Femdom-ish Books Round-up: February/March/April 2013

This edition of the round up is a sort of bonus, condensed version, because my pesky offline life has been in the way recently. Normal-ish service will may be resumed soon.

Femdom releases I've seen this month recently since last time I did a round up include For Her Pleasure by new-ish author Kyoko Church. This is a romp of a story from a submissive male's pov, with stacks of humiliation. My review is here.

Under her Thumb is an anthology edited by D.L. King. This was a March release and features many familiar names, including the the blogosphere's own Her Majesty's Plaything.

In terms of publishers, my attention was drawn (by a commenter I think) to Circlet Press. Their tag line is: The Intersection of Erotica and Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Futurism. There is a lot of BDSM and a good amount of that seems to be F/m or F/m/m/M or M/F/f/m/trans or - well, you get the idea. I suspect that you can expect quite a lot of sexy, extreme craziness, so if that's what rolls you then you should head over. There isn't any sort of helpful sorting system on their website, so unfortunately you have to read through all the blurbs.


Just published in April is Still by Ann Mayburn. This is book one of three and I'm pretty excited about the idea of femdom series. So much to look forward to! Also - check out the cover with the man tied up with blue rope. <le sigh> I like the trend towards tied up men or women's high heels on the covers of femdom books.  I know that neither is exactly breaking any paradigms, but imho they're more suggestive of a being aimed at female audience compared to women in pvc/leather corsets with whips, which always seem to me to be aimed at submissive men.

It's not a book, but head over to submissive guy comics on tumblr and check out Femdom cartoons. They're cute, touching, hilarious and true reflections on BDSM and F/m. I am totally obsessed by them already. Why are you still here? Go!

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: Vampire Meltdown by Storm Savage

You know those heroines who manifest their feisty independence and strength by refusing all reasonable offers of help, running away from safety into dangerous situations, unnecessarily endangering herself and others and chafing against the possessive men she desperately wants to submit to? Yep. Zoe is one of those. Combine this with an incoherent, inconsistent, undeveloped but somehow very convoluted plot and Zoe's possessive Biker Club 'mates' and I'm sure it won't surprise you that I didn't enjoy this much.

We meet Zoe when she's lost her memory and is stripping for a living. She doesn't know her name, have an address, or any money, and she's been on the run for a couple of weeks, but minor issues like that apparently don't matter to strip clubs. (Really? they'd get closed down pretty quickly were that the case. But then, it's about to get more crazy, so I shouldn't be complaining.) She doesn't know what is going on, is having hallucinations, and the reader doesn't know much more than she does. The hallucinations happen is snippets while she's grinding away to the music and everyone is absolutely crazy about her. She's a vampire Mary Sue.

Anyhow, Zoe has two biker club stalkers who are after her mates who are so worried about her, they're hanging around on their bikes, not looking for her in obvious places like her old stomping grounds, which is co-incidentally, where she is. Zoe discovers a mobile phone in her pocket (after like, two weeks?) and calls someone, who alerts Brooker and Rider. She leads them on a bit of dance around different locations, whilst leaving corpses of couple of 'evil' men who look at her wrong for them to clean up so she doesn't get arrested. Zoe acquires a puppy so that we know that she's a nice person.

I didn't notice that this book is Book 7 in a series, and I'm guessing that if you like this sort of thing and have read books 1-6 then the plot would be much more comprehensible. As it was, I never understood what happened to Zoe that caused her to lose her memory. When her memory does begin to come back, it's in awkward 'bits', interspersed with her asking convenient questions to fill in the reader about the other characters (very late in the story). We learn that Rider is a soul healer and Brooker is psychic. And they go about magically healing Zoe.

The problem for me as ever is that the description of this book sounded like it was going to be Zoe kicking ass in the free world, proud and happy as a vampire that kicks patriarchal butt. Actually, although she is 'queen' (small q) of the vampire biker club clan, she's nothing more than a scared figure head. She magically bestows gifts with her special blood, but doesn't actively do anything. Consequently, she's a wet blanket. Why the twin (oh yes, they're twins, forgot to say that) are so keen to get back 'their woman' (I lost count how many times Zoe was 'our woman' or some variant), I just don't know.

