DESCRIPTION, NOT REVIEW: Julia Lyle will have nothing to do with domineering men, no matter how tall, dark, and sexy. But Dom Marcus Cavendish will be satisfied with nothing less than collaring the fiercely independent Julia.

Nothing could have shocked her more…

Julia Lyle is invited to her best friend's wedding and is stunned when Lana kneels to accept her husband's collar. When Julia starts to object, firm, relentless hands land on her shoulders. The man behind her threatens to turn her over his knee if she interrupts. She's outraged, but there's no doubt he's serious.

After the ceremony, he offers her a glimpse into her friend's lifestyle, if she's brave enough to accept.

Master Marcus Cavendish is everything she doesn't want in a man—dominant, self-assured and arrogant. So why can't she resist him?

Telling herself that learning about the lifestyle will make her a better friend, Julia agrees to submit to Master Marcus, but only for the evening. Firm and unrelenting in his handling of her, he introduces her to his tawse and the pleasure/pain of a spanking delivered by a competent Dom. The experience unnerves her, making her question everything she thought she knew about relationships, and his forced orgasms leave her shattered.

No doubt the scene seduced her, and that makes her doubly determined to avoid him. She has fought hard for her freedom and vowed only to date nice men, and Master Marcus is anything but safe.

Marcus is undeterred. Julia is a natural sub. The way she responded to his touch, his voice, his punishment proved it. Now he has to convince her to yield to him, submitting to his tawse as she kneels to accept his collar. ( )

what started out feeling like BDSM 101 primer, turned out to be a very nice story about awareness, need, and love ( )

Reviewed by Victoria
Book provided by Total E-Bound Publishing
Review originally posted at Romancing the Book

With This Collar is the first book in the Mastered series by Sierra Cartwright. I chose this book because after reading the summery I wanted to read about Julia’s struggle to submit to Marcus. The struggle between them was very thought provoking. It takes a lot for a strong woman to submit to someone.

Julia is a strong and independent woman who seems to struggle with the concept of submission. She cannot find a balance between being independent and a submissive.

Marcus is a very strict master. He is over confident in his abilities. The way he threatens to spank Julia when she is about to speak up during the collaring ceremony seems very unrealistic.

I found it odd that Lana did not warn or talk to Julia about the collaring ceremony. I find it hard to believe that they would have combined the wedding and the collaring ceremony without making sure that the guests understood what they were going to watch. I would think it the collaring ceremony would have more meaning if all of the guests understood what was going on.

The chemistry between Marcus and Julia is explosive. The sex scenes were off the charts. There was something missing between Julia and Marcus. They were such opposites it’s hard to see them have a future together.

I think Marcus came on too strong. I think most women (regardless of where they were) would have been offended by his actions and the liberties he took. While in the end, I am still not sure they are a good fit for each other. It was a very interesting read. Overall, I enjoyed reading about Julia’s struggle to submit to Marcus. I will be picking up the next book in the series soon. ( )

Some books, most often Christian fiction and Sci-fi, contain landslides of exposition in dialogue so that readers can figure things out along with the main character. Giving exposition in dialogue is not a bad approach in small doses, but when it's in a deluge, it comes across very ham-fisted, and this is what happened with this book. So, while parts of this novel were hot and intriguing, especially the first scene--woo, steamy--it got tangled up and stifled by the explanations of how BDSM works. All the dos and don'ts, expectations, blah, blah, blah, just kept coming and coming. That killed a lot of the chemistry and momentum within the work. Like, when Lana shows up after her wedding and interrupts the lovely action going on, I got annoyed. Telling from Marcus right then instead could have been really sexy, but she comes in and it jammed the zapping scene and the connection building between Julia and Marcus. This interruption occurred only to give an education to Julia and the apparently clueless reader, who has no access to Wikipedia.

I also expected more internal struggle from Julia to come to terms. Her conflict was more about ending up with a domineering man and going against her feminist sensibilities rather than any kind of trust issues or shock or leeriness over activities, as most people not yet in touch with their submissiveness or engaged in BDSM would be. You'd figure she'd have more questions in that regard. With This Collar is fun and delicious in spots, and I enjoyed the tension in the end, it just doesn't rank high on my list of You Must Reads!!! because in a lot of places it comes across like a manual. And what makes it feel like that is a lot of the dialogue just didn't seem realistic. With the two women for instance, it's like Lana and Julia aren't truly friends, you can't feel history or connection there. It's supposed to ring true, but it doesn't. What kind of friend doesn't tell their close friend beforehand that the wedding is a collaring ceremony? That's weird and nonsensical, an obvious plot device that would never happen in real life.

If you have absolutely no clue about BDSM, at all, you might enjoy the talky sections more than me and the full reading experience as intended. Overall, I am left with mix feelings. I think this could have been a sensational book with a less obvious aim to educate the audience. ( )

Julie's ARe Cafe staff pick. ( )