The author fails in bringing her characters past the first dimension, and in doing so also fails to engineer the change in character of the 4 protagonists, the driving theme of the book. As a novel, this book fails utterly. And in attempting to be a novel, it fails utterly at being porn. It's not impossible; Story of O and Kushiel's Dart both manage to do both. How anyone can appreciate this drivel is beyond me. ( )

Listened to audio narrated well by Elizabeth Jasicki. The quirk in narration was that it was all done with English accents even though story was set in the US. While I thought that odd, I still loved the narration.

Heavy BDSM, This book tells several peoples stories as four different applicants as they are first considered to be trained as slaves, their training and their possible sales. Claudia is too perfect and her mistress brings her for retraining. Brian is the full of himself model leather boy, wanting to be a Marketplace slave. Robert is a big man that has been sissified and needs to be deprogrammed and properly trained. Sharon is beautiful and wants to be a pleasure slave, full of herself and her abilities who stole information to get access to the House. Not only do each of them have different backgrounds, stories and reasons for being there but the two trainers and Chris the majordomo have interesting background as well, even if the author only hints and teases with it. If you like HEAVY BDSM, with excellent storytelling this book is fabulous.
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Filled with typos and bad grammar, I ended up liking it anyway. ( )

Did not finish at 20% into the novel. The story failed to grip me. I find myself not interested in any of the characters, let alone what happens to them next. The training seems formalistic and its purpose escapes me.

Mixed

Outside of being condescending and arrogant in regards to the rest of the BDSM and leather community, I found the first installment of this series to be rough, fun, and in some places, relatable. ( )