothing sexy in that for me. Then two pages later, she's wiggling around, putting on a show for him. Then she gets her lipstick and applies it to her labia. Yes, that's the word used. Again, that doesn't do it for me (no disrespect to those who like this idea). So he gets her off, or I think he does anyhow, the phrase is:

Ignoring the pain [of her pulling his hair], he continued the assault [of his tongue] until my womb began to tighten and spasm.

That sounds, um. Unpleasant actually. Like period pain. So, anyhow, he's there and aroused, so she decides to use his cock and won't allow him to touch her. That should be really hot, but Glory seems so genuinely angry that as a reader I can't enjoy the ride (pun intended). Since the story is told in the first person it's difficult/impossible to get away from how Glory feels. Bruce touches her (against her command) and comes. She walks out and I'm not sure whether she's enjoyed the experience, whether she's come (is "tingling stars" a euphemism for orgasm?) and I certainly don't feel that she's really asserted her authority (which is the point of the scene. I think.).

And then there's the brief sex scene at the end with Johns. Presumably Bruce witnesses the whole thing, which could be hot. But Bruce is emotionally non consensual in both his watching them have sex and her having sex with other men. That makes me uncomfortable. I can like a lot of things if you can convince me that all parties are into it. But if there isn't explicit consent, there needs to be strong tacit or implied consent. This story doesn't give me either and I find Glory's attitude really irritating. I understand that we're supposed to sympathize with Glory because she feels confused and powerless. Or at least, I think that's why we're supposed to sympathize with her. But instead I just feel jerked around.

I said in the review for Taking her Boss that I hoped that Glory would grow into her dominance. I don't feel that she has in this installment. So it's a disappointed C-

A view: Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser: Long Interviews with Hideous Men

One of my recent purchases has been Clarisse Thorn's book, Confessions of a pick up artist chaser: long interviews with hideous men. This isn't a review of the book so much as such as some of my ponderings as a result of the book.

CoaPUAC (sorry, I can't write out the whole title each time) was a bit of an unusual purchase for me, being not a novel but a semi-autobiographical factual/philosophical account about the author's experiences with pick up artists and the pick up artist (PUA) community. It also was unusual for me because I try (for the sake of all around me) not to engage with things that are liable to make me rant. And men being assholes are liable to make me rant. A lot.

However, all is going well so far and Clarisse does most of the snarky remarks for me, so I don't feel the need to tear the book, or the opinions of the people in the book, apart. (This is no minor achievement.) CoaPUAC has made me think - in a good way. One thing has struck me (so far) especially. Thorn's description of The Game and PUAs in general rather reminded me of The Rules, a sort of equivalent dating guide for women. Just in case you're unfamiliar with these titles, The Game is essentially a men's self help book to get women to sleep with them; The Rules is a women's self help book to get men to treat them well and marry them.

Self help can be truly ridiculous, but I sympathize with Thorn and the PUAs, as I agree that the unspoken societal rules are frankly confusing to those of us who, for whatever reason, didn't pick them up by osmosis. Some women are born with that 'something' that means that they're successful in relationships and never get messed around. Some men are born with charisma that makes women want to sleep with them. For the rest of us books are a help. (Incidentally, if this idea intrigues you, I recommend How to make anyone fall in love with you, which cover similar ground from both male and female pov. I liked it a lot more that The Rules.)

An over simplified summary of The Rules is this: take control and don't put up with any nonsense. The Game, and PUA in general, also seems to be very much about taking control of the situation. When I first started thinking about this, I saw The Rules and The Game as two opposite ends of a spectrum: female control on one end - male control on the other. A kind of tug-of-war between women searching for love/marriage vs men searching for no strings sex. As I continued to read CoaPUAC, I began to wonder about that. Thorn quotes a PUA who says that 80% of men who are involved with PUA turn up with a girl they want to get together with in mind, then are never heard from again once they (presumably) succeed. Most of the PUA men probably wanted a relationship - but that doesn't make good male friendly advertising copy, because it sounds sappy. So maybe The Rules and The Game aren't two ends of a spectrum, but just gender differentiated views on the same issue of engaging with people in a way that builds a good relationship (regardless of duration).

