Dear Author » sexual-submissive

REVIEW: Remastering Jerna by Ann Somerville

SarahF — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:14:43 +0000

Dear Ms. Somerville:

Remastering Jerna is a remarkable book that harkens back to the beginnings of the novel in the eighteenth century. It is a spiritual autobiography, a travel narrative, a psychological exploration of extreme stress, a prison story, the memoirs of a whore — all the stuff of the novel’s infancy and growth. Although Remastering Jerna is brilliantly constructed and a stunning tour de force, it is only a romance in its last third, perhaps its last half, which is going to make my review slightly schizophrenic.

Set in…an alternate world (?) that is very much like our own but with a different political system, different money, and a matriarchal religion, Remastering Jerna is the first-person narrative of Jerna Setiq, teacher, husband, father…and repressed masochist. He agrees to tutor Davim Korei, the apprentice of his former master, Kimis, the master he broke with when he fell in love with and married his beloved wife Tyrme, mother of his two young children. Davim is almost 17, underage in this society where the age of consent is 18 for everything, and when Jerna finds out that Davim is Kimis’s current sexual submissive, he forces Kimis to stop the relationship until Davim reaches his eighteenth birthday. Davim is furious and as punishment, comes on to Jerna then lies when they are discovered in a compromising embrace. Jerna is arrested for, charged with, and in very short order convicted of the very “child perversion” he is trying to prevent.

This set-up all happens within 28 pages. Another 40 pages follows Jerna as he narrates us through the awful abuse, dehumanization, and hopelessness of the penal system. He is then “hired” in his capacity as a prisoner at a brothel, where we follow him for another 80 pages as he describes his life and duties at the brothel. As first-person narratives sometimes do, the story feels strangely conflictless. This is a direct effect of the book not truly being a romance until more than halfway through. Because the story as a whole follows the ancient conflicts of Man Against Society and Man Against Himself, rather than a romance trajectory, there is no progress in a relationship to track to provide the story with the form we’re familiar with. Jerna doesn’t even meet his future love interest until after he’s well-established at the brothel and it says something about the narrative that I can’t reveal who Jerna’s love interest IS without huge spoilers. The result of this format is that the reader is left following Jerna’s own blind endurance of his extreme suffering without much surcease or hope. Which is kinda depressing, most of the time.

Which is not to say that this book isn’t a brilliant psychological portrait of the effects of the extreme stress of torture and imprisonment and a devoted, almost loving exploration of the unbelievable limits of the human mind and body to endure without hope:

Lady, what do you want from me now?

I sank to my knees, ignoring the freezing wind against my bare arms. I wanted to be cold, to suffer. Maybe, when I’d suffered enough for the Goddess, she’d end this. Or maybe that was what she was waiting for me to do — not to force other people to do my dirty work for me.

I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know what anyone wanted any more. I’d tried so hard to do the right thing, and all that had happened was that I’d make them angry, been punished, imprisoned, shouted at.

“What do you all want?” I whispered, bending low over my knees, crouching around the pain inside me. “Please, tell me what you want and I’ll do it, whatever it takes.”

It is indeed brilliantly done and completely compelling. I read until 4:30am the day I received the book, completely unable to put it down or even to read ahead as I usually do because the picture of Jerna was so perfectly constructed. But it’s not the happiest of books, let’s say.

As for the BDSM—it’s as brilliantly, beautifully done as the psychological portrait. Jerna is a sexual submissive and a masochist. He has been suppressing this side of himself for seven years, all through his very happy marriage to Tyrme, because he does not believe she will understand or approve of his sexual predilections. The brothel’s female owner, however, recognizes the masochist in him and uses him in her BDSM show, re-awakening his need for masochism. The scenes of BDSM done right and BDSM done very wrong are both perfectly enacted, showing the “synergy” (your word) between the emotion and the acts that is so necessary to — the point, in fact, of — BDSM.

When the romantic interest finally shows up, it’s the last person in the world I would have guessed would or could be a successful partner for Jerna. I have never been surprised like that before in a romance. The plot twist — more a wide turn, really, than a sharp twist — to reveal Jerna’s partner is perfectly executed. Although I could never have imagined Jerna’s partner to be who it was, you make me fully believe that he is the perfect person for Jerna by the end of the book. The only niggle I have here is that there doesn’t seem to be quite enough interaction for the depth of Jerna’s emotions at the dark moment when the two men are parted. Jerna’s emotions are so exquisitely laid out and dissected throughout the novel, that to have the depth of Jerna’s romantic attachment be slightly underdeveloped only makes it that much more glaring a concern.

