Liz Everly's Blog, page 75

Three Words of Horror: High School Reunion

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by Madeline Iva

(Kiersten is still away).

According to The Zombies it’s the time of the season for loving! What I love is no longer being in high school.  Doh! But now there are those hellish reunions to duck, avoid, or attend in a ball of seething vengeance.

Or–instead you can read OFF THE RAILS Isabelle Drake’s latest book. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon and comes out October 27th.

Here’s the blurb:

Book one in the Make Me Over series

High school reunion—three words that threaten to derail Madison’s life. Now she has only eight weeks to find the perfect guy, the perfect job, or a way to pretend she has the perfect life.

Madison is less than thrilled when the invitation to her five year high school reunion arrives. When she refuses to RSVP with a yes, her best friend Tia reminds her of a pact they’d made—they’d use the reunion to show up everyone from school. But Madison can’t show up anyone. She isn’t the super famous superstar she’d bragged that she’d be. She’s an unemployed singer with no boyfriend and no job. Her only option? Find a way to fake the perfect life.

Eight weeks isn’t much time. But it is long enough to get drunk and enter a bikini contest, redefine the term date-from-hell, get caught in an awkward ménage and win a bar fight. But will all this bad behavior help Madison snag the blond, blue-eyed geek who was foolish enough not to notice her in high school? No matter what it takes, she’s going to find out.

Sounds like a wild version of Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion, doesn’t it?

Best. Movie. Ever!

I myself was almost exactly identical to Janeane Garofalo’s character Heather Mooney when I was in high school, only instead of the Justin Theroux cowboy hanging out behind the high school, I had a college guy show up on motorcycle one night.  Ah, high school is not for the faint of heart.

Best o’ Heather Mooney:

Friends, Romans, People Scarred By High School this is the first book in Isabelle’s new Make Me Over series.  (Which is a brilliant idea for a series–simply brilliant.) After you pre-order the book,  follow us at Lady Smut where we don’t need a make over because to paraphrase Mark Darcy, you like us “just the way we are”.

Sexy Saturday Round-Up

Hello fall frolicking folks

–hope you’ve had a busy but fulfilling week.  We’re here this weekend to celebrate/mourn the passing of nudes from Playboy, and to thrust forward a bunch of other fun links for your weekend pleasure.  So get that pumpkin spice latte and kick back!

It’s Queer Romance Month! Let’s celebrate.

Speaking of gender-bending, here’s Constance Leathart: the forgotten aviatrix. 

Tired of campus shootings? Open carry of dildos on Texas campus creates controversy.

I only read it for the articles: Playboy’s nudes are going buh-bye.

Apparently, Playboy taking away the nekkid pictures is all about the ‘new masculinity’, yo.

This one goes out to Liz Everly — it’s the kind of article she used to post on SSRU and I miss her. Sigh.

5 Ways to Tell You’re writing in the wrong genre

Think Ronda Rousey is bad-ass? We do too.  She’s taking on the Patrick Swayze role in Roadhouse, playing a bouncer.  

 

My sex life may be “vanilla,” but I’m still kinky, and so is my new BDSM erotica book Dirty Dates

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

When I saw my essay about my sex life in the October issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, I was, naturally, overjoyed to have a first byline in a magazine I adore and subscribe to. But a second, less welcome thought threatened to crowd into my exuberance—I was nervous. I’ve never shied away from publicly detailing the most intimate details of my life, but what gave me pause was wondering whether, by confessing that my current sex life is, to use the modern parlance, pretty basic—one position, every time—would I be damaging my reputation as a lover of spanking and kink?

This was especially important since I have a new book of BDSM erotica, Dirty Dates: Erotic Fantasies for Couples, coming out on my 40th birthday, November 10th. I didn’t want to be seen as a hypocrite, capitalizing on the popularity of kink while living a vanilla life. But the more I thought about that, the more ridiculous that fear sounded. Here’s why:

1. Just because my sex life may not sound “kinky,” and may not be, for the most part, I’m in the best relationship of my life. My boyfriend is the first partner I’ve ever lived with, and that commingling of our lives has brought numerous changes into my life, some challenging, some wonderful. I can take the time to take care of myself, and him, and our relationship, in ways I’ve never been able to with exes. His constant support, even though he’s far more private than I am, has given me the stability to focus on my writing in a way I never have before, and actually get published in magazines like O. Our relationship constantly surprises, delights and teaches me, in the bedroom and outside of it. I don’t need it to fit a certain model to be exactly right for who I am as an individual.

