Constraint

by Siri Ousdahl

Ten years ago, Alex Baine fell in love with Linnea Marr, a struggling young artist in a doomed BDSM relationship. Now he’s a very different man--rich, powerful, and someone who knows what he wants-- and when he he meets her again, he knows he wants her. But Linnea has changed, too: a successful sculptor, strong-willed, and solitary.

He kidnaps her and takes her to his remote mountain home, but taming her is more difficult -- and satisfying -- than he ever imagined. As Alex and Linnea battle their way through pain and desire, the war between their bodies transmutes into something even more dangerous. Elegant, brutal, passionate, romantic, Constraint is a dark love story for the ages.

Siri Ousdahl is the pseudonym of a multiple award-winning author.

Genres: BDSM, Erotica, Dark Romance, Dark, Fiction, Romance

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 23, 2016

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not sure that I can be as eloquent with my descriptions as other reviewers, but in plain English...this be good! It is an extremely well written book, almost poetic at times. There is a wonderful story that kept me turning the pages late into the night. This is obviously a fictional read, but it was realistic enough that it made each scene more vivid in my mind.

You know by the synopsis that the book is about a kidnapping done by a rich guy to a beautiful female artist (why are all these gals artists or dancers and why are all the doms rich?). Don't let this overdone storyline stop you from reading this book (said with emphasis). In fact, I would recommend reading the sample first and see if you get hooked in the story as I did. The story is similar in respects to some other books you may have read, but still very worth the journey. I don't stop reading good capture/fantasy books because of similarities and I don't stop eating good chocolate because of similarities...point made!

The characters are well developed and I actually liked the two main characters, despite the bad guy being bad. Okay, maybe I like the guy because he was bad... I like a strong feisty female sub (insert my picture here) and we get that in spades with this book. So you care about the characters, you root for the characters and you hope the characters will find their HEA ending.

So do I recommend this book? Absolutely! However, know going into this book that the story is told to you...think of a narrator reading a book to you. This doesn't prevent you from getting inside the characters heads or diminish the strong emotional pull you develop for the characters. However, (and this is hard for me to explain) it is erotic, but not in the sense of many porny books. For me, it didn't arouse me as much as I had expected given that I love non-con/dub-con books. It was like I was in the room watching all the action, but not the one tied to the bed and teased into lala land. So it was an enjoyable story, but just not the kind of book that made me want to read with a buzzing friend. Again, try the sample and see if you appreciate the writing style and story. I don't think you will be disappointed. I give this 5 "pull my hair and make me yours" stars.

[Willow Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly rec this book! But it's not going to be for everyone, and I'm not even sure what to say about it as I'm half in love and half...I dunno. It took me forever to finish, yet it's a shorter length. It's cerebral, brutal, touching, cold. Need to think on a review...

I think this may take a reread. I read it some time ago, but it's stayed with me - I think that says something for the MCs and the writing. It's beautifully written. And not a typical captor/captive story at all. The ending...that's the part I'm not sure about. I loved the ending, but maybe not how it was reached?? Ugh. I dunno...reread needed *shrug.

[Jewel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Constraint is a beautifully written novel, and the characters were fascinating to me, but I couldn't help feeling a bit emotionally removed during some parts of the story, which is why it doesn't get the full five stars from me. I also admit to being kind of distracted trying to figure out what award-winning author is behind this pen name, but while the writing style is familiar to me, I still can't put forth any good guesses as to who it could be.

I respect that Siri Ousdahl wants to keep her erotic fiction separate from her other work, it's just that I was reading an interview she did back in 2016 because I was wondering if she was planning a sequel for this book (that's a maybe, apparently) and she said that some of the people who read Constraint might recognize her signature writing style, and I'm just such a curious person. I can't help it. I find it funny to imagine that some famous author, whose work I might see at Barnes and Noble, is secretly writing dark romance.