However, that aside, the writing and emotions expressed were strong enough that I was crying at the end of the book, both for the lovers’ parting and for their reunion. Whatever the rest of the book, the ending is pure, exquisite romance, beautifully portrayed. My grade is slightly lower than it would be if this weren’t a romance review site, because most of the book is NOT actually a romance. If this were a general lit review site, I’d give it an A- (notice, for example, how many times I use “brilliantly” in this review). As a romance review site, though:

Grade: B

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook version.

EDITED TO ADD: I do have to add, for the record, and because it needs to be said even though I keep forgetting to say it, that Jerna is a sanctimonious prig. In the nicest possible way, of course, and I was rooting for him the whole way through. But if he’d been able to bend some of his morals just a leetle now and then….well, there wouldn’t have been a book, but it does make me want to slap him around a little and, like Cher in Moonstruck, yell “Snap out of it!” But that in no way detracts from the novel — in fact, it adds to the reader’s involvement with the book. But still. It had to be said. :)

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REVIEW: Beloved Vampire by Joey Hill

Jane — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:00:36 +0000

Dear Ms. Hill:

I remember when I received a copy of this book, I meant to just casually flip through it but from the very beginning I was riveted. I remember thinking that I resented having to put the book down to cook dinner and do my daily ablutions.

Jessica Tyson was a servant to Lord Raithe, a cruel vampire master. ”Once or twice, she made the mistake of believing he could do no worse to her, but evil was bottomless.” She managed to kill him one day but her bond with him meant that she was dying as well. Her sole desire is to find the tomb of Farida and her lover and rest herself in peace with them. Where to die is the only choice left for her and free of her master, Jess clasps that close.

The love story of Farida and her lover, Lord Mason, was one that rivaled Romeo and Juliet only it appeared to be a true account. Jess had found a journal of Farida’s in her master’s rare book library. Before her abduction, Jess was a research assistant for the archeology and history departments in Rome. Her love of the arcane knowledge of the past was one thing that managed to sustain her over the long years of captivity and abuse.

She was able to piece together through cross referencing historical texts that Sheikh Asim, Farida’s father, had indeed lived at one time and that during his life, he was assisted in a desert battle for power by one Prince Haytham who was accompanied by a British soldier, Lord Mason. With some luck and fortitude, she was introduced to a descendant of Prince Haytham’s who had researched his only family history and had a few letters from Prince Haytham about Farida and Lord Mason.

Sheikh Asim would not allow Farida to join Lord Mason and so they fled together. One day, the Sheikh’s forces captured Lord Mason and through him, Farida. They killed Farida in a cruel manner for bringing dishonor to their family. Lord Mason escaped alive but not in time to save his love but he stole her body away. Prince Haytham writes to his family:

Lord Mason cannot be found when he does not wish to be. Which means he is seeking their blood as much as they are seeking his. I expect they will not be dissuaded from this now, but from my experience, they would be wise to leave him alone and let the desert absorb his rage and grief. They will not find her grave-’it will be only where a desert tiger can find it.

Close to the end of her life, Jess makes a painful journey in the Sahara led by three guides she has no doubt will rob her blind once she arrives at her destination but she is hopeful that the exorbitant amount of money she pays them will be enough to see her to the end.

Lord Mason was no ordinary British soldier but a vampire, one of the oldest and most powerful, but in the day of Farida, even his power could not keep her alive. For an immortal, the death of a beloved is a type of a killing. He has suffered everyday, inflicted by his loss. Lord Mason knows of Jessica Tyson. Every vampire does. She committed an unforgivable sin, that of killing her master. A slight like that is met with death. Despite this, Jess’s shortened tale of abuse moves Lord Mason and irrationally, he decides to help her.

This story is an erotic romance wherein the sexual nature of the characters play an important part of the conflict. Jess, like Farida before her, is a natural submissive. Part of her nature is to please and submit. Lord Raithe recognized that in Jess and it is why he killed her fiance and threatened her family, all to take possession of this true prize. Lord Raithe perverted what could be a true bond between a Master and a human servant whereas Farida described it so beautifully:

A lifetime of never voicing my angers, and I could not stop myself from speaking sharply to him tonight. I feared I might be beaten, but he simply shouted back, and in time we were so amazed with ourselves, we laughed. When I asked him why he had not punished me, he told me that I would be, but he needed time to devise the proper rebuke. And Allah be merciful, he found one, such that I became determined to defy him at every possible opportunity . . .