2. I’m still me, still the same woman with filthy fantasies I’ve been putting on paper for 15 years. I probably always will be. One fallacy readers make with any kind of fiction, but especially with erotic fiction, is that an author’s work always stems from their personal life, directly or indirectly. The idea that someone might sit down at their desk and create fictional tales about fictional characters seems to get lost in our desire to pin down what exactly those words “mean.” Well, I call bullshit on that. Yes, plenty of my stories have been inspired by real life, like my dishwashing fetish story “Doing the Dishes,” but I still carefully craft and curate every aspect. Even the characters who look and sound and dress like me, like “Rachel,” the protagonist of my very first erotic story, “Monica and Me,” are not, in fact, me.

3. My job as an anthology editor extends far beyond my personal preferences. I would be doing an injustice to my readers if I selected stories only because they dovetailed perfectly with my own personal kinks. Instead, the job of an editor of a book like Dirty Dates, as I see it, is to select a combination of kinky stories that will appeal to a range of readers, whether or not they personally practice—or fantasize about—BDSM. I want the stories to stand on their own, as stories. Yes, they are explicit and racy and deeply, deeply kinky. But they are also stories with a beginning, middle and end, the same as any other stories. There’s no checklist of personal experience to write erotica, and those who’d make that assumption fail to understand that words on a page have to live and die by the strength of their meaning, not their creators’ personal lives.

4. Lastly, I want to talk about what being “kinky” means to me. It extends beyond what I might do in the privacy of my home on any given day or night. For me, being kinky—which is a word I identify with, although labels are really not my favorite thing to attach to myself—means letting myself explore the ways I get off on power, submission, dominance and erotic pain. Sometimes I play with those elements in overt ways, sometimes more subtly, and sometimes not at all. But that’s still there, even within a framework that might sound “boring” to others.

Stay tuned for Dirty Dates week right here on Lady Smut, starting November 9th. You can also follow the book on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr; I promise, there’ll be plenty of kink.

The Cross-Dressing Duke: UNTAMED by Anna Cowan

by Madeline Iva

I’ve always thought androgyny is hot. And call me crazy, but given the right circumstances, I find a cross-dressing man is also a really sexy turn on.

So it should be no surprise to you that I just adored this historical called UntamedUNTAMED by Anna Cowan.  Adriana Anders recommended it to me, I pounced on it and snabbled it down in one day, enjoying it prodigiously.

What’s so cray-cray gender whack about this historical romance? We start off with an unfeminine heroine who has rough hands to go along with her crooked nose.  She’s stuck in a ball room, hating life.  Things are tense back at her London residence for her younger sister’s brute of a Scottish husband is on the warpath.  Baby sis has been sleeping with a duke, and husband is not pleased, to say the least.

Her sister, meanwhile, is trying to hook Katherine (Kit) up with all the eligible men on one hand–men that our heroine could care less about–while trying to keep her from meeting the enchanting, unhappy duke.  But they do meet and Duke Darlington is really just our heroine’s cup of tea.  They end up striking a bargain.  Kit will take the duke back to her house in the country where her mother and brother rough it, if the duke stops sleeping with her baby sister.  The duke breaks it off with the sister, and away they go…

Heh-heh-heh.  No, it’s not at all that straight forward.

I mean, it is, but there are a few little complications that gum up the works:

The duke goes off into the country dressed as a woman named Rose, posing as a cousin to the duke.
Rose is afraid of the dark, (seriously, the duke has issues with being alone in the dark) so Kit, our heroine, must share a bed with her.

A cross-dressing duke! Be still my heart.  I loved this book.  I found it to be wild, and sometimes not as historically authentic as one might wish, but compelling nevertheless.  (Note: cross-dressing DID happen in the 18th century from time to time.)

Untamed

Click to buy.

