Anchored Blog Tour: Book Review – Anchored: Belonging Book One by Rachel Haimowitz
[image error]Welcome to the Anchored: Belonging Book One Blog Tour! I'm thrilled to be a stop on this tour. I enjoy discovering new to me authors and was excited to receive a copy of Anchored from Ms. Haimowitz in order to review the book. This story, set in an alternate contemporary universe where pleasure slaves are the norm and there's a definite line between the haves and have nots, blew me away, to say the least.
Yesterday, authors Alan Chin and Marie Sexton hosted a Q & A sessions with author Rachel Haimowitz. If you missed them, you can check them out here: http://alanchinwriter.blogspot.com/2011/01/anchored-blog-tour-featuring-rachel.html and here: http://mariesexton.net/rachel-haimowitz-anchored
Today's next stop will be at Coffeetime Romance Blog, where Rachel will have multiple advertisements on display from the alternate universe she's created for this series. You'll want to see them: http://coffeetimeromance.com/CoffeeThoughts/
Be sure to check out the other tour stops and leave comments in order to win some great prizes! Those who leave a comment here today will be in the running for the following:
1 eBook copy of Ms. Haimowitz's Counterpoint: Book I of Song of the Fallen OR of Sublime: Collected Shorts (winner's choice).
1 swag pack of goodies featuring cover art from Anchored and Rachel's other works.
On with my REVIEW:
[image error]A little about Anchored:
Network news anchor Daniel Halstrom is at the top of his field, but being at the bottom of the social ladder–being a slave–makes that hard to enjoy.
Especially when NewWorld Media, the company who's owned him since childhood, decides to lease him on evenings and weekends to boost their flagging profits.
Daniel's not stupid; he knows there's only one reason a man would pay so much for what little free time he has, and it's got nothing to do with his knowledge of current events. But he's never been made to serve like that before, and he fears he won't survive the experience with his sanity intact.
He finds himself in the home of Carl Whitman, a talk show host whose words fail him time and again when it comes to ordering Daniel to bed. Daniel knows what Carl wants, but it seems as if Carl isn't willing to take it, and Daniel's not willing to give it freely. His recalcitrance costs him dearly, but with patience and some hard-won understanding, love just might flourish where once there'd been only fear and pain. Can Carl become the anchor in Daniel's turbulent life, or will he end up the weight that sinks his slave for good?
What I think of this book:
I'm amazed by Ms. Haimowitz's world building, in that she breathes life into a world of pleasure slaves and their owners. Fascinating indeed.
In Anchored, Daniel's a slave–one not kept properly, despite having anything he could ever dream of, including a great job as a news anchorman with the company that owns him. Daniel's never known a life other than one of a pleasure slave, so though he feels pain and fear and frustration, most times, he chalks them up as part of the territory. Through it all, he maintains a desire, an ounce of free will that has never been able to be crushed by any owner. He longs to be something more, have something more, maybe, someone… and this longing is what gets him in trouble with his corrupt owners.
Enter Carl, rival anchor with a rival news company. He's paid a hefty sum for Daniel's privileges, and he's set on getting his money's worth.
What I found most fascinating with this story was how the differences in slave ownership highlighted can be compared to the old adage of luring flies–this story proves through the interaction between Carl and Daniel, however, it's not always easier to lure flies with honey if the flies have been fed nothing but shit their entire lives. There were some major growing pains between the new master Carl and the slave Daniel, which Daniel paid for in ways that left me shocked (**Warning: some violence *forced sex* in this pain/comfort story is NOT for the faint of heart), but the events are necessary for the plot and set up the ending.
I enjoyed Carl's slaves, Jane and Dave, a couple in Carl's keep. Jane especially is a complex character and her role and her guidance in helping Daniel assimilate into his role under a loving master–as opposed to the ingrained role he's learned under the worst of masters, including those from his early childhood–is top notch. I would love to discover more about her and see her in future stories.
But Carl stole my heart. I understood where he was coming from, his longing, his adoration, his impatience with his purchase, and in truth, despite Daniel's own longing and desires, other than wanting to see Daniel rescued from a life of hell, I think I secretly routed for Carl to come out the winner.
In all, I'm intrigued by the relationship dynamics and world building in Anchored, and I'm anxious to read the next book in the Belonging series and anything else for that matter by author Rachel Haimowitz.
About the Author:
[image error]Rachel is an M/M erotic romance author and a freelance writer and editor. She originally dipped her toes into cable news and book publishing, decided the water was cold and smelled kinda funny, and moved on to help would-be authors polish and publish, write for websites and magazines, and ghostwrite nonfiction.
Her first novel, an M/M fantasy erotic romance titled Counterpoint: Book One of Song of the Fallen, released in August 2010 with Guiltless Pleasure Publishing. Her second novel, an M/M alternate-history erotic romance titled Anchored: Belonging Book One, released January 17 with Noble Romance Publishing. Her third, Crescendo: Book II of Song of the Fallen, will release in the fall of 2011. In between, Rachel is writing shorts and novellas, including the M/M BDSM collection Sublime: Collected Shorts, and a not-yet-released cyberpunk novella titled Break and Enter, co-written with Aleksandr Voinov.
You can find Rachel tweeting as RachelHaimowitz, chatting in the Goodreads forums, and blogging at Rachel-Haimowitz.blogspot.com. She loves to hear from folks, so feel free to drop her a line anytime at metarachel (at) gmail (dot) com.
Tomorrow on the Anchored Blog Tour:
Read a review and character interviews with Jane, Dave, Tim, and Eric Foster at Amara's Place & Reader Q&A, Part III with author Rick Reed
If you missed out on any of the other blog tour stops, you can view the entire blog tour schedule below:
Complete Anchored Release Party Schedule: http://rachel-haimowitz.blogspot.com/p/blog-tour.html
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