(also, this has little to do with the book, but in the interview I mentioned, I loved the point Siri Ousdahl made about how women get sometimes blamed for reading transgressive fiction as if reading a fiction novel with immoral characters means you're advocating for that thing to happen in real life, saying, "It’s fiction. In what way is this different than reading book after book about a murderer? If someone is fucked up enough to think that an erotic novel gives them permission to rape someone, the problem is the rapist’s." I always felt it was extremely misogynistic to blame women for reading erotic fiction as opposed to the actual perpetrators who commit these crimes, so it was nice to see what I'd always thought but couldn't readily articulate described so succinctly. However, I did find her statement that she wrote this book in response to the "artificiality" of most of the dark romance genre unbearably snobby. Trashing almost the entirety of a genre seems arrogant and awful to me. There are so many wonderful authors in this genre.)

Overall though, I really enjoyed this book, and I was especially fascinated by the character Klee (she reminded me of Melisande from Kushiel's Dart), so I do hope she gets her prequel someday. The end scene was especially beautiful, and I found after closing this novel that the journey Alex and Linnea went through ended up being so emotionally satisfying and well done.

TW: non- con

[Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I approached this novel convinced it was literary fiction, and thus had expectations that differed largely from the result I was met with. The beginning of the story as well as the unfolding conflict were initially engaging, but lost focus very quickly, as new, redundant plots were introduced.

I don't want to go into too much detail, because I already wasted too much time on this tale as it is. The main factor that separates literary fiction from entertainment is that literature goes a step further, not only into the uncomfortable but into the inevitable realm, were consequences define the story. This here is a story entirely devoid of consequences, and stops at a point where the ending is less believable than a happily ever after in a fairy tale. Constraint disappointed because it never tried to be anything but a fantasy, and one I didn't care for, at that.

This was basically Captive in the Dark, only with much better writing. But style isn't everything, a purpose would be good too.

I just came back to this review after reading the introduction this book had one the publisher's website, where this is described as a "dark love story". Really? Really?????? You mean, a "dark story of delusions"? From an author who seemingly doesn't grasp the difference between sexual attraction and love or even stockholm syndrome and love? Nah thanks ~

[Clarice]

The writing style is too matter of fact to be sexy or suspenseful. Idk what this was supposed to be a thriller, erotica? Idk, but it wasn’t doing either very well. Books like The Collar Promises Forever by Bianca Howards or Bought and Paid For or If I Can’t Have You by Deathsdoll handle this concept much better in both departments.

[Terrance Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siri Ousdahl’s “Constraint” is mature literary fiction at its finest, masterfully conceived and exquisitely written, unflinching, dark, disquieting, boldly amoral, never judging its characters or coddling its readers. This story of dubious consent is handled with a seriousness seldom encountered in the BDSM subgenre, a refreshing frankness, trenchant observation turned acutely—and often painfully—inward. Safe, sane, and consensual this is not; dazzling, mind-expanding, and addictive it most certainly is.

It would have been easy (and no doubt commercially tempting to a less-imaginative writer) to turn this story into a two-bit pulp thriller, the like of which we’ve all watched or read a hundred times before: a beautiful woman is kidnapped by an eccentric and conveniently well-to-do admirer who holds her prisoner in an isolated compound somewhere in the wilds of Wyoming. Eventually the classic signs of Stockholm syndrome manifest themselves, and the woman stays with her kidnapper, even when afforded the opportunity to leave. It’s a classic case of what John Norman referred to as ‘captor bonding’, titillating grist for yet another episode of “Criminal Minds” or a drearily predictable Lifetime TV movie. That route certainly would have been easy and obvious. Thankfully, Ousdahl is no ordinary writer.

The beautiful woman in question is a gifted and successful artist, Linnea, who specializes in fantastically twisted sculptures, binding dissimilar woods together with metal rings, creating torturous, yet often surprisingly beautiful unities out of contradiction and chaos—does this sound like an elaborate literary symbol or what??? Linn is no Mary Sue; she’s hardly perfect, a loner who isn’t particularly missed after her disappearance, albeit strong-willed, driven, independent, and nobody’s pushover. The kidnapper, Alex, does cleave more closely to genre stereotype, wealthy but not impossibly so, a long-ago casual acquaintance of Linn’s who has obsessed about her for ten years, and now commands the means to make his twisted fantasies come true. He is, of course, involved in some vague form of international finance, which affords him the opportunity to travel. Alex has explored the kink scene on three or four continents. He is accustomed to getting what he wants where sufficient cash buys blind-eyed complicity and unwavering discretion.