I liked the twisty relationships of Kit’s family.  I liked those “I really see you” moments of passion and romance between Kit and her duke. (Alexis Day was speaking about just this “I see you” thing earlier this week.)

I haven’t read any historicals in a long while (that friends didn’t write) and I’m very, very, very picky. But there’s even more gender-f*ckery that happens later on in the book, and when it did, I wanted to stand up and clap my hands, shouting ‘bravo.’

For anyone who enjoys romances and all their sometimes silly tropes, but occasionally frets that

so many heroines are meekly self-sacrificing
the hero must be a foot taller than the heroine and hung like a horse
there must be alpha-male hero ass-hattery where he’s ordering everyone around/knows best, etc.
everyone is rich
dukes are littered across England like cows in a field etc, etc,

— this book is kind of a way to have your cake and eat it too. Yes, there’s a duke.  And in this book, yes, the heroine is totally focussed on saving her sister’s marriage–at first.  But it has that thing where the hero and heroine are able to navigate pathways into each other’s souls where no one else has ever tread before.  There are a few more big surprises along the way, but that pathway into another’s heart is at the juicy core.  And that’s, I guess, to me, is what romance is all about.  Everything else is totally negotiable.

Judy Davis and a star studded cast rock it in the highly entertaining if historically dubious IMPROMPTU

I mean, sometimes I worry: who is this reader who likes the 6′ 5″ alpha man and the skinny heroine who just wants to please others? Is this me? Kinda.  Yeah. But do I need that kind of thing to enjoy a romance? Because I do enjoy it. UntamedUNTAMED proves to me I do not need it to enjoy a romance.  Whew!

Romances don’t have to be conventional or follow conventions to be great.  (Though it usually helps sales.) Also they’re such fantasies–being so cray-cray makes that as clear as if they were written out in day-glow ink.

Do you like any cray-cray romances? Do you have any to suggest?

Follow us on Lady Smut.  We’ll bring bizarre fun right into your email box, six days a week.

Why Do We Keep Falling For Their Lies?

By Elizabeth Shore

A close male friend once told me, “All men lie to women.” Say what?! I didn’t believe him. Not outright, anyway. I mean, sure, some men lie. Sometimes. Some women lie, too. Sometimes. But the way it was presented to me made it seem like a never-ending, epidemic string of lies men are constantly telling us, and that we constantly keep falling for. That’s not true. Right?

Then I came across a recent article from our friends at askmen.com called Top 10 Reasons Men Lie To Women. I read through the list. I became a little ruffled. Then a lot annoyed. Because if you read through this list, it seems as if women are nothing but incredibly irritating, demanding and irrational human beings from whom the only survival mechanism for men is to lie and lie often. Tell them what we want to hear and not – heaven forbid! – the truth. Because, as Jack Nicholson pointedly shouts in A Few Good Men, “you can’t handle the truth!”

 

In this case it’s we women who allegedly can’t handle the truth. That’s pretty much, anyway, what the askmen.com article suggested. It was so annoying, quite frankly, that I couldn’t decide whether the writer was doing a tongue-in-cheek piece or if he was actually serious. Right off the bat he says that lying is a “fundamental” part of a guy’s life. Sheesh. O-kaaaay. Then he goes on to proclaim that women are too “sensitive” to handle knowing when our guy does something his way, that we’re “mood-changing” and “confusing,” and that ultimately they lie to us to please us.

Although this justification makes us sound like unreasonable idiots who are impossible to live with, I can accept that a little of it is fair. For example, we really should never, ever ask whether an article of clothing makes us look fat. I mean, let’s be real, what’s the guy supposed to say? Certainly not yes. Even if it’s, you know, the truth. He’s between a rock and a potentially enraged woman, is our guy. So to save himself, he lies. That’s pretty much what the askmen.com article is saying. It’s just too damn difficult to tell us women the truth so among a guy’s arsenal, he includes lying to his gal as a useful – and frequently used – tool. Basically, guys just don’t want drama.

As I dug a little deeper around the whole “why do men lie” question, a lot of the information mirrored the askmen article. Men lie because they don’t want to hurt our feelings, they want to get out of doing stuff, they can’t deal with drama around the truth, and they want to impress us. But one article offered up another reason that I thought was interesting:  Men lie to women because there’s no perceived upside to telling us the truth. Here’s exactly what the author wrote: “If you want the truth and honesty, find a way to reward that behavior, not punish it by putting him through hell.”

