She Reads Too Much

Couple of things before I start the actual review, which I'm going to spoiler tag because I don't want to tippy toe around things.

First, I had to come turn on my computer to write this review because I can't type fast enough on my iPad. And I'm that annoyed that I'm typing fast.

Second, there will be gifs. Because sometimes, you need gifs. Sorry for those of you who don't like that because you access your feed on phones. That's another reason I'm putting the review behind the spoiler.

Except for this one:



Third, I adore GR and frankly spend just about all of my social media time here. The people I have on my friends list are people that have many of the same reading tastes as I do. I trust them and I do so for a reason. And when more than one of my GR friends starts throwing up red flags about a book I take notice. Again, because I trust them. This is one of those instances where they were right on! Had I not already One-Clicked the book (thanks Amazon, for making it so damn easy to give you my money) I would not have purchased it. While I'm annoyed I have this book on my iPad Kindle app it was only .99 cents so I'm not too torn up.

Check out these reviews to see what I mean:

Smith

Gigi

JustJen

So...on to the review!

This book should have been full of win for me! We've got men in uniform (hey sexy SWAT officers), BDSM, co-workers and friends to lovers. There is so much potential I can't even...



The start was good, if a bit slow. One thing I noticed was there was a lot of telling rather than showing. One thing that stands out was a little bit into the book where Clay and Logan are out to dinner and there is a needless description of what exactly Logan ordered to eat. Things like that don't move the story forward. They don't enhance the characters or the plot. It's simply words by an author who is unsure about how to set a scene. It is not, however, interesting in the least.

Where things really start to go to shit is when Logan and Clay actually start to become a couple.

Let me start by saying I am a fan, a huge fan, of all the kissing in the book. I'm a sucker for kissing. Long, short, hard, soft, tender, passionate, eating, biting...whatever. All good! Sadly that is where the good ends.

Logan and Clay's first kiss is electric and I was totally on board. Let's ride this horse into the sunset people. But...um...



First, Logan is going to give Clay time to think. He handles what could be awkward quite well. Tells Clay that he wants to pursue a relationship, co-worker and superior officer be damned, and is willing to wait until Clay makes a decision one way or another about that.

We don't know too much about what goes on during this waiting period of what seems to be several weeks (until later and what did happen is the first of two things that made me say oh hell no to the book) but in the end Clay decides he does trust Logan to not mess up their work relationship with a possible personal relationship and they're off.

But, both Logan and Clay seem to totally suck ass at keeping their personal feelings out of work. Because it seems like freeking everyone (except the one person who should know, their boss) knows they are doing each other. Professional guys. Really freeking professional. I've seen work place relationships done much better where the two men can keep the outside relationship totally away from work. Geeze.

There is this one scene after what was supposed to be a stressful work incident (incidentally, I got none of the stress, excitement, exhilaration or tenseness out of any SWAT stuff that the author put in the book) when Logan can't keep away from Clay and corners him to kiss him. In his head he reasons that his sub needs him all the while acknowledging that doing this at work is a bad idea. I couldn't get behind this for a few reasons. First, no actual tension in the SWAT scene. Second, I don't buy these guys as a Dom and his sub. Again, I've read amazing scenes where a sub needs the comfort of his Dom somewhere like work and it's done without the risk of sexual interaction (take for instance [b:Falling Into Place|17132072|Falling Into Place|Tia Fielding|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1356203025s/17132072.jpg|21945115] by [a:Tia Fielding|4831237|Tia Fielding|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1373304215p2/4831237.jpg]. There is an excellent scene where the sub needs comfort and his boss, who is not even involved in a D/s relationship with him at this point, does it.

So that whole scene put me even further off Logan as a Dom and these two men as a couple. Poor decision making skills on Logan's part.

There was a lot of sex in the 33% of the book I read. Like, and I can't believe I'm gonna say this, too much sex. And the first few scenes were kinda hot. But not so much that I can remember them while writing this. There was more sex than communication which is not a plus in my book.

There was a lot of use of "baby". While I don't particularly have a problem with the use of pet names it didn't work here. Why? Because I didn't feel the intimate connection between Logan and Clay and pet names here actually distanced Logan further away from Clay for me. Emotional distance between a Dom and sub is not a good thing.

Wait. Let's talk about the BDSM because this is billed as a BDSM book. It reads like the author is phoning it in. Like all she did was read some BDSM books and was like, yeah, I can write that. Um, no.



You need to honestly understand the mind set of a Dominant and a submissive in order to accurately portray the emotions during a scene. And this book just read like kinky sex, which is all well and good. I mean, GOD, it's sexy to be held down during sex. It's sexy to have someone tell you what to do during sex. But that is very different from D/s in the bedroom.

Also annoying was the fact that it seemed like Clay knew and understood about a D/s dynamic. We aren't told in what I read that Clay had any previous interest in submission. Which is fine in and of itself but when you couple it with being told, after already being involved in a relationship with Logan, that Logan was a Dom and being okay with it, like, instantly...just doesn't fit.

Want to read excellent BDSM?

M/F - [a:Cherise Sinclair|2882485|Cherise Sinclair|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1248807693p2/2882485.jpg]
M/F and M/M - [a:Joey W. Hill|103359|Joey W. Hill|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1229194576p2/103359.jpg]
M/M - [a:Kim Dare|2839336|Kim Dare|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1303311049p2/2839336.jpg]

I didn't like Logan. He didn't act like a Dom. He behaved badly, lied by not telling Clay what he was before starting a relationship and the this....

So here is what killed me and made me one step from DNF'ing the book. During the time period that Logan gave Clay to think about their relationship he got drunk, went home with another cop he used to have sex with and started to get a blow job. He stopped before it was finished and threw the guy out. What made it a bazillion times worse for me was that minutes before Logan had been sitting next to Clay and stroking his neck, turning them both on. Clay hadn't made his decision yet and ended up moving away from Logan and then leaving the bar. Then the ex shows up and Logan takes him home, drunk and aroused by Clay. While kissing and getting the BJ from the other guy Logan is thinking about Clay.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe if I had been invested in Logan I could have gone with it. But I was not invested him. In fact, I didn't like him much at all. And the fact that this man, who is portrayed as a Dom, did not have the self control to NOT take someone else home just really, really, really pissed me off.

What made me finally throw in the towel?

Logan collard Clay without fucking telling him about the incident with the other cop. What? What?



I was done. While the two of them were not in a sexual relationship at that time they were thinking about the potential of having one. In my mind that puts other people out of bounds. Off limits. It is a matter of fucking respect dude. Respect for yourself and the man you want to be in a relationship with. Your goddamn dick is not going to fall the fuck off if you don't get it blown for a month. Asshole.





Maybe this book turned around somewhere after the 33% mark. I'll never know because I simply didn't care enough to find out. While I'd love to give this book one-star I won't because I didn't finish it. Other reviewers have given it high ratings and that's fine. While I'd like to counter that I don't believe it's fair to do so when I haven't finished it.

I also find it kinda hysterical that I could only make it like 5% through the book at a time before I had to do a status update. Generally I don't make status updates, unless the book is freeking awesome or a train-wreck.

Anyway, I can't recommend this to any of my GR friends. I love you all too much.