I thought the juxtaposition of the relationship that Farida had with Lord Mason and the joy she found in submission and pain was brilliant against the humiliation experience by Jess. It was through Farida’s words that we can see what a gift Jess’ nature could be under the right circumstances. It provides the basis upon which we believe that Jess and Lord Mason can belong together.

In order for them to be together, though, Lord Mason must overcome his fear of losing another beloved, Jess must come to grips with being a natural submissive, the two must find a cure for a vampire wasting illness, and convince the council that Jess should not be terminated.

In the end, the most serious complaint I had was that I was expecting the story to go farther and to some extent was a bit disappointed. One of the particular elements I enjoyed about the first book in the Vampire series was how hard core these vampires were, dark, hungry for blood, and a not a little inhuman. The love story, though, between Jess and Lord Mason, was beautifully done. I couldn’t help but cheer for the happy ending for both characters who had suffered so much but found solace in each other. B+

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

REVIEW: Sweet Persuasion by Maya Banks

Jane — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:00:24 +0000

Dear Ms. Banks:

This is one of those books that are well written and evocative but made me feel personally uncomfortable. Despite my issues, though, I recognize that it is a good story.

Serena is in the business of fulfilling fantasies for other people, whether it is preparing an elaborate princess party for a young girl or satisfying a grown man’s desire to be a chef at a noted restaurant for the evening. But she’s got a fantasy of her own that she wants to explore. Serena longs for a submissive relationship. Oh, she’s not so much into the pain aspect (although there is some of that in the story), but she wants to be possessed or owned by a man.

Fortunately for Serena her friend Faith knows of a man, Damon Roche, who could help her fulfill those fantasies. Damon Roche owns, among other things, a house of pleasure and has members who could very well meet Serena’s demands. Once Damon reads her request and sees her, he decides that he wants to be the one to make her fantasy a reality. He lays out his proposition: for one month, she gives herself over to his care to fully immerse herself in the lifestyle of a submissive.

Serena agrees. Damon is a safe choice. Faith knows him and trusts him. He’s not a stranger. He’s very handsome. More importantly, Damon’s actions show himself to be trustworthy. Prior to obtaining her agreement, he provides her with medical papers. He is clear about his demands and his expectations and evinces an understanding of what Serena is seeking through this experience.

As Serena moves into the fantasy, she is told that it will end at any time she says no.

He propped one ankle on his knee and relaxed further into the chair. "In a lot of circles, indeed for most in this, shall we say "lifestyle,’ the use of safe words abounds."

She nodded because she knew what a safe word was.

"I won’t use them," he said fi rmly.

Her eyes widened. "You’re asking me to trust you that implicitly?"

He shook his head. "I won’t use a word that encourages a man to disregard the word no coming from a woman’s lips. If you say no, if you’re even thinking no, then it ends for me. I won’t indulge in silly little no- means- yes games. When that word crosses your lips? It’s over. If I ever ask of you something that you won’t give unreservedly, then all you need to say is no."

It is with this word that I am to believe that Serena holds the power in the relationship. Perhaps this is true. But I struggled with the concepts of ownership. I struggled with the way in which Serena was treated. On the one hand it takes the fantasy of giving up control to the extremes. Serena is dressed, fed, and bathed in accordance with Damon’s orders. At a couple of junctures in the story, Serena sleeps on a pallet at Damon’s feet during the day while he works. In some of these actions, I failed to see the beauty of their pairing. I would have liked more of the "I want to please you" than the "You please me" attitudes.

There’s a section at the end wherein Damon acknowledges the vulnerability that the perceived position of power places him in. He fears “screwing up” & failing to properly anticipate and then meet the needs of his partner.

"I understand it because I live it every day that I’m with you," he said. "Do you think that I don’t burn to please you? That I don’t live in fear of disappointing you, that I’m not afraid that I’ll let you down or fail to protect you? It’s hell, Serena. But it’s also the sweetest pleasure I’ve ever known."

I think if I had seen more vulnerability in Damon that maybe the power scales would have been tipped more equitably.