I’ve been told repeatedly by men that guys are really very simple creatures, not the complicated, mysterious beings that we women are. And it doesn’t justify their tall tales, their fibs, their damn lying. But I have to ask, knowing what we do, that if men often and repeatedly lie to us, why do we – intelligent humans that we are – keep falling for it? Is it at all possible that we want to be lied to? That, in fact, we actually can’t handle the truth?

What do you think? Male and female perspectives wanted. Really, I’m not lying. I’m also not lying about telling you all the fun reads you’ll get from following us at Lady Smut, so don’t forget to hit that follow button.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dead Right: Going Ship Crazy with The Walking Dead

Do NOT lose this lady’s Tupperware.

By Alexa Day

On Sunday, I enjoyed a long overdue reunion with some old friends. I’ve stuck with these folks through some hard times and some harder times. We’ve shared laughter and tears, and I miss them terribly when they’re not around.

That’s right. The Walking Dead is back.

Here’s your warning up front. If you haven’t seen the season six premiere, you will want to find something else to do. This post is basically wall-to-wall spoilers.

Still here? Awesome.

I don’t know if it’s absence making the heart grow fonder or what, but something about Sunday’s episode has me thinking about all the fabulous potential for shipping.

Let’s start with Richonne. Really, that’s the beginning and the end for me, right? I still think Rick and Michonne are perfectly suited for each other, for the same reasons I set out a long while ago. I don’t get what Rick sees in Jessie, a resident of the walled community in Alexandria. Jessie’s basically been preserved from the chaos that defines the reality Rick and his family have gotten used to. Personally, I think that makes Jessie a less effective long-term partnership candidate. She’s not going to know how to deal with him, and the two of them are not going to be able to parent each other’s kids. But it looks like Jessie realizes that. After shooting her husband Porchdick Pete in the face (I know, awkward, right?) and then taking his body to a desolate area where he did not intend to bury it, Rick suggested that he and Jessie should slow things down a little. I bristled at first — slowing things down indicates to me that things were moving at one point, and that isn’t what I want at all. But it looks like Jessie is starting to see that Rick isn’t going to fit in with her sheltered existence. Good thing Michonne is around.

Before last week, I’d have stopped with Richonne, my ultimate TWD ship. But the new season has me thinking about a lot of new and different things.

Sure, Jessie’s good for a moment’s distraction, dude, but who checked you out when you were all unshaven and disheveled?

Before now, for example, I was all set to see Carol paired off with unwashed-but-still-hot redneck Daryl Dixon. They’re actually very well suited for each other. They’ve seen some unspeakable things and been involved with Bad People — and that was before the zombie apocalypse. Separation from their families and their respective grieving processes have quietly drawn them together. They’re emerging from identities created by loved ones who didn’t really have their best interests at heart, and as they come out into the light together, each of them really sees the other. This is my favorite thing about romance: the way each character looks at the other and says, “I see you. I see you.” That kind of nakedness and vulnerability is going to change the game for Carol and Daryl, and I was so ready for that to happen …

Until Morgan saw Carol.

Morgan has reappeared in the story after a bit of an absence. He was one of the first people Rick encountered after awakening in the post-apocalypse world, and when they came together again, neither of them was in an optimal state of mental wellness. Now that they’re back together, Morgan’s brought a strange but refreshing world-weary optimism to Alexandria. Morgan understands the human condition all the better for being brought low by loss and isolation. In kind of a weird nod to Rick’s last encounter with him, Morgan is clear. He might be the clearest person in Alexandria just now.

Carol, for her part, has been so far undercover as one of the happy homemakers of Alexandria that it looks like she believes the charade herself. In her cardigans and florals, bearing casseroles with a broad, friendly grin, Carol hasn’t given anyone any indication that she’s the sort of woman who would blow up half a town to liberate her friends from cannibals. As far as Alexandria is concerned, Carol is a whiz with cookies and party planning, without a trace of BAMF about her. The only people who know differently are the late, unlamented Porchdick Pete, who needed to have the truth laid out for him in no uncertain terms, and Morgan, who saw right through her facade in a matter of seconds.

