WELCOME TO THE SERPENT'S KISS BLOG TOUR

Title: Serpent’s Kiss

Genre: Erotic Romance BDSM

Author: Sherri Hayes

Release Date: Dec 4, 2014

SYNOPSIS

After losing her husband unexpectedly, Katrina Mayer decided to open Serpent’s Kiss. She wanted it to be a place where she and her fellow kinksters could play and socialize.

Five years after the doors opened, the club is everything she’d hoped it would be. On Friday and Saturday nights, Serpent’s Kiss is filled with men and women who share a similar desire to explore the pleasures BDSM has to offer. The club has continued to grow, and over the years, many of its members have become friends.

The one thing Katrina didn’t expect when she’d decided to open a club was the human drama that came with it. Learning to balance her life as the club mistress has taken some getting used to, but she wouldn’t change a thing.

GOODREADS https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23232400-welcome-to-serpent-s-kiss

BUY LINKS

Amazon - http://tinyurl.com/o3ursg6

AUTHOR: 

Sherri spent most of her childhood detesting English class. It was one of her least favorite subjects because she never seemed to fit into the standard mold. She wasn’t good at spelling, or following grammar rules, and outlines made her head spin. For that reason, Sherri never imagined becoming an author.

At the age of thirty, all of that changed. After getting frustrated with the direction a television show was taking two of its characters, Sherri decided to try her hand at writing an alternate ending, and give the characters their happily ever after. By the time the story finished, it was one of the top ten read stories on the site, and her readers were encouraging her to write more.

Six years later, Sherri is the author of six full-length novels, and one short story. Writing has become a creative outlet for Sherri that allows her to explore a wide range of emotions, while having fun taking her characters through all the twists and turns she can create. She is most well known for her Finding Anna series about a young woman rescued from being a sex slave by a wealthy Dominant. The third book in that series, Truth, released July 25, 2013.

SOCIAL LINKS

Website: http://www.sherrihayesauthor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sherri-Hayes/122511444477280?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sherri_Hayes

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4496779.Sherri_Hayes

Book Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1379434072295837/

GIVEAWAY

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REVIEW:

Welcome to the Serpent’s Kiss is not a full length novel. This is an introduction to the club, its owner Katrina Mayer, the people who work there and some of the members. It is meant to arouse your curiosity and does so in a very effective and appetizing way. After these forty pages I’m curious about Katrina and what she will or won’t do about Ryan. I want to see if Beth will get over her misfortune and how new member and newbie to the scene Drew gets along.

Having a female BDSM-club owner and Domme spearheading the stories makes a nice change from the usual fare of Male dominated novels (pun intended). Sherri Hayes obviously has a good understanding of the BDSM world and makes sure to share her knowledge with her readers without it ever feeling as if she’s giving us a lecture.

If this prequel is anything to go by, The Serpent’s Kiss will be a welcome addition to the world of BDSM romance and erotica. I’m looking forward to finding out what will be happening next. 

BONDS OF COURAGE

BONDS OF COURAGE by Lynda Aicher

Pages: 263

Date: 17/06/2014

Grade: 4.5

Details: No. 6 Wicked Play

            Received from Carina Press

            Through Love Romances and More

Own / Kindle

The blurb:

Pro hockey player Holden Hauke has kept his sexual needs buried for years. After a near miss over a picture of him bound to a spanking bench resulted in a mid-season trade, he's kept his image clean. But with the season over, he's ready to surrender control. And he's found just the woman to help him—if only he can convince her to give him a chance.

Bending men to her will is nothing new for Vanessa Delcour, aka Mistress V—she's a full-time rep for pro athletes, a part-time owner of exclusive sex club The Den, and an experienced Domme. But when Holden Hauke comes looking for a discreet partner, Vanessa's concerned about his motives. Touching his training-toned body during a scene wouldn't exactly be a hardship, but taking him on crosses barriers between work and play that she's had in place for years.

From their first intense encounter in Mistress V's playroom, Hauke knows he can't let this chance slip away; he's found the woman he's always needed. Submissive or not, he's willing to push her every limit to prove how good they can be together.

My thoughts:

‘Bonds of Courage’ is the sixth title in the ‘Wicked Play’ series and more than lived up to the expectations I had based on those earlier books. Over the course of six books I have gotten very attached to The Den, the people who own the place and their partners.

This instalment features Vanessa Delcour – full-time rep for professional athletes, partner in The Den, an exclusive sex club, and known as Mistress V an experienced Domme. For years she has successfully kept all the threads of her life separated and she is determined to keep it that way. Vanessa is in control of her life and doesn’t allow anyone to breach her carefully set boundaries or anything to control her. It is a balancing act but a successful one until Holden Hauke applies for membership at The Den.

Holdon Hauke is a professional hockey player. He has kept his sexual needs and desires buried, especially after one indiscrete photo of him tied to a spanking bench nearly cost him his career and forced a mid-season transfer. With the summer break on his hands Holden turns to The Den in the hope of finding a discrete Mistress. One look at Vanessa is enough to tell Holden he’s found what he’s been looking for.

With their first encounter going off to a bad start because of Holden’s lie on his application to The Den and Vanessa’s reluctance to let anyone in to her life never mind her heart a relationship between these two seems doomed from the start. Holden is not prepared to give up though. He may be submissive, he is determined to do whatever it takes to show Vanessa that they belong together.

For the sixth consecutive time Lynda Aicher has brought her readers two characters who are interesting, easy to root for yet realistic and flawed. I fell in love with Holden the moment he made his first appearance. I loved the ease with which he surrendered to his needs despite the risks involved and Vanessa’s attempts to push him away, and delighted in the release he found in bondage.