Between being completely lost with what was going on with the plot, all the soul healing stuff, the purple prose, the perfect(ly) silly heroine and the absolute good/evil dicotamy, for me, this was a D. That said, clearly for lots of other people the whole biker club vampire thing is like cat nip. This just was much more light and fluffy and Harlequin Presents crossed with bikers and vampires than I was expecting. I was looking for gritty and female power, and I got a girl kitten mewing helplessly and being picked up by a guy with a motorbike.

Femdom Books on Sale!!!

Great femdom books on Sale! We love books on sale!

Control by Charlotte Stien is just $0.99

Seriously, at this price, I can't imagine how you can afford not to buy this book. I gave it an A-. 

Venus in Furs by by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch is $free

This is a classic novel, so there will always be free copies of it around. Reputedly it's femdom. I've not gotten around to reading it yet, so if you get to it before me drop in a comment saying what you thought of it. 

Natural Law by Joey Hill is $5.49

I don't think this is actually a sale, but it's a reasonable price for this book and it is essential femdom reading. I gave it an A. 

For any Brits in the audience: 

Control by Charlotte Stien is £free!

Go and get it now. I gave it an A-. 

Power Play by Charlotte Stien is £0.49

I gave this a B+ and it's probably the femdom book of 2012 as far as I'm concerned. 

Red Grow the Roses by Janine Ashbless is £free!

I haven't read this, though I heard it's quite pain intense. Again, it's labelled as femdom by Mischief books. 

Beyond Temptation by Lisette Ashton is £0.49

Another Mischief title labelled as femdom. I'll be reviewing this, so I'll let you know about it. 

Book Misdescriptions - why is female agency over emaphasized in blurbs?

I read a lot of samples. I read samples of books that look like they might be femdom. I read samples of books where the blurb suggests that they might have a really awesome strong heroine who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to ask for it. Much of the time (most?) I'm wrong. The book or novella might sound promising, but it usually becomes quickly obvious that it's not even subtle femdom.

The disjoint between the book description and the actual book is not unusual, I know. Romances are famous for having titles/covers/descriptions which bear no resemblance to the story inside, especially in the lines of Greek billionaires and virgins. But let's look at an example, because I think the disparity is more important here than the normal hair color and ethnicity mistakes that are typical in romance novels/descriptions. There are plenty of books which say they have strong heroines, but she's actually weak and TSTL. But this also happens in BDSM books - women are represented in the blurb as being more dominant than they are in the book. For instance, here is the description for The Breaker's Concubine by Ann Mayburn:

Prince Devnar of Jensia is goaded into raiding the wrong space ship, springing a trap that captures him for use as a Royal pleasure slave, a Concubine, on Kyrimia. He vows to do everything he can to escape and keep from forming a psychic bond with his captors that would render him absolutely and totally in love. This proves difficult to do when  the female Breaker assigned to turn him into a Concubine, Melania, is the epitome of his perfect woman.

Melania has been raised and trained to help reluctant and abused Novices to break through their personal blocks and attain the ultimate prize of becoming a Concubine. When she is given Devnar to train, she finds herself in danger of doing the forbidden and falling in love with her Novice. This angry, scarred, and utterly seductive male tests her self-control like no other.

Devnar and Melania find themselves at the heart of a galaxy wide political battle that will test a love that they must not acknowledge, and cannot live without, to its very limits.

Very early on the heroine thinks about how she likes to relax by being submissive and the book continues along these lines. But the cover, with the hero in a collar, cuffs and submissive pose does nothing to dispel the notion gathered from the blurb that this is essentially a book about a man submitting to a woman, rather than vice versa. I think that this is essentially the same issue as the strong heroine one - it's an over-representation of female agency (in this case dominance rather than strength and intelligence) in the description.  

