DNF. Look at that cover. Let’s not be coy; we all know why I picked this book up. So wtf is my smut? No graphic sex or even graphic BDSM training scenes. All the good stuff is glossed over. Then the protagonist gets raped and I was just over it. I didn’t pick this up for some emotional hard-hitting story. I had a more...ahem...physical affect that I was after. I didn’t get it. At all. Why the fuck this erotica cover has an actual book in it? Don’t put smutty pictures on stories with more character arc than graphic sex. I picked this up for the smut! ( )

As a lot of people know. I can't leave a bookstore with money left in my wallet. After a while, whoever I am with, starts to rush me and I just start grabbing books with covers that I like. I have been very lucky with this, and have enjoyed every book I have bought this way. To Serve and Submit is no different.

The beautiful cover caught my eye as I was being forced away from the books to go pay so we could leave and I just had to grab it. I had no idea what it was about and at the time I think if I would have had the time to read the back, I probably would have put it back. It wasn't anything I would have normally picked up back then (2008). I am so happy that my mom was pushing me along and that I grabbed this book.

It is amazing. Great plot, well written and it is a definite page turner. I want the next one. ( )

For what it is (erotic fantasy romance focussed on submission), this book is pretty good. I think the problem some readers have is an expectation of something else, and that might speak more of them than it. It is a mistake to insist that stories of submission must contain sadomasochistic scenes or lots of bondage. There are plenty of ways to explore the idea of sexual dominance and submission which have nothing to do with the other - more obvious - pursuits that fall under BDSM. This story successfully navigates through a lot of points of sexual expression without leaning on any of them beyond submission itself.

Authors who write modern romance or erotic fiction apparently have a thin line to walk: if there is any mention of sexual acts, some readers will say it is smut; if it only mentions and glosses over the sex, others will say it is boring. Any author who attempts to find a wide audience for their work while catering to the adult romance market is going to fail in exactly the way Wright does, and that's too bad. I think if there was an allowance for more middle ground she would be better welcomed. Her narrative around sex was quite frank, but not indulgent. If you are looking for titillation, you will be disappointed. Sexual abuse and its consequences were also dealt with in the story.

I found the world-building to be a little stark, but consistent and integral to the tale and the main character. I was able to enter the landscape and feel it in the story and that is all I really need or expect unless I am reading a travelogue. That said, there was a certain "traveller's journal" aspect to the book that worked for me.

I have read a review that said the dialogue was stilted. I did not find this to be the case at all. In fact, the dialogue did what it was supposed to do: it fit in with the story so well it was not noticeable as an element. I prefer to have period fiction sound a little less like modern English. Also, with historical romance, I don't mind a romantic flare to the narrative and dialogue. It would be strange to hear them talk any more modernly than they did, and obviously unreadable to have them speak as true Vikings, etc.. I have struggled past a lot of bad dialogue in attempts to read genre fiction. It is refreshing (and probably my reason for being able to read it through) to read dialogue that does work.

Why did I rate this book with a three? Well, it is not literature and I do have standards, but I did enjoy it and it has left some lingering images in my mind about the landscape and the characters. That is what books are supposed to do. ( )

I must say, I'm really glad I only paid $4.76 for To Serve and Submit. I knew from a simple flip through the pages and a quick skim of the back that I was not purchasing "high literature," and was, in fact, tossing money away on a mildly amusing fancy. The cover image caught my eye, though, because it is quite pretty, but if it had been anything but a Bargain Book, I would have passed it by.

Sadly, what I was hoping for was a minorly titillating BDSM story set in a fantasy world, and Wright failed to competently deliver any of those things. The writing is adequate, if stilted (the dialogue in particular is at turns cringeworthy and laughable), the sex unremarkable (and often fade-to-black or glossed over), the BDSM skewing towards "BDSM lite" (with no real focus; not punishment, and not heightened erotic reactions), the plotline vague, and the worldbuilding almost non-existent. It took me about 1/4 of the novel to realize that the story was set in a pseudo-Nordic world (rather than just borrowing from Nordic myths), but once I did, and once the characters started travelling to other lands, I had to chuckle. (I mean, really, "Kebec?" I hope they remembered to try some poutine while they were there.)

