Writing: A Conversation Without Interruptions

Author: Eve Langlais
Title: My Secretary, Her Fantasy
Genre: BDSM Erotica
ASIN: B00RKS8RCI
Length: 56 ‘pages’

She’s claimed his heart. She’s claimed his soul. Now she intends to fully claim his body.

Isabelle has a fantasy, a very naughty desire that her boss is balking at. She wants to claim him in a way he’s never imagined.

Grant would do anything for his secretary, or so he thinks until she tells him her secret fantasy. His desire to please is strong, but giving her what she wants means redefining his engrained notions on bedroom games—and giving up all sense of control.

Can Isabelle convince him to trust her and will Grant allow his mistress to claim her submissive?

Cover:

In the same vein as the first of this series (duology?) I feel like I should be complaining but I’m not. It’s very simple, stylish and, in all, did what covers are supposed to do: it pulled me in for a closer look.

Story:

Now that Isabelle has Grant all to herself, she sets about moving on to the next stage of her family. Coaxing Grant to join her in a threesome with her Master.

Characters:

Isabelle: The Secretary. As before, the story is from her POV in the most part, but this time we get a sense of her history and how she came to be as she is. And in that sense, I mean a submissive on the one hand and a dominant on the other. It’s interesting to see her progression from what she once was, to what she is when we catch up with her in the first book, but I have very, many problems with it. Problems I’ll cover further down.
Grant: The Boss. I . . . can’t decide. Much like before there is a level of insight into this character that I enjoy, but something about his interactions with Isabelle this time felt really forced. As though he wanted to be there, but didn’t and fell more on the ‘not’ side of matters.

Eroticism:

Perhaps I’ve left this one too long before reviewing it, but the book isn’t quite so hot as the first one. Perhaps because significant sexual scenes stem from a reluctance from some (or all) of the characters involved. As far as fantasies go, I do acknowledge that there are rape/reluctance fantasies out there and there is a huge market for it. However reading it in mainstream erotic literature just makes me comfortable. In my eyes, it’s the sort of thing one expects to find on Literotica and rarely beyond sites like that.

Still, the scenes I did enjoy, I enjoyed a great deal and can’t say that the good scenes in which everyone was fully on board weren’t as hawt as a damn hawt thing.

Overall experience:

Again, I enjoyed reading this book. I loved getting to know Isabelle and Grant a bit more and learning about Isabelle’s Dom which is dropped in as a surprise twist at the end of the first book.

However . . .

I’ve talked about about coerced consent, romantic rape and consent in general. In BDSM I believe the subject is particularly relevant and should be treated carefully.

Too many scenes in this book featured characters that started out saying ‘No.’ It doesn’t matter—to me, anyway—that they eventually changed their minds, or came to love what they were doing. They said no. This, to my mind, means that the scene, whatever it was, should have stopped, and that a gentle, mature conversation should have taken place to ensure that all parties were happy.

Pushing boundaries and testing the limits of a submissive is one thing, as is playing with humiliation, discomfort and voyeuristic tendencies. But if a woman (or man!) tells you to back off because they aren’t interested in having sex with you, then any actions that follow, designed to change that answer, are coercive and nudging close to rape.

If, following a discussion, attitudes have changed or the unwilling party later expresses a desire to try again, without coercion from another party, then that is different and isn’t a problem.

But this book . . . I don’t know . . . slightly too much of it was about learning how you really like things to be, or getting pushed towards wonderful sexual experiences. I don’t for a instant deny that things can happen this way, but we should all be careful in writing scenes like this because we don’t want to tell people that this is how things are.

Hmm. /rant.

Final score:

Average across all scores is 4, which rounds out to clean 4 fireballs.

I guess, at the end of the day, I still enjoyed reading this book, despite my niggles with consent and coercion. I’m just a little surprised to see the story move in this direction given the fairly strong beginnings set by the first book. Ho hum.

If there is another book in this series I will read it, if only to see how the characters progress. But I am a tiny bit disappointed following the explosive and super enjoyable first book.