This is a philosophical as well as a practical problem. In a practical sense, it's frustrating that books I think I will enjoy turn out not to be what they were represented as. But philosophically, I think there is a wider problem: blurbs represent women as being strong, in control and having agency, but the book itself frequently has a weak, silly TSTL girl. I think there are several potential reasons for this.

• Readers want strong women, but authors haven't gotten with the program yet, and so the publishers represent the heroine as being different from how she really is.
• Readers think that they want strong female characters, but actually like stupid and or submissive female characters. 
• The publisher and author genuinely believe that women behaving stupidly and or submissively is a strong heroine. 

The difference between the first reason and the second is how satisfied readers are with the book after they have read it. This is a difficult thing to judge. Instinctively, reviews seem like a good way to assess readers satisfaction. But, as I've already said, I read an lot of samples and decide that the book is not for me. I don't write reviews of these books, so my annoyance at the disjoint between book description and content isn't represented on review sites etc.

It's also possible that readers want their heroines to be idiots and 'strong' or 'feisty' is a shorthand for that, rather like 'virgin' is shorthand for 'nice'. Worse still is the idea that maybe people genuinely believe that in a woman, TSTL = strong. The really worrying thing to me is the idea that this disjoint could be propagating the idea that heroines who are TSTL are actually strong and independent.

I really hope that publishers and authors will realize that book descriptions really matter - and that books described as having strong heroines can actually have strong heroines.

What have been your experiences with book misdescriptions? Why do you think that female agency is over emphasized in book descriptions and under delivered in the book itself?

Femdom-ish Book Review Round-up January 2013

As ever, there's a bit of news, some new potential reads and plenty of questions this month to welcome in 2013.

The closest thing to a potential new femdom release I've seen this month is Vampire Meltdown by Storm Savage. The heroine sounds quite promising: She likes wielding power over men—teasing them—killing them. Having said that though, I've got a post brewing about the problem of books that look like promising femdom but quickly reveal themselves to be the normal rubbish.

I've had a comment asking why I haven't reviewed any books by Carmenica Diaz. The short answer is that I didn't know about her. Billed as Elegant Femdom Fiction, there are a mix of novellas and short stories. From reading the blurbs, most seem to centre around a male submissive asking his vanilla wife to dominate him and her miraculously turning into the Dominatrix of his dreams. It's not a trope I'm that keen on and neither am I particularly tempted by the prices ($9 for 22k words is rather a lot imho). However, I think that some readers of this blog might be interested, so if anyone reads any of her stuff please do drop me a line and say what you thought of it.

I've also been asked for a recommendation for some romantic femdom porn - the movie sort. I generally prefer my porn written and so this isn't really my specialist subject. Perhaps you have some ideas?

Over on the legendary Girls Rule, Subs Drool tumblr, Mistress Maria reveals her impecable taste in books. She recommends a couple of books I've rated as A s here, as well as Cassandra French’s Finishing School for Boys: A Novel by Eric Garcia.

What was your Christmas reading? Have you found any great new books in the new year?



***Update***

Over at DearAuthor, Jane has reviewed Vanilla on Top by C.J. Ellison. It sounds like as ever, a promising premise turns out to be male-dom/vanilla dressed as femdom. Pity. It's a nice cover. In fact, it's another perfect example of cover and book description misrepresentation that I discussed in my last blog post.

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: Three Stages of Love: Lust by TC Anthony

With an undeniable urge to dominate her new boss, her own lust-filled fantasies lead to a transformation that shakes her to her core. But when Alexander challenges Eva to satisfy her carnal urges, she is forced to choose between her career, her desires, and an unconventional and lustful relationship. Consumed by fear and forced to maintain control at all costs, Eva must decide if having it all is worth risking her career, her world, and possibly, love.