Yet beneath this broadly-outlined mass-market paperback blurb of a plot is something unexpectedly original. The material is handled with surprising seriousness and magnificent poise. The characters are psychologically complex and almost always interesting—more often than not because we *don’t* agree with them, or like the way their minds work, or approve of the actions they may or may not choose to take. Ousdahl does not treat her characters like pawns on a chessboard. She consistently refuses to judge them, or manipulate the reader through them. The author skirts the morality of the situation—a hint of doubt flitting through Alex’ mind, a word caught on the tip of Linn’s tongue—but never confronts those issues head on. (This may well infuriate some readers.)

In the past I have complained about writers casually flirting with darkness, psychologically unprepared for the horror and ugliness they awaken in themselves. Here, at last, is a fearless fiction; an author who not only embraces the darkness, but ties it up, bends it over, and makes it their willing slave.

Enthusiastically recommended!

[Greyling54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Constraint to be beautifully written and a compelling story. Part of me is disturbed by it as well. Linnea goes from one captor, Alex, to another, worse captor, Klee, then back again, and now willingly kneels to Alex. One reviewer mentioned it would be interesting to have a book about Klee. To me, the only interest I would have in such a book would be if what Klee did to Linnea were done to Klee. Sure, he's the lesser of 2 evils, and he does a few things to indicate she's free to go when she returns to him. But even in fiction, relationships that begin with kidnapping don't sit right with me. Or perhaps it's when the fiction is as real as this feels that it's problematic? So much of the dub-con/non-con stuff that's around is so obviously fantasy and lightweight as far as the writing goes that I don't feel like I have to take it seriously. (I'm talking here about the stuff that has an HEA, as opposed to the stuff that's really far down the con to non-con continuum.) But Constraint feels so real to me, because of the writing.

Otherwise, I wish someone had done a better job with the proofing/line editing. I found it needlessly distracting at times. Also, it's very expensive, which probably contributes to its few reviews which I interpret as low sales.

[T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ending drove me mad.

Few-Days-Later-Edit (no spoilers included...ok, maybe the ending spoiler included):

Writing:
If I was rating the style and delivery only, I'd rate around 4 stars purely for the unusual, almost too lofty of a language of the writer. It was different, and mostly I liked it (I'm partial to bracketed text myself, oops), but sometimes the disparity between the language and the theme was a bit jarring. But, overall, I was pleased with the style, with no grammatical mishaps, spelling errors and such, which seems to be more rare in this genre than it should be. And I'm saying that as a foreigner; a non-native to English. If I spot your mistakes easily, you've got some shitty editors and proof-reading going on, all right. Luckily, this wasn't the case. So there's that.



The actual plot and book:
What...started for me with mild interest after finishing Gaijin by Remittance Girl (which I really like, prose and plot and ending) and reading her praising review for this book, I went on a 2 day battle with Amazon trying to obtain it in a region banned to anything naughty (which costed me two accounts, thank you very much).

The beginning was promising; sadly, it plateaued very quickly into an incessant BDSM intercourse that I started to skim through quickly and a lot in favour of the actual plot (that could be probably shrunk to mere few pages overall). I was cheering the heroine on when she made her first serious move (even if the freezing bit seemed a little exaggerated, coming from a country with sub -20C being on the winter table quite often), and hoped that the book will continue in a sensible way; but no, it didn't. In the second half it just dips so deep into nonsense and needless abuse and violence with no real clear purpose that it almost made me DNF, but that'd be forgivable - if the plot actually served anything other than establishing that the acquired Stockholm Syndrome for her original abuser was 'actually love' and to contrast one abuse with another, so getting dragged out of a triple hell and remaining in single hell was seen as some kind of happy ending. It wasn't.



It wasn't. I don't mind no happy endings. I don't mind pairs breaking, people dying at the ends of books like these; it's almost expected. And if there's a 'happy ending', I expect to put forth some suspense of disbelief, really. And that's fine. But this. This book. The ending was so unsatisfying, abrupt, nonsensical and, and, and~ It just made me really sorry for those 2 accounts I have lost at Amazon for this endeavour.



I liked your writing style (mostly), Siri Ousdahl; but for a purportedly award winning author, your book surprisingly didn't deliver at all.

