Commercial Fiction Review

[subgrrl]

Commercial Fiction Review
...where one can suggest or warn about BDSMish novels that cost money.

Consequences (Consequences #1) by Aleatha Romig
Free on Kindle - 368 pages

Consequences by Aleatha Romig is the story of smart, pretty Claire, who awakes five states from her home, locked in a glorious mansion owned by a famous billionaire, Tony. Her new purpose in life is to be an outlet for his sexual tension and he accepts nothing less than perfection. Any alternative leads to brutality. Claire’s life is now centered around surviving.

The author does an impressive job of portraying Claire’s mental state and thought processes as she comes to terms with her status. Rather than slip into hopelessness, she begins to comply and by doing so, earns some minor “freedoms”.  I was able to believe as the relationship moved into a Stockholm-syndrome situation and the codependence that Claire developed - the caution that pervaded her every move - was wonderfully depicted. Tony is a despicable character - chrystal clean public image painted over a psychopath. He was wonderful to hate and my stomach would churn every time Claire began to think that, just maybe, she could change him.

As a reader, I hoping for Claire to find a way to fight and kick Tony’s butt somehow. And, so, I turned page after page waiting for the shoe to drop. And I waited - page after page after page. My sharply tuned hatred for Tony slowly began to leach over and affect my feelings for the author. This book was way too long. And for most of the book nothing of consequence really happened. Sure, every passage had (at least) a subtle hint of darkness, but it felt like the author was building The Great Pyramids with a broom.

Suddenly, the climax of the story did arrive and it seemed a little out of phase with the build-up (but, OK). I found that I was satisfied with the ending and even flirted with the idea of moving on to Book 2 (of 3). But, the excruciating nature of this first tome made me cautious enough to look at reviews with spoilers for book 2 and I’m seriously glad that I did. Now I know what happens next (and that I would hate it) and it only took me five minutes rather than weeks to learn.

This book is about an extremely sexually abusive relationship, yet it is rated R. Sure, sex scenes can be gratuitous, but often they can be used wonderfully to advance the characters. They could have been used to great effect here. This is strictly Mdom - fsub, mentally abusive, severe subjugation.

This book is free from Amazon (of course, with the expectation that you will get hooked and pay for the sequels). So, yes, it was worth the price. I enjoyed the initial setup of the story, but in the end I felt a lot should have been edited out (like the travel porn and food porn and rich-and-famous porn and fashion porn, omg).


Thanks! Let me know if you enjoy my reviews. Suggest something for me to read!

subGrrl

[Daffy Duck]

Hi Subgrrl,

Thanks for pointing readers in the direction of erotic fiction, that is free on Kindle.

Even more thanks for the warning that is about 'an extremely sexually abusive relationship' as this may be too flavoursome for even most of us on the Plaza. Well me, at any rate.

The Plaza does have its limits. You only have to read Gromet's guidance for writers and readers to know that.

Gratuitous violence for example, is something not encouraged here.

In any case, I [naively ?] thought that BDSM is about the illusion of power, where actually the submissive person holds the final say in how far things escalate.

Personally I like consent on both parties, and I hope most of us do.

Daffy

[Gabrielle]

I found your review of Consequences by Aleatha  Romig  really interesting thank you subgrrl

There is always a catch with with free kindle books, I have fallen for that repeatedly.

 I am besotted with my kindle although I rarely have time to read as in just sitting down and enjoying a story. However I carry it around with me everywhere and grab 5 minutes whenever I can.

The book i am just finishing I read last year. Owned and owner by Anneke Jacob. I knew from the reviews what I was getting into but found it way out of my comfort zone first time around.

 I decided recently to re read it.
I believe TPC Total Power Control  applies to this book although both main characters set out in different ways to achieve their ultimate goals.

I really cannot review this book and do it justice anywhere near as brilliantly as dearauthor blog does.
http://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-b-reviews/b-plus-reviews/review-owned-and-owner-by-anneke-jacob/

Safe to say I really enjoyed and understood Owned and Owner second time around.

Gabrielle

[subgrrl]

Finding good erotic fantasy books is much more difficult and uncomfortable than being able to surf Gromets Plaza for amateur stories. You would expect that the content of books that you pay for exceeds the quality of what you see for free on the web. Thus far I find that this is rarely the case. I think that Amazon is sucking some of the life out of amateur bdsm erotica since it is so easy to publish something now and writers are certainly deserving of receiving a reward for their efforts. Unfortunately, it seems that an industry has been built up to abuse the system and the readers of erotica by charging us cheap prices for awful content which has been pumped up as something great by multitudes of fake reviews on goodreads.com.

I just thought that I would review stuff that I read so that people who find they have similar tastes can feel more confident in their purchases.

I have read Owned and Owner before. I like the Total Power Control idea as a fantasy. I agree, Gabrielle, it was challenging to read in some parts, but I thought that it was worth the price in the end. I actually reviewed it when I read it long ago. If you (or anyone else) want(s), I could post that review here too.

I'll definitely have to check out the dearauthor.com website. Looks interesting!

Also, I might have mislabeled the books that I read. They are not always necessarily BDSM focused (in that 50 Shades way), rather they usually contain elements that can be associated with BDSM fantasies. For example, I recently read "Otherbound" by Corinne Duyvis which is about a young adult man who, every time he closes his eyes, sees the life of a girl in a different universe who has the power to heal quickly, but has no tongue, and is forced to protect a cursed princess whose blood incites nature itself to seek to kill her. OK. Horrible description. But awesome book and brilliant premise. It certainly is not a BDSM romance novel... But rife with elements common in bondage-y type fantasies.

Thanks,
subGrrl