To Serve and Submit is a novel which wants to be a number of things, and in doing so, fails to properly execute any of them. Readers invested in fantasy will find themselves quickly bored by the lack of attention Wright spends to worldbuilding, as details are often belatedly scattered in front of the characters when needed, rather than worked into the background and made part of the setting. They will also find themselves frustrated with the continual repetition of key points relating to the otherworldy spirits. Honestly, I think I got that the olfs (fairies) Marja (the main character) communes with are pleased at being acknowledged after the billionth mention.

Readers who are looking for meaty, complex plots will be similarly disappointed, as most conflicts are introduced on one page and resolved not three pages later. The main character floats through the narrative with little or no motivation (other than her love for her Master), something other characters insist is her greatest attribute, but is really just a fairly ridiculous way to insinuate her into other people's problems with no real risk to her own well-being. Wright is also firmly entrenched in "tell, not show," one of the greatest of writerly crimes, as we are continually told by Marja how she feels, rather than shown anything about her at all. (In the immortal words of Futurama's Robot Devil, "Your [words] lack subtlety. You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!") This tendency leaks into the rest of the novel as well, as we are supposed to simply take for granted underpinning motivating forces and angsty declarations without any sensory proof to back them up. Additionally, as the novel progresses, the plotline becomes more and more unravelled until it is simply a continual roadtrip from place to place in pursuit of warriors to back a cause. At about the third stop, it starts to feel like Wright is merely trying to hit her minimum wordcount.

And finally, readers who want to be titillated will find themselves ultimately disappointed and reading with both hands firmly on the book. There's not much visceral thrill in To Serve and Submit, as although Marja has sex with pretty much everyone who ever shows up on the page, Wright repeatedly pulls her punches, and we're given glossed-over recountings of the acts rather than anything truly graphic or smutty. Truthfully, Anne Rice does kinky sex much better in her Beauty series (which is also ultimately disappointing and can be mostly reduced to "Spank, spank, spank, spank, spank"); but if you want real visceral thrills and more enjoyable (for all participants) fantasy BDSM, you might be better off looking into the kinkier circles of fanfic-driven fandoms.

I'd say that To Serve and Submit also suffers from the usual bugbear around female characters, as other than Marja, her mam and Alga, the women are venal, vicious, petty, and evil (one of the women being set up as most obviously the Big Bad for the sequel), yet the men suffer similar character assassination unless they are set up as romantic foils (in which case they are truthful, stalwart, honest, and angsty). All the characters are, in effect, one-dimensional. Marja herself reads like a submissive's Mary Sue: loved by everyone, horribly abused, but able to rise above it all with just a thought. The fact that she has no personality, however, mitigates this, making it fairly easy to ignore her in favour of what little plot there is, as she is more a conduit than an actual character.

Everything occurs in To Serve and Submit in shorthand, which is its greatest downfall. Yet despite my better judgement, and the fact that this is, in truth, a lukewarm adventure at best, I found myself carried through the pages by a need to know how much lamer the whole thing was going to get. This novel is a very easy read, and complete candy-floss for the brain. The lingering descriptions of new lands and new ways carry the latter half of the book, which would fall flat on its face otherwise. I must admit, I have the sequel, A Pound of Flesh, on order, and fully intend to read (and eviscerate) it as well; this must be my love of badfic kicking in.

One final, throwaway note. As pretty as the cover is, and as much as that is what made me pick the book up in the first place, Marja is not an ash blonde, and it annoys me deeply that the cover artist couldn't be arsed to find that out. Thanks a lot, Mr. Ward. How hard would it be to give her the appropriate colour hair? Really? ( )

The first volume of a two-volume erotic fantasy series, set in a Regency-like milieu.