[Reader B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siri Ousdahl’s Constraint is probably going to cause some controversy. Since I’ve given it five stars, you can guess how I feel about it. It is only fair to say that it is not for everyone--but what is, in erotica? It begins as a kidnapping story, of which there are plenty of others out there, some quite successful – yet no others I have read (and I’ve read a few) display such artistry in their craft, in their knowledge of the arcana and specifics of BDSM, in their insight into darker desires.

If *mutual satisfaction* in erotica is important for you, then Constraint does indeed deliver. Oh God does it ever. I’ve seen several references to Stockholm Syndrome in reviews of this novel, here and elsewhere – the wearing down of a kidnapping victim’s resistance, their eventual identification and bonding with their captors. But I think that misses the point, in this case. It becomes apparent early on that Alex, the wealthy financial trader (no, this isn’t another billionaire erotic romance) who has desired Linnea for a decade after losing touch, actually gives her what has been missing from her meandering and unsatisfying, though in many ways successful, life, despite her anger and resistance.

And resist she does. Linnea is no submissive fragile flower, not one to give in. She is smart and strong and she fights – hard, at every demand, every encounter. Yet she responds with very intense arousal. She cannot help it, even though she is angered by her own reactions.

I responded with intense arousal as well. If Linnea did not respond so, this would be a very different book, a very unenjoyable one. But from the safe distance of the page, wow, is it pleasurable to watch it all happen, to read their complex, contradictory thoughts. This novel is masterfully hot.

Constraint approaches poetry in its delivery, in its craft of writing, even when it delivers some pretty dark erotica. If dark fantasies, realistically and beautifully written, are what get you going, Constraint is the book you’ve been looking for.

[Emmanuelle Maupassant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Constraint pulls no punches. It is a tale of violence and humiliation, and our natural response is outrage. The early phases of the story are written clearly with the intention to arouse this reaction from us.

It is from this position that Siri Ousdahl unwinds her story: back and forth, through past and present, presenting us, readers, ready to judge and condemn, with knots we must unpick.

What should be simple is not, because we are human, and to be human is to be a creature of paradox.

Siri Ousdahl achieves remarkable psychological depth but not only this: she uses language electrifying in its beauty, and shapes metaphor expertly, to reveal layers of meaning.

For example, in her sculpting of contrasting, yet harmonizing materials, we see the visual representation of what the female protagonist desires for herself: bondage and forced compliance. ‘The twisting shapes hint at lovers entangled ankle to throat’, bound by fine steel wire, brass straps, clear glass bands, rough rope knotted. We are told that ‘wood f***s wood’ and that the scent is ‘musky, human’.

Later, we read that Alex and Linnea’s bodies are a ‘sculpture’, representing ‘blood and hunger’.

As we enter deeper into 'Constraint', we’re given insight into the mind of Alex, and the subject of his fixation, Linnea. Neither are as they seem and, as the story unfolds, the contradictions within their natures are made more explicit.

A central theme of the story is our inward battle: our desire for self-determination and our wish to surrender some part of ourselves, to forfeit control, to allow another human ‘under our skin’, even (or sometimes, especially) where we know that surrender has the power to harm us.

My interview with Siri, discussing 'Constraint', on my site: www.emmanuelledemaupassant.com

[Jesper · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's worth reading simply because it's different from all the other typical BDSM-kidnap-slave-love stories out there, and that is commendable.

The writing is quite unique, and it takes some getting used to. But it's good!

The ending? Not sure. I would have liked a more original ending I guess. It seemed almost plain in some way.

But a most interesting read.

[MK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm how did I feel about this story? It definitley checks off the "Guy is obsessed with girl and captures her for his own nefarious purposes" plot. It was very erotic. But the actual story didn't really deliver. The story was also written in a different writing style than I'm used too. Not bad necessarily but I'd be in the middle of one scene and then the characters would start referring to something that happened the previously and it became a little confusing.

Other reviewers said they didn't like the ending so I was expecting some plot twist they live happily ever after. Which yes, it was kind of an abrupt ending. Honestly, it felt like she was chosing the lesser of two evils.

Review below gets spoilery. Watch out.

