Sally Bend's Blog, page 39
June 23, 2023
Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.
While you’re on Amazon, if you’d like to support my stories, could I kindly ask that you give these a read/review?
Enjoy!
June 16, 2023
Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.
While you’re on Amazon, if you’d like to support my stories, could I kindly ask that you give these a read/review?
Enjoy!
June 13, 2023
The Night Mother by John Everson (erotic horror)
Title: The Night MotherAuthor: John Everson
Publication Date: May 29, 2023
Genres: Erotic Horror
Protagonist Gender: Male/Female
Fetishes: Femdom, BDSM
The first NightWhere novel is one of my favorite works of erotic horror, right up there with Clive Barker’s The Hellbound Heart and The House of Blood by Wayne C. Rogers. It was graphic, disturbing, arousing, disgusting, and utterly fascinating, all at the same time. Field of Flesh, the sequel novella, provided an entertaining new perspective on the otherworldly BDSM club, but there’s no question it left me wanting more.
Fortunately, 5 years later, we have The Night Mother, a full-length novel, to tie it all together. This is a direct sequel to the first book, which means Selena, Mark, and Rae once again take center stage (alongside favorites like Sin-D and Damia), but it also follows along from the novella, so expect to see our noir detective appear in a surprising role.
Although he beautifully outdoes himself here with some of the S&M-themed depravities, what John Everson has done that’s even more important is delve deeper into the mythology of NightWhere – angels, demons, creation myths, immortality, and all. We’re led to understand who the players are and who they were, why the club has Guardians and Watchers, and what happens when mere mortals are elevated above their station. There are consequences – deadly serious, apocalyptic consequences – to this third story that go far beyond relationship dramas or the fate of individual souls. There’s a battle for the very heart of NightWhere, and if it all goes astray . . . well, let’s just say it would be bad news for us all.
As for those relationship dramas, Everson gives us layers of intertwined love stories, some dark and some light, but all damaged in some way. While it’s the pursuit of pleasure and pain that drive the club, it’s something more than drives lovers. We’re privy to the best and worst of their motivations, but even the romance and vengeance must sometimes take a back seat to those consequences I mentioned.
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway – The Night Mother is not for the squeamish or the prudish. There’s dark, violent, sadistic, necrophiliac sex on display here . . . the insertion of toys, blades, fists, and snakes . . . showers of blood . . . and the spilling of ungodly amounts of cum. It’s brutal and messy, but also beautiful in its own way. There’s more than one scene over which I lingered, needing to read it again in order to digest the visuals along with the narrative.
Finally, whereas so many works of fiction are ruined by exposing the monster too much or too soon, we see exactly as much of The Night Mother as the story demands, enough to make us fear her (and fear the consequences of her obsession), but never so much as to risk making her familiar or commonplace. In fact, before I risk spoiling things best left to your own discovery, I leave you with a taste of how we’re led to know her.
There was something of heaven and hell in every taste of the eternal woman’s orgasms…The Night Mother’s secretions were sour as frozen-scream corpses dangled from rusted hooks, and intoxicating as a chorus line of oiled men ejaculating on women flaunting fishnets to their thighs but otherwise bare and glossed with sweat and the shine of piercings on the floor beneath them.
Bitter and beautiful.
Chapter Twenty-Three
June 9, 2023
Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.
While you’re on Amazon, if you’d like to support my stories, could I kindly ask that you give these a read/review?
Enjoy!
June 2, 2023
Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.[image error]
While you’re on Amazon, if you’d like to support the stories that mean the most to me, could I kindly ask that you give these a read/review?
Enjoy!
Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday - Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it's Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon's free reading applications.
While you're on Amazon, if you'd like to support the stories that mean the most to me, could I kindly ask that you give these a read/review?
Enjoy! © 2022 Bending the Bookshelf All Rights Reserved
May 26, 2023
Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday – Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it’s Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon’s free reading applications.
Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.[image error]
While you’re on Amazon, if you’d like to support the stories that mean the most to me, could I kindly ask that you give these a read/review?
Enjoy!
Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday - Putting the TG in TGIF!