One look at Carol, and Morgan sees who she really is.

He sees her. He sees her.

I still think Daryl is better for Carol. But this is interesting. Isn’t it?

And what is happening with Abraham and Sasha?

Not so long ago, Sasha had lost her brother Tyreese and her lover Bob, and she responded, understandably, by pushing people away and taking unnecessary risks. She’s not done grieving by a long shot, so I can see what made her volunteer for the most visible part of Rick’s dangerous plot to protect their newfound home.

But what’s gotten into Abraham?

He’s definitely all about Rosita (I’m ashamed to say I don’t always recognize her without her booty shorts on), but he seems to be opening up to Sasha, too. He’s checking in on her. He’s curious about her feelings. He made her smile. He even told her a war story of sorts.

I raised my eyebrow when I saw all this. What’s this about?

Maybe Abraham recognizes the dark place to which Sasha’s retreated because he was there once himself. Eugene and his fabricated mission saved Abraham then. Is Abraham trying to keep Sasha from falling deeper into the abyss?

Or have I gone ship-crazy? I will admit that the summer has been tough. Scandal‘s been driving me crazy. I might just want to see someone happy.

What does it all mean? Work it out in the comments.

And follow Lady Smut. We see you.

Horror Flicks With Freaky Sexual Chicks

Welcome funky bat-folk! It’s October and we’re getting our Halloween-y on here at Lady Smut.

Kiersten is away this week, but today we’ve doused ourselves in pig’s blood in honor of the lovely G.G. Andrew blog post about the battle for control over women’s bodies and sexuality represented by a handful of freaky horror films. Take it away, G.G! 

Thanks Madeline —

A short but growing list of horror films in the past two decades have focused on women’s sexuality—and I’m not talking about movies where some topless girl gets slashed to shreds. The movies I mean have all tackled female sexuality head-on, revealing the complex thrills and terrors, power and danger inherent in sexual awakening. If you’re looking for something feminist along with freaky this Halloween, here’s a quick watch list.

Carrie (1976, 2013)

Both versions of this horror classic based on the Stephen King book start with a period horror story: Carrie, raised by her religiously severe and abusive mother, finds herself menstruating for the first time in a locker room full of girls who taunt her with the famous “Plug it up! Plug it up!” while throwing pads at her. Though traumatic, Carrie’s late, bloody entrance into puberty sets into motion the awakening of her telekinetic power. This growth into her power is especially well done in the 2013 version with Chloe Grace Moretz in the lead, though you can’t beat Sissy Spacek’s turn as Carrie for her depiction of the girl as powerful yet unbalanced and dangerous. (Teens should have telekinesis, like, never.) Carrie’s strength climaxes at another female rite of passage, the prom, when she is once again bathed in blood but full of power as she destroys the town that has hurt her. Watch it when you’re on your period and harboring revenge fantasies.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

The themes of blood and menstruation continue in Ginger Snaps, a werewolf tale that has since spawned a sequel and prequel. Two goth sisters, obsessed with death and suicide, find their relationship transformed when a werewolf bites older sister Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) on the night she finally gets her period (“the curse”). The once close-knit sisters find a rift growing between them as Ginger starts dressing sexier and spending time with boys—oh yeah, and growing a tail and killing dogs. The shyer, younger Brigitte (Emily Perkins) suspects Ginger is transforming into a werewolf, but everybody—their mom, the school nurse in one hilarious scene—attributes Ginger’s behavior and physical symptoms to puberty. Becoming a woman is not unlike becoming a werewolf: there is blood, pain, external changes, and internal rhythms. Brigitte tries to help her sister, charting Ginger’s menstrual cycle for times she’s most sexually and physically aggressive. “She’s ovulating!” she shouts at a boy to warn him of the danger. Watch this movie with the person who’s most likely to determine whether you’ve become a werewolf—and still have your hairy back.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Sexual awakenings and complicated female relationships turn witty in the Diablo Cody-penned Jennifer’s Body. Needy (Amanda Seyfried) has always played second fiddle to her more popular, sexy, bossy best friend Jennifer (Megan Fox). But when Jennifer is stolen away by a band of “agents of Satan with really awesome haircuts” fronted by evil Nikolai (Adam Brody), things gets a bit demonic. The band assumes the popular girl is a virgin, but she isn’t (“not even a back door virgin”), and their sacrifice of her has unintended consequences—namely, as meek Needy soon learns, it gives Jennifer a fondness for seducing boys and eating them alive. Jennifer-as-demon is insatiable, forceful and terrifying, and the depiction of her with the guys reflects, as it does in other horror, our culture’s discomfort with sexually-aggressive women. Needy’s struggles with Jennifer are also real to anyone who’s had a friendship sour, and her scenes with her sweet beta boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) add a nice counterpoint. Watch the film when you want to grieve a toxic relationship from your past, or to remember the words that begin the movie: “Hell is a teenage girl.”