Alex has this crush on this girl Linn in his 20's. He knows her boyfriend and the bf tells Alex that Linn is into some BDSM. So Alex falls in love with these fantasies of her but then she abruptly moves away and he doesn't think about her for the next 10 years. Then while on a business trip he runs into her and all the lust and torment he felt for her years ago returns. He just knows by her artwork that she is horny for a BDSM relationship.

So he kidnaps her and keeps her at his secluded house. Linn has some moments of trying to run away and thoughts of suicide but in the end she knows there really is no escaping Alex. She still puts up a fight though. Finally one day she breaks Alex's arm. There's another dom that Alex knows named Klee who has been offering to "train" Linn for him. After Linn breaks his arm he's like "maybe this is for the best" and he ships Linn off to this new Dom.

This new Dom is a pyschopath and horrifically traumatizes Linn with her other sex slaves. It was pretty messed up. Especially because Linn kind of liked it? But def did not want to perform these acts with the other slaves.

Klee wanted to keep Linn for 2 weeks but she fast decides that 2 weeks is not going to be enough and in fact, she doesn't want to return Linn to Alex because she knows he'll allow Linn to misbehave and if she's going to train Linn she wants her to go to a new master.

Well by day 10 Alex is like "Actually I want her back. I don't care that she broke my arm, I love her spirit." Obviously there's some tension as Klee does not want to let her go but Alex pulls a gun and rescues his damsel in distress.

So the last scene of the novel is basically Linn chosing to stay with Alex by dropping to her knees and assuming the "slave" position that Klee taught her. It's her show of obedience to Alex? I dunno.

Here's the thing though, this girl has been through a lot of trauma. She no longer gets to make her own decisions and she went from a loving task master to a very cruel one. OF COURSE! She's going to chose him at the end. That's how trauma decision making works. But what about him giving her her actual freedom? It wasn't really logical.

[Crevele · Rating 5 out of 5]

With her abundant literary talent, Ousdahl transforms the standard Fifty Shades/365 Days abduction plot into a thing far more troubling and difficult pin down. This is accomplished through a subtle but thoroughgoing linguistic demolition, on a sentence to sentence level, of the many clichés by which we regularly understand, as well as regularly subvert, the nature of and the difference between the consensual and non-consensual encounter. The story of Alex and Linnea, for Ousdahl, seems to move at a deeper level than what these categories are capable of encompassing. The reader, like the characters, becomes fretfully suspended between these dichotomies as their relationship moves towards its invariable climax. In our reckoning with Alex and Linnea—is Linnea being destroyed? Is she being reborn? Is she slowly dying? Is she living for the first time? Does Alex, for that matter, really have a choice about what he is doing? Or is he compelled by some inner necessity of his own being? The author creates an indelible impression of how these contradictions are ‘synthesized’ in the combinatory experience of their relationship. This plays out through their complicated sex life also through the everyday negotiations that constitutes a new kind of everyday life for the two of them. The texture of this everyday life, with its peculiar pseudo normality—its intermingling of danger and triviality, its great depths hidden beneath calm surfaces—is the most original and indelible impression created by this book how such a thing might be.

For all this intractability, Ousdahl is, ultimately, committed to a positive ending for her characters. The battle of the sexes turns out to be more than a zero sum game. But we are still left with a disturbing feeling of the great and terrible and compelling shapes wrought by the recessive inner workings of desire.

[Sinclair · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had trouble with the non-consensuality, but it is a fantasy, so.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so well-written (a rarity amongst erotica) that the absurd plot line actually kind of pisses me off. Absolutely beautiful, almost breathtaking descriptions that utterly immerse you in the story. But I'm honestly just so tired of the whole tall dark billionaire dom stereotype, which is why I'm not giving 5 stars. Really liked the female protagonist though. The fight against her desires and struggle to accept the situation actually felt genuine. She felt very real—the male protagonist, not so much (but still a better depiction than 99% of erotica on the market). Overall, highly recommend if you're not especially bothered by non-consensual BDSM fiction.

[Steelwhisper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Review to come when I can rack up my nerves.

[Flow · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn’t get into this book. I don’t know why.

I read about 60% and had to put it down.

It switched persons point of view, to the females and males.