Damon had always longed for this type of relationship but each ended with the woman leaving him, not ready to live the fantasy in the long term. He tries to hold himself aloof emotionally from Serena but cannot because she so perfectly fills his emotional needs. The emotional struggle of the two characters was very poignant. Serena viewed this as a fantasy and she’s confronted with a harsh realization that fantasies are fleeting, ephemeral and whatever she might have had with Damon is similarly elusive.

While it was clear that this lifestyle pleased Serena and that it sexually fulfilling to her, it still made me uncomfortable. I, the reader, struggle with the lifestyle choice even as Serena struggles to square her desires with her own beliefs. In the end while Serena won peace, I wasn’t so convinced. Having said all that, I still enjoyed this book despite my discomfort and thus the writing must have been good because otherwise I would have thrown a book like this with this topic against the wall. (can you tell how conflicted this book makes me) B-

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from an independent bookstore or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

REVIEW: Dark Heart by Thom Lane

SarahF — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:00:04 +0000

Dear Mr. Lane:

I’ve coveted this book since I first saw it at Loose-Id. For one, the cover image is stunningly beautiful. For another, the blurb and excerpt intrigued me. Tam is a house slave for an inn in the Wayfarers Guild in Amaranth. As such, he is trained to serve ALL the body needs, sexual and otherwise, of the inn’s guests, as well serve as general house boy. One rainy day, a mage stops at the inn with his lame horse. While Tam serves him, the inn’s mistress hires Master Lucan to figure out who was destroying the guild’s houses, how they were doing it so completely, and why. This short volume (150 pages) details how Lucan does just that, with Tam’s help, and the progress of the surprisingly equal Master/slave relationship between the two.

The world building is very well done. The world–or at least, this city in it–is divided into free and slaves. If someone is caught committing a crime, it seems, they can immediately be made into a slave by the victim of the crime. Tam was caught stealing by the kitchen-master of the inn, and as such has been their slave for years, being promoted to houseboy after being broken in by training. The slave training and its punishments are alluded to by Tam in his musings as he serves Lucan. There is no info dump, no memory that does not serve the present plot as well as character revelation. But the system of slavery, the complicity in and acceptance of the system by both sides of the equation–the very naturalness of the system–is thoroughly explained and smoothly presented.

And therein lies my one problem with the book. The society is built on and around slavery–to the extent, for example, that there are no carriage horses, but rather “bucks”: slaves trained to the harness to pull carriages (a la Anne Rice’s Beauty books). However, troublingly for our own society, there is no questioning of the system by anyone in it. Tam might wish he were still free, even if he was homeless in his freedom, a gutter thief, but he accepts the system itself, as do all his fellow slaves. Unrealistically, perhaps, we catch no glimpses of free people abusing the system, either. The slavery is much more a wish-fullfillment fantasy of a society built around BDSM submission and punishment than a commentary on the devastation of the all-too-real slavery in our history and our current world. And while the engaging writing makes it so easy to slip into a very willing suspension of disbelief that accepts the world as built, it is disconcerting, vaguely disturbing even, to surface from the story and realize that you’ve accepted, even approved of, a very real system of outright slavery that has no implicit social disapproval. The very ease with which I managed to accept the society, though, is a testament to how well-written the story is.

The suspense plot is well constructed and followed-through, if just a little too easily overcome in the end. The supernatural is brilliantly woven into the story: Lucan is a necromancer who can interrogate corpses and walk through Hell with Tam to ask favors of demons. Tam’s heroism at the end of the story is well-prepared for by the construction of his character and his background. It’s all neatly wrapped up in a enjoyable, eminently readable package.

But what really shines are the characterizations of Tam and Lucan. The story is told from Tam’s first person perspective, and we see everything through the eyes of an obedient, well-trained slave who is still a strong, even independent, and observant person with intelligent opinions and strong emotions. With Lucan, Tam is a natural submissive, happy to be serving his Master in all ways, and the story makes it obvious that Tam, while usually an obedient slave for his house, is only this willingly submissive with Lucan as he slowly falls in love with him. Even though Lucan is only seen through Tam’s eyes, the reader can appreciate his gentleness, his humor, his intelligence, and his power and competence as a mage, as his character is slowly revealed through Tam’s interactions with him.

