If you've read my posts before, you know that I'm a fan of Candace Blevin's writing, so when she was concerned that one of her new books might be too extreme, my curiosity was engaged. She kindly sent me a beta copy and here's my review. And my disclaimer: this book is full of trigger-potential material and thus so is the review. If anything is the realm of sadomasochistic sex is uncomfortable to you, I strongly suggest you skip the review and the book.

It never would have occurred to me that I'd describe a book with extremely sadomasochistic BDSM scenes as comforting, but I sort of found it that way. The majority of this book focuses on the development of the relationship between the sadist who spends of a lot of energy reining himself in and the maso-slut who continually walks the line between her needs and her safety. There is enough external drama to set them up to meet, but it doesn't drag out. In the development of their relationship, they are both very self-aware and what could be fraught with craziness is relatively smooth.

They talk; they have crazy, filthy sex; and they figure out what works. And when I say crazy, filthy... I genuinely mean it. This is a TPE relationship with consensual rape (which I know is a disputed term, but it gets the point across), water play, edge play, blood play, basically all the physical extremes and intentionally high levels of damage. Which isn't completely out of the norm for Candace's books, but it stands out because the masochist is human and not able to repair damage like a paranormal creature would.

Khan is, in fact, an evil genius. I love fictional Doms, who lean hard into the psychological aspects of BDSM, in a way that's sadly lacking from most IRL. When Tempe feels the shaved scalp I actually groan-laughed out loud, because it was the perfect touch.

I've said it before, if a scene is well-written, I can get into it, even if the specific activities are outside my personal interests. I love self-aware characters and although this relationship is full of situations that could easily lead to drama explosions, it doesn't. That's why I found it a comforting read - there were no artificial moments of craziness just to expand the plot. The adrenaline all comes from the high-stakes sex. ( )