Rating: 4.75 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
After a series of kidnappings around the city, Oliver Robertson is assigned to go undercover in one of the shade clubs, where the rules of the BDSM clubs cease to exist, in the hopes of finding out what is happening to these kids. Posing as a shade sub, Ollie knows his job is especially dangerous considering his lieutenant may be a dirty cop and involved in what is happening.
Ollie finds himself unable to trust anyone, while the patrons of the club are becoming bolder and willing to bend the rules when it comes to safe, contractually negotiated sex when it comes to him.
When Travis Goode claims to be a federal agent, Ollie is forced to make the decision as to whether to trust Travis’ word or whether he may have doomed himself forever.
I am going to start out this review by telling readers that this is NOT a contemporary novel. I didn’t realize it at first, but this book takes place at some point in the future, something which readers don’t really find out until you are well into the story. Up until that point, I was starting to feel as if I was completely naïve about clubs like this existing (which, to my knowledge, I don’t believe they do), and the terminology that is used, such as the slang for one’s sexuality, and the technology that I didn’t think existed. Once I realized that this wasn’t a contemporary book, it made sense to me.
I think readers are either going to love or hate this book depending on where their boundaries are when it comes to BDSM. This is hard-core BDSM featuring edge-play, non-consent, and whole new level of mental control where the dominants are able to convince their subs that they really want this. While there is a happily ever after, don’t expect flowers, poetry, or romantic love scenes.
With that said, and if you’ve read this far through all my warnings, I thought this book was absolutely amazing! Part mystery/suspense and part dark-BDSM, I was on the edge of my seat as Ollie entered into the world of the shade club where the ordinary rules of BDSM are suspended – no safe words, no safety procedures, a place where subs are at the complete mercy of their Dom and Stockholm Syndrome runs rampant. When Ollie enters into this world on an undercover assignment, he seeks a position as a waiter with the hopes of just observing. Within minutes of his arrival, he realizes that he doesn’t know who to trust – both on the inside and the outside. Put through the emotional and physical wringer, Ollie wonders whether he’s strong enough to come out of this on the other side. I didn’t know whether I should be turned on or terrified as the author has the plot twisting and turning so that you no longer know which way is up!
If you love edge-play BDSM, you are going to love this book!
