Carolyn Faulkner

5 stars for the good writing, but her lifestyle really didn't appeal to me. I appreciate some good D/s, but her idea of being dominated completely and having all that pain is so not my bag. The female character really was into it and said so many, many times, and the Dom certainly gave it to her; but all those beatings gave me pause.

I did enjoy that it was different from other books I've read in that it went from the present, to the past, describing how they met, and how their relationship flourished. It was all very plausible....no strange CIA stuff, or scenarios that strained your credibility.… (meer)

Not really sure how I feel about this one. I guess it was okay. There was some pretty intense non consensual BDSM stuff at first. All very explicitly told then the author shifted to a vague generalization of the sort that says "and during the next two weeks he did this to her and then that with a touch of the other and she hated it all but she did come." So any actual change in her attitude and acceptance of her "darker" desires was not really shown. Another couple of sex scenes that weren't real clear on some details, then she escapes and he finds her in the jungle and helps her get back to the US. That didn't seem in character at all considering we never really saw him change from the very mean man he started out. And he wasn't just one of those grumpy guys but he was truly sadistic so it was hard to believe in his sudden change. Hmm...… (meer)

2-1/2 stars. This takes place in a future world where most of the women have been killed by a plague. Now women are property of men. So far, so good. But it went astray for me as a post apocalyptic type story in several ways.

Most of the women were killed off in some sort of plague. society has basically collapsed and women are now chattel, fair enough. But I don't buy that they had become poorly treated slaves whose fathers did not, in fact seemed incapable, of loving them. I would think that women would have been greatly cherished and would go to men who would treat them like queens. The whole world turning to BDSM just seems unlikely. Especially as the scenario is set up.

To wit, the heroine was 29 and college educated. Of course women can no longer be educated. Judging by this bit of characterization, the plague could only have been 8 years ago tops. It is now illegal to teach women to read and if they find out you can, you can be punished. Wouldn't most women still be able to read? Yet she was scared to admit she could read.

So if the plague was only 8 years ago, it seems that the extent of rules and social structure put in place is too extreme for the time allowed. I believe it would take more than 8 years for every man in the western world particularly to decide that women were worthless except for sex and rough brutal sex at that. Leaving aside that most men in the general population are not into BDSM and are quite vanilla when it comes to sex, so little time to set all this in place and have men openly buying and selling and beating their women in public is unreasonable. It would take at least that long for panic over all the women dying to settle down much less have these elaborate laws and rituals so solidly in place.

There was some mention of real age vs. some other unspecified sort of age which might have meant that more time had passed but these mentions were extremely vague and not supported or explained in any way. So they carried less weight than the times and facts which were firmly supported and explained so I had to go with the firmly stated ideas. And by the way, I don't like to have to pick and choose the correct time line for a book. Even if it's really more about the sex, if you're doing anything even sort of futuristic where a reader cannot apply the modern rules they are familiar with, then you better have put some thought into clear world building. You don't have to devote reams of space to it but enough so the reader isn't going 'say what?' all the time.

This is just the tip of my soap box/theories both about sci fi world building and about society/ies and man and woman's place in them historically and currently. But those are the salient points as pertains to this story.

Now as to the BDSM element, it was okay. Not extremely arousing. Not as dark as I had been led to believe by other reviews. It wasn't BDSM lite by any means but I didn't feel that it was very novel or inventive in either writing style or what actually happened. There was a lot of whipping which was extreme and a couple of forays into 2 specific kinds of odder kink There was some effort made to show that they cared about each other in their own twisted way so there was an HEA within those bounds. Characterization was just okay but nothing that got me in the gut or that I will remember for very long.

… (meer)