I would actually have liked a little more heartache and despair from Tam as he accepted toward the end that even though he was in love with him so desperately, Lucan was just passing through, as are all the guests at the inn. But rather than cater to a desire for melodrama, you stuck to the world you built. Of course Tam doesn’t despair–he knows too intimately and accepts without question that guests always leave, added to the fact, of course, that he’s a slave and Lucan is not only free but an incredibly powerful mage. This adherence to the world construction and Tam’s characterization dims just slightly the *potential* emotional impact of the HFN ending, but doesn’t dim what actually happens, and isn’t enough for this book *not* to earn anything other than a well-deserved B+.

I can’t wait to read more of Tam and Lucan or of the world in which they live.

Grade: B+

Sincerely,
-Sarah F.

This book can be bought in ebook form from Loose-Id.

REVIEW: Wild, Wicked & Wanton by Jaci Burton

Jane — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:00:54 +0000

Dear Ms. Burton:

When you sent me this book to review, you said that your plan was to eventually convince me of your writing genius. I thought to myself, this is one foolish chick because previous reviews have shown that my taste and your books don’t always run in synchronicity, but your devious plan is working because I liked Wild, Wicked and Wanton. While I had problems with each novella, overall this is a great beach read.

The reader, though, will want to sit under an umbrella because the heat generated from this book may cause a stroke. On the Miami beaches, they have beach boys that run around with tanning lotions and spritzers around their waist. A reader will want one of these guys with the spritzer and a tall glass of Long Island Ice tea else she’ll expire before the end.

Wild. Abby is the shy divorcee whose previous spouse had bedroom issues which he projected onto Abby. She’s getting her life back together, finishing vet school and wondering about her future when her two bosses call her in on her last day of internship. Abby is sure she is going to be reprimanded and is quite nervious. The two men are also nervous because Abby’s last day marks the beginning, they hope, of a fun time with someone they’ve lusted after for the entirety of her internship.

Vets Seth and Mike put forth their proposition and Abby is stunned, nervous, excited and fearful all at once. Abby spends time with both of them only to find out that she is in love with Seth and he with her.

I don’t know that I completely bought the happy ever after and I really wondered about the friendship of the two men after it was all said and done. If Seth really had feelings for Abby, would he really have shared her? B-

Wicked. While Blair was the instigator of the bet, she never thought that her best friends would make her sleep with the one man that she doesn’t want. Blair and Rand have been at loggerheads for years. Blair has always taken men that she knew she could control. Rand believes that Blair is the woman for him and has waited years for her to come to the realization that she can’t run away from him forever. One weekend he takes control and makes her realize that every experience she’s had in the past is nothing compared to what she can have with Rand.

I loved the setup with the heroine being the ballsy, in control of her own sexuality, type that we don’t often see in romances. The psychobabble about her being a sexual submissive got on my nerves. I had a problem buying into the idea that she was so sexually in tune with herself, recognized what turned her on but never actually experienced it. Her actions didn’t really meet the characterizations and therefore the story about her introduction into sexual submissiveness as the path to true love seemed hollow. C

Wanton is the story of _Callie. She’s a widow who misses her deceased husband but is ready to meet someone again. In the coffee store she owns, an attorney comes in every morning for some coffee and flirtation until one day Jack actually asks her out. She is leery of dating him. He lives on the golf course, is partner in one of the more powerful law firms, and he’s white. Jack convinces her to take a chance and they go out to a country club event together. During the event, they discover that their share a similar kink – voyuerism and exhibitionism. This leads to trouble with Jack’s law firm and he’ll have to decide whether he risks his career or his relationship.

While I had to suspend a bit of my disbelief that a prominent lawyer would engage in such acts in public (I kept thinking about the moral turpitude clause), this story had a very sweet romance. I really liked Jack and Callie and felt that their HEA within a short span was believable. B.

The thing that bothered me the most in the last two stories was the aalmost clinical discussions of the protagonists’ sexual predilections. I felt, at times, that they were at a meeting of sexual addicts anonymous. Hello, I am Brenda Chenowith, and I am a nymphomaniac. I am Callie Jameson, and I am a voyuer. I think it would have been more seemless to write it in layman’s terms such as “I get turned on by watching other people” or something more simplistic. It’s more relatable.

Some of the best parts were the interaction between the three friends, Abby, Blair and Callie. Their fun banter and caring showed how important it is to have friends and is one aspect I would like to see more of in romances. One point other point that is undeniable is these stories burn up the pages. I had to fan myself a few times to make it through. Overall, a B- for the anthology.

Best regards,

Jane