“The firm clasp of the thick bands of leather was his freedom.”

Vanessa was a little bit harder to like. She was so determined to be independent, to keep all the different threads in her life separate and avoid all attachments, that it was almost too easy to believe she really was the hard bitch she portrait herself as. That image made the rare occasion on which her hard shell cracked all the more beautiful though.

“It made no sense, but he was under her skin, burning through her as no other sub ever had.”

This story is a reversal of the BDSM story we usually read. In this book it isn’t the sub who needs to be convinced of his needs, it isn’t the sub running away from something new and scary. This time we are dealing with a sub who knows exactly what he wants and has a job on his hands convincing his Domme that his needs happen to mirror hers.

“He could make her happy. Please her. He got everything he needed by giving her what she needed. It was a perfect combination that.”

I loved Holden for getting Vanessa, for taking his time and for reading her well enough to know what all her small sign and gestures meant. I loved the moment he gave her a pair of flip-flops.

“The only time she wasn’t in heels was when she let her shields down, and he wanted that all the time with him.”

I’m very grateful that although there is lots of angst and conflict in this book I didn’t have to read my way through a lengthy split between the protagonists based on fear or a misunderstanding. I’m equally happy that the author kept things real; the resolution of issues was organic and believable.

Overall this was a wonderful, smooth, very sexy and fascinating read. The descriptions of Vanessa’s sessions with Holden were captivating as were the occasions when the two of them gave into their feelings without any play involved.

I discovered that there is one more Wicked Play story to come in September 2014. While I’m delighted to have another book in this series to look forward to I am already sad that book will also mean I’ll have to say goodbye to The Den and all who play and love there.

“I’m yours. In every way. Beyond the playroom. Beyond the spankings and bondage and play – I belong to you.”

A DANCE WITH DOMINATION

A DANCE WITH DOMINATION by K.C. Wells

Pages: 220

Date: 05/06/2014

Grade: 4.5

Details: No. 4 Collars & Cuffs

            Received from Dreamspinner Press

            Through Love Romances and More

Own / Kindle

The blurb:

“Recently returned to the UK after living in the States since he was eleven, Andrew Barrett is determined to keep busy and make a new life for himself. He works full time as a copywriter and strips at a club on Canal Street on weekends. But it still leaves him too much time to think. Then he finds the BDSM club, Collars & Cuffs, where at twenty-nine, he is their youngest Dom. Young doesn’t mean inexperienced, however. All this activity keeps him focused with no time to dwell on the past. But the past has a way of intruding on the present.

It’s been four long years since Gareth Michaels last set foot inside Collars & Cuffs. But when he finally summons his courage and steps back into his former world, he finds the man who drove him away is still a member, and what's more, he wants Gareth back. Two men in pain need the freedom they find in each other, but it takes another man’s horrific plans to make them see it.”

My thoughts:

Let me start by saying I loved this book. It was well written with captivating characters and a gripping storyline. The balance between feelings, action and description was just about perfect and kept me in the story even when I wasn’t reading it.

Andrew Barrett was a wonderful and multi-layered character. He comes across as a man in charge of his life, a confident Dom fully aware of what he wants and needs until he is confronted with his painful past and the loss he’s suffered. The wonderful thing about Andrew was that the pain and confusion his past cause didn’t make him week or feeble. Quite the opposite; watching Andrew as he confronts his feelings, comes to terms with them and moves forward made him all the more likeable, strong and realistic in my eyes.

The same is true for Gareth. While he may seem quiet and even painfully shy at times, there is a depth to his feelings that delighted me and his strength and courage once he’s acknowledged his feelings left me in awe.

One or two things really made me sit up and pay attention in this book.

I have to be honest and admit that I’d never given much thought to any possible differences between hetero and M/M BDSM practices. In fact it’s fair to say I was pretty much convinced it was much of a muchness give or take one or two body parts. Andrew’s talk with his supervisor opened my eyes and has left me with quite a few things to think about and maybe even investigate.

A second thing that caught my attention was the way the dynamic between Doms and subs played out in this book. All too often it is a very black and white issue with one person being in control while the other just follows along. It only dawned on me how many angles there are to that dynamic when a character says that he wants someone as ‘his friend, lover and submissive’.

I do like it when a book opens my eyes and forces me to think.

This was one hot story as you might expect since it’s set in both a strip and a BDSM club. In fact, given the setting the author might have gotten away with wall to wall sex and relatively little story should she have chosen to do so. I’m delighted that she didn’t fall into that particular trap and had the sex serve the story rather than the other way around.

Having said all of the above there were one or two things that slowed me down while reading this book.

The first ‘issue’ is probably in large part one of my own making since this is the fourth book in a series of which I haven’t read the first three titles. The sheer number of characters in this book had me gasping for breath at times as well as scrolling back to see who exactly I was dealing with. With the majority of the story taking place either in a strip club or the BDSM club it is no mystery why there are so many people crossing the page and, if I’m honest, they did bring the story to life and made it more realistic. But, it also had me confused at times, especially with some of them having different names in different settings.

The shift to a second point of view at about 40% into the story took me by surprise too. Once the second voice started and continued it worked perfectly fine, but the first time his voice appeared I was taken aback and slightly confused about what exactly was going on.

Overall I have to say this is a fascinating and well written book that has left me with a taste for more. I’m lucky enough to have a copy of the first title in this series on my Kindle and I’ve got a feeling it won’t be long before part two and three will join it there. Here’s to yet another author I have to add to my must read list.