Title:

A huge apology to Sadey Quinn, Bad Girl Good’s author, who has been waiting super-patiently for me to post our review of this book. As many of you may be aware from my Tumbleweed post, things are slightly chaotic behind the florals at the moment and I’m rather behind on, well, pretty much everything. Hmm. Maybe I need Todd, Bad Girl Good’s male protagonist, to keep me in line…?

MICHAEL’S TAKE

Bad Girl Good is a Domestic Discipline novel. When Chloe breaks one of her boyfriend’s rules, Todd gets to spank her.

Bad Girl Good is a Total Power Exchange novel. Chloe has given control of her life to her Dom, Todd, and he disciplines her when she violates any of his dictates.

Which one of those is accurate? I am still not entirely sure.

I have to say my favourite moment was when Todd spanked Chloe after she left the house and went home. She was drunk but he didn’t just punish her for that. She was stoned but he didn’t just punish her for that. He punished her because he thought she should have and discussed things before she left. In other words, he didn’t approve of her decision-making while she was drunk and stoned. That still makes me laugh.

Personally, I thought Todd was a bit of a jerk. But Chloe liked him and I felt like she needed him. The question really came down to whether Todd loved Chloe more or loved the idea of fixing Chloe more. And did it really matter.

JANE’S TAKE

I don’t normally talk about book covers in my reviews, despite the fact that I tend to be quite swayed by them (yeah, I know you’re not supposed to judge the text by the façade but I’m quite a visual person and often can’t help myself). However, I think Bad Girl Good’s one deserves a mention. It’s sexy. Very, very sexy and – thank God! – there’s not a piece of jewellery, men’s accessory, or a piece of fruit in sight. (Apparently, nothing says ‘sex’ these days like an inanimate object. Yes, Penguin marketing department I am looking at you.)

Right, on to the book itself.

To me, Bad Girl Good is a domestic discipline (DD) novel, although I agree with Michael: it does stray close to TPE at times and I, too, wasn’t sure whether Todd’s hot button was mending the girl or the girl herself.

Let me put it this way: Coldplay’s Fix You could be the theme song to this book – and I’m not entirely sure how comfortable I am with that (no offence to Chris Martin).

Did Chloe need Todd? Yes, I think so. Did she need the discipline he could give her? Probably – and she enjoyed it. (The punishment scene with the clothespins? Hot.) But did Todd need to treat her like a naughty toddler rather than a grown up? In my opinion, no, and, as a result, the way he talked down to her rubbed on me a little.

Bad Girl Good is well written and I suspect that fans of DD are going to love it. For me? As someone who has a marked preference for more clear-cut D/s scenarios and storylines? Well, let’s just say that Sadey’s Spanktastic, which I reviewed a while back (and adored), continues to be my favourite of hers.

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to purchase a copy:

Amazon.co.uk

• Bad Girl Good – Kindle

Amazon.com

• Bad Girl Good –Kindle

*Please note that a copy of Bad Girl Good was supplied free of charge by the author in exchange for a fair review.

The post Bad Girl Good – Sadey Quinn appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Title:

I think ‘Unheld Conversations’ would have been a better title for this book.

Jared is a member of an organisation called the Rod and Cane Society. Personally, I prefer to refer to it by its original name when it was founded back in 1937: The He-Man Woman Haters Club. Therefore, throughout the rest of this review, I am going to call it He-Man for short.

So, anyway, the guys in He-Man are all into Domestic Discipline (DD). DD, if you aren’t aware, is a form of relationship where one partner gets to decide if the other partner has done something bad and, if they have, punish them for it – usually with a spanking. It can actually function either way (the Wife can spank the Husband) but that isn’t a He-Man idea. Oh, no. And when I say ‘guys’, I mean ‘guys’; ladies don’t actually get to join He-Man. They have to join the He-Man Ladies Auxiliary. More on that aspect a little later.

He-Man even has a really cool clubhouse. It has two sections: a public section (just like you would expect a ‘Prestigious Fraternal Organization’ to have) but also a way more interesting part the public don’t get to see. All the social functions occur in this private section, and it’s just chock-full of art consisting of freshly spanked, red-bottomed women (tastefully modelled by Ladies Auxiliary Members). Oh, and I should mention the ‘Disciplinary Chamber’. I would tell you more about what happens in there, but I don’t want to give anything away.

Jared meets Melania at a He-Man event. Not held at the clubhouse, obviously, because, well, that would have been a problem. You see, even though Melania knows her father is a member of He-Man and her mother is a member of the Auxiliary, she doesn’t know anything about Domestic Discipline or what He-Man is really about. You see, the first rule of He-Man is that you don’t talk about He-Man. So even though her parents play matchmaker for these two lovebirds they neglect to mention to Melania just what she is getting into.

