I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy WICKED, I feel it’s one of my best stories yet.
I always strive to make a story emotional, and go beyond the sex scenes, and but as with all books, not every one is going to love it.

As for male sub’s, I’ve read a story or two on them that I found enjoyable, but like any story, it’s because of the reasoning behind the actions, not the actions themselves. I agree, Joey Hill is a great example of well done BDSM stories with male sub’s.

Which Laura Kinsale book has a male sub?

Don’t be shy, Vanessa Jaye, tell us what you REALLY like :)

:-P Didn’t mean to come across ’strident’, or rude(?). I think the reason I went on and on is because I’m not sure myself why I don’t like the characterization in my romance. I’ll puzzle it out eventually.

Sounds like that may have been lacking here and honestly depending on what type of dynamics are being used without that explanation even I can get a little leery of what I am reading.

Don’t be shy, Vanessa Jaye, tell us what you REALLY like :)

Thanks for the review, Jane.

Vanessa Jaye, read Joey Hill’s Rough Canvas (m/m) or Natural Law (m/f) for some totally hot submissive males.

Sarah, how do i put this…. No. lol.

With all due respect to Joey Hill I was quite interesting in reading this book based on all the positive buzz… until I realized the sub male angle. They just don’t work for me. I actually find myself getting angry with those scenes depicting the male/hero being submissive. (and I guess I have to puzzle how why this is. I am quite *resistant* to the thought of these books.) I end up despising the sub hero and thinking the dominant heroine as a bitch if she’s enjoying herself too much. This is only in romance genre books. Although… I have bought, but haven’t read yet the Kinsale book with the hero who likes a bit of rough ‘handling’ from the heroine. Some how, again from the buzz I read, the dynamics seem a bit different there. We’ll see.

The best submissive males are alpha IRL, FWIW.

This may be, (being so comfortable in his masculinity, that he knows the ultimate power is to cede it for his sexual fulfillment, yaddah, yaddah,) and yet, I don’t want my Alpha to be submissive in this way.

I certainly want him protective of the heroine and those around him, etc. And be able to put their needs before his own. I certainly want him to have enough introspection to realize/admit his weaknesses. I want him strong enough to admit to the vulnerability that his love for the heroine opens up.

And I don’t mind him being an ass while this is all going on. lol.

But that submissive male thing is just not my thing in a romance. Give me a red-headed, bearded, burr-riddled Ochs!man in head to toe leather, with the firey pelt on his manly chest barely contained by his CK wife beater, and shit-kickers (tm JRW) on his size 18 feet, riding in on a tricked out monster bike fuelled solely with testosterone, and dragging his knuckles behind him, any day!

Welcome to the ‘boy that Vanessa Jaye Sux’ club. Lol.

As for BDSM, I’m not into reading it that much in romance. I do from time to time read BDSM blogs–where the female is submissive. I read out of curiousity. That level of submissiveness does not appeal to me on a personal level. In fiction, I read read and enjoy it more as a character study or a dynamic of power within a relationship. But I can’t say I get emotionally involved in those stories the way I would (want to) with a romance.

As for submissive males? UGH. <–My personal and erudite opinion. lol. One of my very few “totally not interested in reading this *romance* now that I now it has this element”. I had to bold the ‘romance’, because I will read sub male in any other genre.

And how’s that for getting way off topic re the review?

btw, I love the cover.

No kidding! I’m a long-time romance reader (30+ years) and it’s always seemed to me that female subordination, in one way or another, is at the heart of romance. Not every romance of course but certainly most of them. I utterly despise this yet I still read romance. I draw the line, however, at BDSM with female subs. I freaking hate that. I view submissive feamales with the same contempt I would an Uncle Tom. Hypocritically I cannot get enough of erotic romances with male subs, rare though they may be. If only there were more Joey W. Hills out there…

And without exploring the story from BOTH POV’s, the relationship just doesn’t work for me.

I agree with you. There’s a ton of BDSM fic out there, but I’ve only really liked a handful of them. BDSM only works for me if it’s character driven and not just a bunch of fetish scenes thrown together. But the sex scenes still need to be hot. :p The only authors I can think of right now that I like are Joey Hill and Morgan Hawke. (I’m a little brain dead from studying for my statistics test today.)

It is not an erotica vs. romance distinction–it is about female subordination as a theme which can appear in both.

True. But it is a BDSM themed erotica aimed at hitting the kinks of that audience. I’m a bit weird in my reading tastes, if I come up on the ‘female subordination’ theme in a regular non-erotica literature (including romance) I stop reading, because it bugs the hell out of me. But in something like this (or at least I’m guessing, cause I haven’t read it yet) it doesn’t bug me as much. On the otherhand I hated the ‘bodice ripper’ novels of the 80s/early 90s because of the very dominant male v. weak female thing, and compared to stories like Wicked, they’re relatively tame.

Heh, apparently I have a very schizophrenic reading taste.