That's was what attracted me to this book. An undeniable urge to dominate her new boss. Sounds good - a conflict between bedroom and real life power, with all sorts of kinky and emotional tensions. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any evidence of the story that is described. I actually checked the synopsis several times, because I couldn't believe it was the same book. So there are two plots here - the one that is described and the one that I read. I'll describe the one I read. Presumably your milage may vary given that I clearly read a different book to the one in the synopsis.

Eva gets drunk in a bar with her friend Samantha, sees the sexiest man ever and drunkenly propositions him after falling over herself, literally. Her drunk friends desert her with a complete stranger. Sexy bloke chivalrously sends her home with his private driver (because he's loaded, obviously). 26% through the book all that had happened was that Eva had gotten drunk in bars with her PA, fell at the feet of and then been sent home chastely by a man clearly intended to be the hero, and talked a lot about how great she is. Over a quarter of the way through and I was still yet to see any evidence of Eva being dominant, no actual lust or sexy sex ('bad sex' with the token boyfriend isn't quite the same thing) or almost anything except Eva talking a lot. Mainly in bars while getting drunk. Getting drunk is not a good spectator sport, and even less fun when reading about it. She has an ill friend with cancer, who she visits and talks to a lot, presumably to show what a lovely, kind person she really is.

Eva also seems to be submissive. When eventually, Alexander gets around to appearing again, Eva spends her time thinking about how she wants him to spank her, fuck her against the wall, dominate her, etc. etc. (Yawn.) We hear about what a strong, dominant, spunky woman she is, but it's all tell, not show. I see no evidence of Eva being clever or dominant around Alexander. There's a phrase for this: she talks a good domination.

The tension is (or presumably would be if the plot ever actually moved on) that Eva doesn't believe in love. She was named after a poem about a woman who is totally obsessed by her tragic love, doesn't do anything but pine away in her life and then dies. Eva is determined to not be like this and thus avoids love. Unfortunately, Eva is also sooo desired by everyone and sooo amazing in bed that any man who has sex with her falls in love and spoils her 'sex only' rule. (It was surprising to hear that said, in all seriousness, in the first person.) Alexander on the other hand has never brought a woman back to his bachelor pad, has never licked out a woman - essentially there are a load of awkwardly contrived ways that Eva is "special".

The end for me was 56% of the way through; Eva is proving what a sexy, kinky minx she is, and she says this:

"Well, the salespeople at the adult store know me by name - I get a friends and family discount. I'm not offended by a little role-play and a light whipping on my behind, nor do I mind givinga [sic] whip or two. I like to be creative, you know...silk ties, showers, stone walls. And I can play the boss who happens to have a cup of ice on hand or the employee who knows exactly what to do with the boss's cup of ice."
"Ice." Alexander was intrigued. 

Wow. You kinky girl - silk ties and showers. The problem really is that although she says that she doesn't mind a bit of switching around, we have seen absolutely zero evidence of this in the first half of the book. I think that actually, this is closer to a permutation on the (dreaded) FSOG stalker billionaire man storyline, except with a sexually experienced woman. So instead of the stalker billionaire being the authority on everything, she is the more kinky, sexually experienced one (though not really kinky, because then she'd be bad). Admittedly, this is a different take to the standard Harlequin Modern nonsense. Eva isn't a virgin, which is good. But Alexander is still the dominant, even if Eva is rather topping from the bottom. As a remake of FSOG with the sexual experience (though not much else) reversed, this has its merits. As femdom, it doesn't work at all.

Maybe if I'd seen some latent dominance, or a dominant attitude towards Alexander (as opposed to the pathetic, inarticulate (and at first, literally speechless) pool of liquid lust that she turns into), I would be more convinced. Maybe if there was less tell and more show, I would be more convinced. Maybe if the plot moved at a pace faster than glacial timescales. Maybe if more happened in the story, that wasn't hanging out in bars passing notes like teenagers in class. Maybe if it was better written. Maybe if there was some of the advertised dominance and lust. Maybe then, I would have finished this book.

DNF.

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-

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.