reviews_and_ramblings (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
reviews_and_ramblings) wrote2008-09-01 12:21 am
reviews_and_ramblings) wrote2008-09-01 12:21 am
Sub for Hire by Claire Thompson
I know my friends that someone of you is tired when I start a post on a BDSM book telling that it's not my thing, but I should warn you and also for me it's a compliment to the book and the author who manages to write something that I, for principle, should not like, and instead read in "only" one night.Plus, the engine of the story is even more shocking for me, since one of the heroes is a sub for hire, someone who accepts to be paid to suffer... well if I can hardly accept that someone accept to suffer for love, you can imagine how I can react to someone who does it for money!
So yes, Sub for Hire didn't have the "right" premises for me, but as soon as I started it, I found that it was more on my plate than expected. True, Josh is a sub for nature, he likes all the D/s thing, but he is also a romantic man who is searching Mr. Right, only that for him, Mr. Right is a Dom from dream, someone who can intimately know him and his needs, and give without being asked, someone to whom Josh could lean and love. Since he has yet to find him and he is in need of money, he accepts a work as sub for hire in an exclusively dungeon: no sex is admitted with customers, in fact it's highly discouraged, and so Josh thinks that he can do that. He is a writer struggling to make meet both ends and he thinks to be able to discriminate with a temporary work and his searching for love.
Michael is just out a bitter relationship with a cheating sub. He has no desire for commitment in this moment, and he only goes for no strings attached relationship. Then a friend tells him about Dungeon Dreams and he thinks "Why not?". Since he is a bit uptight and not ready to trust a man after his past experiences, he never expected to fall in love at first sight for a sub for hire.
But this is what happens to both men: Josh knows that Michael is the one, and Michael can't stop to think to Josh's face, so honest and direct despite his works. But it's not simple for the two men make things work, since they are both proud and stubborn. Lucky for them, Josh is willing to give a change to them, and Michael is willing to pass over certain things.
All in all I like Josh, even if I have some problems to understand his relation with pain, and the fact that he can enjoy it from strangers, even after he has met Michael, his true love. But Josh is also the one who is ready to risk more, the one who really opens himself to the other and who always makes the first step forward the happiness of both men. Michael maybe is a bit prim and proper, he probably have never had a real bad experience in his life; true he suffered for love, but maybe the pain was not so much and other than that, he always had a comfortable life and he was also lucky with his business. Probably for this reason, he is not a bad-ass Dom, he is more a man who sometime likes to play the dominant role. The real D/s relationship in the book, the one between Josh and Michael, is a mild one, and maybe for this reason I can appreciate it.
The book is a good romance, with a Cinderfella like style story. There is also a God-Mother fairy (Michael's friend...).
http://www.ellorascave.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=9781419917752&Page=Page1
Waiting Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
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It's weird, because I don't care for BDSM either, but I find I like some of Ms. Thompson's work because it's very romantic in nature, and focuses not on the things that squick me but on the very private exchange of power in the relationship. I get that submission with grace is kind of a gift, mostly because in her books, it is given freely by someone who chooses to give it, and not taken, which makes it seem almost...sweet. (I can't believe I said that) But does that make sense?
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Elisa