The anti-feminist view of PUA also intrigued me - seeing PUA as pandering to women. The PUA viewpoint is perhaps, to some extent, that women have something men want (sex) and it's up to men to persuade them to give it to them. (I guess the anti-feminist view is that rohypnol is the male dominant way to get sex.) For a Rules girl, sex is partly a tool to get a man to commit to you. What is most interesting in all of this is that sex becomes a commodity or currency, a bargaining chip, reward and something that can be taken. It's a pretty old fashioned idea - that cliche of the wife who gives her husband sex for birthdays, anniversaries etc., or the idea of a man 'taking' a woman's virginity.  I thought that as a society we had gotten past 'sex as a commodity' and begun to see it as an activity. Clearly not.

How far you condem or condone the outlook of PUA probably depends partly on your own pov and partly on the extremes to which the men involved take it. It's easy to see women as the innocent victims of PUA (though Thorn doesn't). The point that I see Thorn making is that some of these PUA are assholes, regardless of the PUA label and the gender label and I agree with her. For me, I see PUA in itself as not really much more dubious than being a Rules girl. However, the kind of people attracted to non-consensual power games and manipulation can be really nasty pieces of work, regardless of gender.

I could go on and on about this book and the discussions I had with it and about it (in my head - obviously...). It's a bit of a cliche to say it, but CoaPUAC really is thought provoking. It's not always a pleasant or comfortable read but it is undoubtedly interesting.

Review: Taking Care of Business by Megan Hart and Lauren Dane

Taking care of Business is written by two authors, about two women at a business conference. Leah and Kate are old friends who once tied up a man in a barn and both had sex with him. Frankly, that mental image is worth the admission price.

So there are two intertwined stories here, of the two friends. Both have aspects of D/s. The Leah and Brandon story is F/m, the Kate and Dix story is M/f. I found from Megan Hart's website that she wrote the story of Leah and Brandon. That makes sense to me, as I've liked Megan Hart's books before. There's also a note that originally, it was going to be two novellas. That also makes sense, because that's how it reads - like I got two novellas for the price of one book - and I didn't like one of them. Whenever I'm really getting into Leah and Brandon's story, it stops and resumes with the other couple. (That's always the problem with those 2 for 1, or 2 in 1 book deals isn't it? One is good, the second is rubbish.)

So, Leah and Brandon's story. Leah has just split up with her boyfriend - that morning in fact. She's fed up with being his submissive slave and an early morning blow job demand was just one thing too much. Brandon is the bar manager and comes over to see Leah and Kate when they're having a drink. When Brandon begins to just do what Leah demands, no questions or hesitations, it wakes something up in her that she had forgotten. She wants to be in control and Brandon allows her to take control. Neither of them have ever been in a F/m power dynamic. They gradually realize that what they want is each other and a D/s dynamic, with Leah in control. Brandon's submission is just sublime. Leah grows into her desires in a realistic way, with conflicts, doubts, confidence and so much hotness. I can feel Leah's buzz as she tells Brandon to get to his knees and lick her out, and he does it.

There is also a very sweet aspect to the story that Brandon's knees are bad from an old football injury, how they work around it, and how it comes to symbolize that you can have power over someone and still care about them. Leah works around his injury without compromising and it makes the whole thing more real and more tender. The whole thing is just magic, with a great balance of tacit communication and pillow talk that isn't stupid or cliched. And the belt scene, ohh......

As for the other story, Kate and Dix have been working together and what started off as emails and flirting has turned into fucking occasionally. They're both ready to take it further and the story details how they figure it out, around his possessive ex wife and her need to be seen as not screwing her way to the top.