Scream (1996)

Wes Craven’s unconventional slasher film broke new ground with its sharp humor, Drew Barrymore cameo, and meta-commentary on horror tropes, including the trope that staying a virgin means you’ll survive in a scary movie. While high schooler Sidney (Neve Campbell) is still grieving her mother’s brutal death, she’s targeted by a psycho killer who massacres everyone around her, often after giving them a creepy phone call. (Remember cordless phones? Yeah, people used to use those.) At the same time, Sidney is under pressure from her boyfriend, Billy (Skeet Ulrich), to have sex, but she’s been afraid of turning into a “bad seed” like her adulterous mother. But maybe the fear runs deeper. “Now you’re no longer a virgin. Now you’re going to die. Those are the rules,” one character says to her at the end. Yet as Scream twists other genre tropes, so it does here—often hilariously. Watch it if you’re trying to figure out if he’s The One—or just, you know, possibly a psycho killer.

It Follows (2014)

It Follows takes the sex-is-danger idea a step further. In it, college student Jay (Maika Monroe) sleeps with the nice guy she’s been dating…only to wake and discover he’s given her a sexually-transmitted monster: a creature that can transform itself into any other person and will stalk and kill her—unless she has sex and passes it on to someone else. Though it seems like it would lend itself to Jay desperately banging her way to safety, the movie is more realistic and subtle at first (and freaky; did I mention freaky?). Much of it involves her trying to survive within the protective circle of her sister and friends, including the cute and nerdy Paul (Keir Gilchrist), who still has a thing for her—yes, even with the sexually-transmitted nightmare on her hands. Watch to remind yourself that a real man would take a monster from you.

G.G. Andrew is a writer of quirky romance, including the goth rom-com Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish . You can find out more at her website or where she’s skulking on Twitter as @writerggandrew .  

 

Sexy Saturday Round Up

Welcome pumpkins! We’ve got some gems for you here that will help you suck the marrow of pleasure out of your weekend.  Enjoy!

From Madeline:

Check out India’s Sex Temples

Denmark is desperate for singles to start boning on their vacations.

What is greysexual?

Inside the world of a macrophilia amazon woman.

What? No more skeezy hipster ads? American Apparel files for bankruptcy.

What happens when this one woman starts talking to guys who hit on her in the street.

By Elizabeth Shore

The Walking Dead Season 6 begins on Sunday! Whoo-hoo! Get yourself in a good-ol zombie mood with this amazingly cool trailer.

Has sex evolved?

Say it isn’t so! There’s a pumpkin shortage.

eBook piracy – how to make it stop.

The sex toys of the future are here.

 

 

 

 

 

The drink for bad girls…

From Isabelle Drake

Is there any better combination than a sexy guy and the perfect martini? Even better if that guy is handsome, charming, fictional and creates a martini and names it after you. Bonus? You aren’t a good girl who does everything right. You’re a double agent who gets to travel the world, do naughty things and look great while doing them.

Yum.

Double yum.

James Bond’s famous “shaken not stirred” martini, The Vesper Martini, is named after Vesper Lynd, a character first introduced in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale. Despite her poor treatment of him, coming in the form of her being a double agent who assisted in his kidnapping, he continues to think about her. Super-secret badass spies have a weakness for smart, tricky women. If you’re a up for a good time, watch Casino Royale and its sequel, Quantum of Solace, back to back.