Now I know what you are thinking: Jared surely wouldn’t enter into a DD relationship without making sure that Melania understood what he wanted? Well, actually … They talk about him being in charge and he does kind of mention that he wants to spank her if she does something really, really naughty, but she doesn’t really think he’s serious.

Of course, eventually she does something that he decides she should be spanked for and … What’s that? He gives her a good old-fashioned brisk hand spanking over his knee? Well, no, actually. He fastens her bottom upwards over his fancy spanking bench with fleece-lined straps and uses his shiny new paddle on her. Perhaps not surprisingly, things kind of go downhill for a while after that.

I am not entirely sure what the Society’s existence was supposed to add to the Unexpected Consequences story. The whole Code of Silence was disturbing. The nametags were condescending. The whole argument that Melania would just come to accept her place over time? I double-checked to make sure I wasn’t reading The Stepford Wives.

Jared was totally ruled by his emotions, spending the entire story either feeling sorry for himself or being angry at Melania. I did think his hunter/gatherer argument had the potential to be compelling – if it were still 25,000 BC. Before he took responsibility for someone else, he really needed to take responsibility for himself first.

I kept waiting for Jared and Melania to actually have a conversation about Domestic Discipline and what they both wanted out of it. I still can’t believe that no such conversation actually occurred. I thought the ending was a case of doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.

There are a lot of people outside of the BDSM and spanking communities who would consider Domestic Discipline abuse. I just don’t feel like Unexpected Consequences provides any arguments against that but could actually provide some in favour.

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to purchase a copy.

Amazon.co.uk:

• Unexpected Consequences - Kindle

Amazon.com:

The post Unexpected Consequences (Rod and Cane Society #1) – Cara Bristol appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Title:

A married couple. Friday evening. It’s Maintenance Night. Are they doing DIY? Well, in a sense, yes. They’re engaging in the ‘upkeep’ of their relationship. It just so happens that their form of nurture involves some spanking and caning.

This is the first Trent Evans book I’ve read and I have to say I really, really liked it. Maintenance Night is relatively short, weighing in at just fifty-one pages, but it doesn’t suffer from what I like to call ‘small book syndrome’ (a tale as threadbare as a two-hundred-year-old rug or a story that’s so ridiculously overstuffed that it’s afflicted by literary indigestion). The plot is strong and simple – as mentioned above, it focuses on a single night in the life of a married couple – and the action is centred on them connecting with one another through D/s.

Maintenance Night touched on some concepts that resonated particularly strongly with me. Firstly, courage and open-mindedness. I wanted to cheer Lacey, the female protagonist, for having the bottle to speak up and ask her husband to spank and discipline her, and Troy, her other half, for being so accepting of her needs. (No baulking from this man.) Secondly, the extremely positive portrayal of impact play (and BDSM in general) within an existing, committed relationship was extremely refreshing. Bluntly, it was nice to see two people, already together, still discovering and challenging one another. What a great way to be!

The author also makes a concerted effort in Maintenance Night to highlight that what goes on between Lacey and Troy follows the ‘safe, sane and consensual’ mantra, which, for me, instantly increased its appeal. As they play, Troy consistently checks in with his wife and, when he raises the stakes, he reminds her of her safeword – and, thus, of her choice to participate. He’s a thinking Dom who knows when to hold his hand – and when push it.

‘His low voice was back at her ear. “Do you need to say it?”
She shook her head, feeling the first tear track down her cheek. Her hands twisted in his grip, so determined were they to swipe away the evidence of her defeat.
“I’ll be right back.” He pressed his slacks against her, his huge erection hard against her soft, burning bottom. “Keep them there. If you move an inch, we’ll start over.”’

I made the fatal error of giving this book to my husband to read on my iPad while we were waiting for our kids to finish swimming lessons. By the time he’d reached the end of Maintenance Night half-an-hour later and we were due to collect them, he was as worked up as I was. We spent the rest of the day squirming in our seats with no possible outlet. So clearly this book appeals equally to both genders!

There was only one thing I felt was missing from this story – Troy’s point-of-view. Maintenance Night is written in the third-person and focuses on Lacey’s thoughts and feelings. While the narration is wonderful, I would have liked to have known what was going on in Troy’s head. (I got a pretty good idea from the way he behaved but what can I say? I like to crawl around inside the minds of my fictional characters.)

Finally, a guilty secret. I’m not sure why, but I tend to buy erotica written by women rather than men. Possibly because I unconsciously (or not so unconsciously) make the invalid assumption that I’ll have a stronger connection with the sexual and emotional feelings expressed by female writers. Maintenance Night has shown me how ridiculous I’ve been in not embracing more male erotica authors. This is a great story and a must for those who enjoy tales of domestic discipline (DD) and/or Dominance and submission (D/s).

And Mr Evans? Great cover.

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to buy Maintenance Night: Amazon.co.uk (Kindle) and Amazon.com (Kindle).

The post Maintenance Night – Trent Evans appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.