My problem with this half of the book is Dix. His name is just too appropriate. He's arrogant, inconsiderate and oblivious. He belittles Kate, bosses her around, persuades her into a compromising situation and hasn't noticed that his secretary is a corporate spy and potential bunny boiler. I don't like him, I think he's a dick. Singular. It doesn't help that he's a stereotypical alpha male: dominant, bossy arrogant, a high flyer. I'm sure I can think of some more cliched adjectives. Suffice to say, if you like Harlequin Presents arrogant tycoon male characters, you'll like Dix. (I don't need to say that I loathe Harlequin Presents do I? No. I thought not.)

The Kate/Dix story also suffers from some inconsistencies in character portrayal. Dix says to his ex wife:

"Beautiful, intelligent, you run a successful business, there are many men who would love to snap you up."

This is the same woman who, we are told constantly, couldn't open a jar of pickles and phoned her ex-husband to come and do it for her. I'm sorry, but there is no consistency of character there at all, she's just a plot puppet to create conflict between Kate and Dix. There are no women who run successful businesses who can't figure out on their own (or maybe with google's help) how to open a stubborn jar of pickles. It also irritates me that since running your own business is the sort of romance 'gold standard' for being an independent woman (who knows why), by comparison Kate and Leah seem like corporate bitches. It also makes Dix look like an idiot too. In seven years he hasn't figured out that his ex wife who runs a consulting business (not a flower shop or something fluffy, oh no, a consultancy) could probably change her own car wiper blades and arrange her own house repairs.

So I have a difficulty. I LOVE the half of the story about Leah and Brandon. It's all kinds of good, and if it were just that, this would be an A book. But I got more and more bored and irritated with Kate and Dix. Especially Dix. I must add to be fair, if you like a romance dynamic of a domineering man and a heroine who stands up for herself (mostly) then you probably won't mind Kate and Dix. I just seem to have a very low threshold for putting up with dominant male characters at the moment.

Overall, I did enjoy it. I thought the two author's voices worked well together, and though you could clearly see the delineations of each author, it was very readable. Kate and Leah are both good, strong female characters, the kind of women you'd want to have as friends (I wish I'd had a friend like that when I was young and tied up a guy with her. So hot.). Brandon is great character too, realizing his submissiveness whilst being a competent and confident guy as well. It's definitely worth a read if you can manage not to be irritated by the Dick Dix.

B

Review: Branded Sanctuary by Joey Hill

Chloe isn't sleeping well. She's been an emotional (and therefore physical) wreck since she was attacked. At the beginning of the book, there's an evocative scene where Chloe is too scared to get up and go to the loo (sounds silly, but it works well). On a whim, she calls Brandon, a guy who gave her his number at her boss' wedding. He patiently talks to her and she manages not only to get over her fear and make it to the bathroom, but to indulge in some friskiness over the phone with him.

Brandon turns up on her doorstep the next morning. Chloe doesn't know how to react. The attack has left her unstable, confused about who she is, scared and angry. And at various points in the story, all of these emotions spill out over Brandon. Her character arc is getting over these emotions.

Brendan is the perfect sub, living to serve a Mistress, or any Dom, with no concern for himself. His character arc is accepting that he is a person who wants things for himself.

So there's no complaint about lack of character arc. There's oodles of character arc. What I don't understand is why Brendan likes Chloe. He's a complete submissive, what does he see in vanilla Chloe? She's not naturally dominant, and when she tries to be, everyone tries to talk her out of it. I don't get it.  Neither do I really understand why Chloe likes Brendan. He's sweet and lovely and all that, but he's branded (literally) by another woman, insensitive to the point of idiocy when it comes to introducing her to bdsm and ultimately seems to want to have his Mistress cake and his relationship too.

What irritates me in this story is that everyone (possibly including Chloe) don't want Chloe to express her emotions - they want her to go back to being the sweet girl she used to be. More to the point, no-one wants Chloe to use bdsm to work out her issues. She's thrown in the deep end of bdsm at weekend play party, disapproved of when she attempts to get involved, then made to feel awkward when she cops out and is upset. I'm not keen on the portrayal of Chloe's induction to bdsm at all. It's like bdsm is an exclusive members only club that she's being introduced to but not allowed to actually join. At one point Chloe says:

"Oh right, I forgot - I can't understand this. I don't know the secret handshake."