While you are watching, you’ll need a Vesper in hand.

The obvious question…if you were a badass spy (maybe you already are) what would you want your drink to be? A cocktail with a complicated mixology? A beautifully shaded red wine? A crisp white? Or maybe a hard to find craft beer?

Tell us. Here at Lady Smut these things matter.

FOR REAL is the Best M/M Erotic Romance EVAHHHHHHH!

by Madeline Iva

Short version: For RealFOR REAL is a m/m BDSM erotic romance by Alexis Hall.  You have here a smaller, younger dom (think Ben Whishaw) and an older, taller hunkier sub. Go buy it.

Seriously –it’s a great romance, it’s got great sex, and great BDSM.  The writing is (I kiss my hands.) I mean, it’s superb. Click For RealHERE to go to Amazon.

Long version: Raving here.

It’s so very romantic and sweet – and yes, filthy.  Like Charlotte Stein—if she wrote m/m.

I still consider myself a new reader of m/m. Read some Daisy Harris in the past and was like ‘aw, so sweet.’ At the same time, I’m eyeballing how much sticky fluid mop up is required at the end of every sex scene.  (Like: wow.) Yet this book was not just best m/m I’ve read, I think it has to be the best BDSM book I’ve ever read as well.

Why? Well, I really liked the characters – physically AND emotionally. Laurance is a 38 year old sub, suffering the slings and arrows of being dumped by his One True Love.  At this point he is so dead inside that every kind effort from others to engage with him is much more a torture than a kindness.

Toby is Ben Whishaw cute

Toby, a puckish would-be dom who’s all of 19 on the other hand, brings an infectious energy and spirit into Laurance’s life.  They’re perfect for each other, but the age difference and Laurence’s eviscerated heart makes him put brakes the brakes on.  Hard.

Yet Toby climbs the barricades to Laurence’s heart.

We adore him for doing so, even though he’s got his own suitcase of insecurities to manage.  We also adore Laurence as he patiently guides Toby through various new levels of BDSM in a mature and calm way.

We watch Toby bring Laurence alive again, and find his way with his kink, learning the complicated wrinkles of BDSM.  There’s everything from the tricky stuff with rope tying to club politics.  Yet it wasn’t all wide-eyed newbie protagonist as a blank slate stuff.  Alexis Hall explores the contradictions of Toby’s life and paints a rich, interesting history that gives Toby his pliant strength and spritely energy.

I’ll admit I’m often a fence sitter about BDSM. Yes, when it’s good it’s yummy-yummy.  But. Sometimes the emotion drops out of BDSM-y parts.  Suddenly the BDSM seems clinical, or the romance aspect is lost entirely.  When these moments happen, I don’t know, I feel like I lose the humanity of the characters, and I even get creeped out a little.

Not so in this book! Not ever. There are excellent depictions of the core need for BDSM in the character’s lives, there are excellent presentation of the juicy power plays between the guys with just plain sex involving nothing fancy, no props.  Then there is a well done depiction of the lovers escalating their sex life together by trying out all the toys the big boys use.

So at a certain point, one is getting the full on BDSM experience – there’s snowballing, something called an anal hook, and even a glancing mention at sounding (which if I didn’t have Adriana Anders as a friend, I wouldn’t even know what that was.)

I don’t even wanna know, really—and you might not either. Yet Alexis hall has written these scenes so well that if you kinda don’t wanna know, you can read right past it or over it.

The most OMG moment comes when they’re in the kitchen and Toby is making a pie at the same time he’s using an implement on Laurence who’s tied up on a table.  You can read this scene on two levels – one level where you keep your readerly focus on Laurence sucking lemon curd from Toby’s from fingers, skating past the references to the anal hook, and then if you google anal hooks (okay, I finally just had ta) you can read the scene on another level where Laurence is preoccupied by the metal sexual implement Toby decides to use on him.

But what I loved best is the romance between the two.  I loved their sex in bed.

I loved it –(waving hands…without words to even express how much)– just loved it.

For RealBuy it.

Meanwhile, follow us at Lady Smut where we lurv male male smut as much as the next gal.