reviews_and_ramblings | Finding Sanctuary by D.C. Juris

When I started reading this book I thought, “how strange, it’s a lot less erotica/naughty I was expecting”. Fanny Press is not releasing a lot of titles, but the titles it released are indeed more erotica than romance.

At the beginning Vincent and Eric’s story appeared to be a friends with benefits theme with a little touch of gay for you: best friends since high school, despite being Eric gay and Vincent straight, they managed to remain friends. Probably since Eric was there for Vincent when he was growing up with an abusive father, probably since Eric, even if in love with his friend, understood that he needed more a friend than a lover. As soon as Vincent was independent, and started to gain emotional stability, again it was not time for Eric to stake his claim, and then Vincent went and found a fiancé, Jenny, and he slowly but steadily led towards a 2.5 kids and suburb home life. It was simple, it was clean, it was what Eric thought Vincent needed after his youth. It was not what Eric needed, with his preferences for the BDSM world and co.

Really Eric was not demanding towards Vincent, there was no hints or regrets for what it could have been, but Vincent turns the table. Given the time to settle down and analyze his feelings, far from his abusive father, Vincent understands that he is in love with Eric. It’s a true and pure love, there is nothing of physical at the beginning, what I liked of this story is that Vincent was not having real problem with Jenny, not on a sexual than no-secual level, it was only that Vincent was not in love with Jenny, he was in love with Scott.

What I probably found a little too much convenient is that Vincent, out of the blue, discovered he had an not so veiled interest in BDSM; I found two explanation to that: or Eric, without realizing it, was transmitting by osmosis his interests to Vincent, or he, Eric, growing up with Vincent was the only one who really knew the guy and he taught himself beforehand how to be the man Vincent needed.

In any case my first impression that this was more a romance was confirmed, but the erotica side of the novel did indeed its appearance: the author lulled us with 3 days of blissful cohabitation during which Vincent and Eric knew each other as a lovers other than friends; after that the author plunged them, and the reader with them, into a full-time BDSM experience in an isolated country manor where everything you imagine, and something more, can happen. I’m true, without the lulling and the romance of the first part of the story, some of the experiences Vincent asks to make would have been a little too much for me; I’m not so into the BDSM world, and the author didn’t spare anything to the reader (watersports, blood-play, …), but I think that a true BDSM fan will find the novel well done and described. Me, I prefer the first part, that was a really nice romance, almost a high-school sweetheart story, only developed a little later after the end of their teenager years.

http://fannypress.com/2010/10/20/finding-sanctuary-a-gay-bdsm-romance/

Amazon: Finding Sanctuary
Amazon Kindle: Finding Sanctuary
Paperback: 148 pages
Publisher: Fanny Press (October 13, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1603814876
ISBN-13: 978-1603814874

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