And I know what she means. Mistress Marguerite is Brendan's real domme and it feels to me that there is no room for Chloe. A character put in for tension says that Brendan really only wants Marguerite. And you know what - I believe him. I don't think that Brendan is 'over' Marguerite, or vice versa, to be honest. I even wonder if Brendan has fixated on Chloe because she is sort of Marguerite's vanilla pet, her friend. Brendan even says that Marguerite would always be his Mistress, Chloe his Beloved. It feels like Chloe and Brendan are both Tyler and Marguerite's playthings, or younger siblings. They are both taken under the dominant couple's care. Perhaps it's a real bdsm dynamic, (I wouldn't know), but it doesn't do it for me at all. I want to shout at Brendan and Chloe to get out of there and be themselves, work out their relationship themselves without the manipulations of their big brother and sister (metaphorical not literal).

There's one more thing that annoyed me about this book. I have no idea how long it is between Brendan and Chloe first meeting, and Chloe phoning him in the middle of the night. At one point is seems like it's a realistic few months, then at another a unfeasible year and a half.

There's plenty of hotness, lots of interesting conflict and that's all great. There are touching, emotional scenes, where you can feel the connection between Chloe and Brendan, especially at the beginning and the end of the book. The problem is, I don't believe the relationship really. I'm not sure if they're just the proteges of the dominant characters or whether they really are together for themselves. Don't get me wrong, this is still a good read. But for me, it's not emotionally satisfying. I probably wouldn't have had such a problem with that if it wasn't so close to being emotionally satisfying.

B-

Review: Natural Law by Joey Hill

So far there has been a theme on this blog of books that don't quite do it for me, for one reason or another. I'm going to spectacularly break that trend by talking about one of the best books I've ever read. I keep returning to read Natural Law because I believe in the relationship it portrays.

Mac is a homicide detective working on a case of a domme killing submissive men. All the victims so far have been members of The Zone, an exclusive BDSM club, so Mac is sent undercover to The Zone to investigate. There he catches the attention of Violet. Their attraction is instant and sizzling. Their first confrontation is just that - a battle of wills. He tells her to go for an easier target, she responds by thrusting her riding crop between his testicles. So there's no lack of physicality in this relationship, which makes it all the more surprising that what really works is the emotional side of it.

Mac has always treated BDSM as a workout; Violet calls him on this and won't fall for his tricks or accept anything less than the total submission of his "heart, soul and cock" to her. Both characters seemed real to me, I think because they had existence outside of the their straight D/s dynamic. That is to say, when Violet was not being The Dom, she was a human being, with normal wants, needs, emotions, a dog and a job. Lots of stories seem to 'soften' their female doms by giving them secret submissive tendencies, or have them be absolute cold, heartless bitches all the the time. Violet is neither. She is a dominant and doesn't need to prove that to herself or anything else. She doesn't need to be sadistic and mean to show that she's on top, but there's never any doubt that she's the boss. The only question is whether she is the right dom for Mac, and whether he will accept that she is.

It's funny, because although there are several scenes in Natural Law which involve multi-partner play, or at least spectators, the main focus is always the developing relationship between Mac and Violet. This book doesn't get so caught up in hot bdsm sex that it forgets about the feelings of the main protagonists. It does rather forget about the murder suspense sub-plot, but to be honest, that doesn't bother me in the least (though if you're expecting a proper thriller, you will be disappointed). The main part of the book takes part in a relatively small amount of time, but there is progression to it, development from strangers and sex to two people in love.

There is really very little that I don't like about Natural Law. Alright, there is something I don't like about Natural Law. I think the cover is naff. The woman's fingers freak me out a bit. It's not bad, but it is very 90's and naff. I won't hold that against it though.

A