Well, if it's Friday, then it must be time to bend our way into the weekend with Fetish & Fantasy Freebie Friday!
Every Friday I search through the free titles on Amazon, looking for those that might be of interest to similarly bent readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon's free reading applications.
While you're on Amazon, if you'd like to support the stories that mean the most to me, could I kindly ask that you give these a read/review?
Enjoy! © 2022 Bending the Bookshelf All Rights Reserved
May 24, 2023
Book Review: The Service Sub by B.J. Frazier (erotica, femdom)
Title: The Service SubAuthor: B.J. Frazier
Publication Date: March 29, 2023
Genres: Erotica
Protagonist Gender: Male
Fetishes: Femdom, BDSM
If you want to know what The Service Sub is about, then feel free to hop on over to B.J. Frazier's site and read the blurb - it tells you all you need to know. I'm not going to talk about the plot, and I'm not going to dwell on the characters. After all, anyone can put characters in a situation and tell a story. No, what I want to talk about is the emotions, because I had a lot of them reading this and, while anyone can tell a story, it takes something more (someone more) to make you feel a story.
Anticipation. Curiosity. Frustration. Anger. Amusement. Discomfort. Surprise. Satisfaction. Sorrow. Joy. And, finally, Contentment.
If I were to lay out an emotional roadmap for this story, that's pretty much how it would go. Anger is a tough one for me, but there's a character here, a rival to the protagonist, who I wanted to slap, smack, and strangle - not for challenging Pierre, but for his absolute disrespect towards Lady Crimson. Discomfort is an even harder one, especially because it was something I felt with both Pierre and Lady Crimson. There's a key theme of protocol woven into the story, and I cringed to see it tested, violated, and hotly debated on both sides. As a submissive, it was a difficult exchange to witness and not take sides.
Sorrow was something I absolutely did not expect to encounter in a story of this nature, but I'm not ashamed to say the tears were running freely through the last chapter. Some of them were sorrow and some were joy, but all of them were sincere. There are aspects of the finale I suspected, others I saw coming, and then others that hit like a sucker-punch to the gut. That final exchange between Pierre and Lady Crimson packed an emotional wallop that I daresay you're not prepared for either.
As for the final emotion, contentment, that's something sort of tangential, related to a secondary character, but it's a thread I was so . . . well, content to see tied off.
The Service Sub is an erotic tale of female domination, protocol, and the power exchange, but it's likely not what you're expecting. It's largely non-sexual, more psychological, but completely satisfying. There's genuine character growth here on all sides, and so many of those emotions I mentioned are only possible because of that growth. This is definitely worth a read.
Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
My sincere thanks to the author for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
© 2022 Bending the Bookshelf All Rights ReservedMay 23, 2023
Book Review: To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh (romance, transgender)
Title: To Drive the Hundred MilesAuthor: Alec J. Marsh
Publication Date: December 21, 2022Genres: Romance
Protagonist Gender: Transgender Male
Sexuality: Straight
To Drive the Hundred Miles is a story that explores gender, gender roles, and gender expectations from some interesting angles. In it, Alec J. Marsh tells the tale of a young man named Will who is returning home for the holidays and all the tense family drama that comes with it.
Will not only comes from a long line of grandmothers, mothers, daughters, aunts, and nieces, he comes from a witch's coven that celebrates the magic and power of femininity. His coming out as a trans man was especially hard for such a family to accept, and he still deals with those who question his identity and can't even bring themselves to call him by his name.
His one saving grace in this visit to small-town Serendipity is a young woman named Bea, a classmate that remembers who he was and accepts who he is. A friendship formed over strained family bonds soon grows into something more, but Will's discomfort with what the town represents, and the memories it holds, means their friendship can never be anything more. Or can it?
I loved everything about this story, from the characters to the setting to the themes to the exploration of ritual and magic. There are so many wonderful connections, and watching Will and Bea come alive through each other is lovely. I wish it handed ended so soon, and would love to read more of their story, but what's here is just about perfect.
Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
My sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
© 2022 Bending the Bookshelf All Rights Reserved
