Vampire Mistress (Vampire Queen Book 5) by Joey W. Hill

 

I chose not to read Vampire Mistress when it first came out because I was aware that Vampire Mistress would give us the first half of a story that would be completed in Vampire Trinity. I waited for Vampire Trinity to come out, so I could read the entire story once I started it.

Unfortunately, I'm not attached enough to these characters that I feel the need to read Vampire Trinity right away. I have an ARC of Venom that arrived this morning, and I'm going to read it, and possibly a few other books, before I begin Vampire Trinity.

Some of Joey W. Hill's books work for me in just about every way possible (Rough Canvas, for instance). Others just don't. And there were some word choices this time that jolted me out of the story, things like "not ungently", where I have to do the math and remember that a double negative cancels itself out so she saying it was done gently. This showed up several times in the form of "not un_____ly", and each time it annoyed me and pulled me out of the story.

Here's the blurb, then I'll talk about what worked for me and what did not.

Sometimes desire can work three ways...

In May 2010, Joey W. Hill returns to the dark and seductive landscape of her Vampire Queen novels as a desperate woman finds herself trapped between the desires of two men, each with his own mission of the night.

Gideon Green is a hardcore vampire hunter. But in the past year, his only family, his little brother, became a vampire queen’s servant – and then a vampire himself, giving Gideon a different view of the vampire world. Since Gideon’s sole purpose for over a decade has been killing vampires, the violence that has scarred his soul now haunts his conscience.

Then he crosses paths with a sexy BDSM night club owner, Mistress Anwyn. Their connection is immediate and intense, but she has a silent partner--the vampire Daegan Rei. When Anwyn is viciously attacked and turned by a rogue vampire, Gideon and Daegan join to protect her through a dangerous transition. As the bonds between the three of them draw tighter, Gideon faces an unbelievable truth...that the path to meaning in his life may be found in surrendering to the desires and needs of two vampires.

I think I'm going to start off here by talking about the writing elements:

The pacing was terrible. Way more telling than showing, and so much contemplation and inward searching I was tempted to start glossing over those paragraphs. I think there was possibly more contemplation and psych type stuff than there was action or dialogue. One of Ms. Hills strengths is her ability to show emotions, and have her characters deal with a whole lot of crap and then come out okay on the other side. But it wasn't there for me with Vampire Mistress. Based on the reviews on Amazon I think I'm in the minority, but... there it is. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, and there were times I almost set it aside to read something else.

The dialogue was good, no problems with that. Like I said, it was the inner searching stuff that had problems, and there was just so much of it. But prose was... a bit too wordy at times. I know authors are supposed to really describe everything, and give us all five senses as much as they can. But some of the descriptions were overdone for me.

Character development, for Joey W. Hill, wasn't all that good. I usually fall in love with her characters, and I did not. I like them, but not enough to feel the need to pick up the next book right now. For another author I would have said character development was okay but not great.

World-building is pretty consistent with other books in this series, and it's well done.

The plot was, well, it was predictable. It's a good plot, and a nice way to have a BDSM menage with a male Dom, female switch, and male sub/slave. The characters are strong, each with their own issues to deal with (of course), and they mesh nicely with the story.

I feel like I've talked only about what I didn't like, so I'll point out what I did like: the world building, the conflict expressed between vampire and the vampire's humanity, the camaraderie that Gideon and Daegan find when they begin to find the things they have in common instead of focusing on their differences. I loved that the first time this really happens, for something other than Anwyn, was when they were talking about weapons.


BDSM elements:

• Bondage and Discipline: Yes, though not all of the bondage is done with a BDSM purpose. We see the promise of some discipline towards the end, but until that scene it's not really a part of the story. I'm wavering between a 1 and 2, but I think it's a  2 of 3
• Dominance and Submission: Yes, but it's complicated. And the submission isn't given (for most of the story) because the person wants to submit, but because... well, I don't want to give spoilers, but he submits (or rather, believes he submits) for reasons other than that of a man who wants to submit, so I can't give it a 3. The Dominance is certainly there, but the submission parts need some work. 2 of 3
• Sadism and Masochism: Not really.  0 of 3
• Extra Point: No

I'm going to have to give Vampire Mistress a 7 of 10. I plan to read Vampire Trinity at some point, and I hope that it makes me feel better about Vampire Mistress than I feel at this time.

There are a couple of really nice (i.e. hot) scenes, but overall the Heat Level is only a 2 of 5 for me.  All in all, I was really looking forward to Gideon's story, and I find myself disappointed by what I've read of it so far. I have been such a fan of Joey W. Hill that it pains me to give a bad review, but I've gotta be honest. So...

• Book Rating:Vampire Mistress: 7 of 10
• BDSM Intensity Level: 4 of 10
• Heat Level: 2 of 5

1. The Vampire Queen's Servant
2. The Mark of the Vampire Queen
3. A Vampire's Claim
4. Beloved Vampire
5. Vampire Mistress
6. Vampire Trinity

.

Memorable BDSM Books

 
Just starting out with a new BDSM book review blog, I've been debating about how to play catch-up. I'm reviewing books as I read them, but what about the books I've read in the past? The ones I want everyone to know about, and the ones I want to rave about. The books and stories and series I want to share, to make sure others find them, too.

I don't think I can do a good review of them without re-reading so they are fresh in my head. So what to do? How about I just make a list of the books I've read in the past that stick out in my mind?

First there are the classics, like:

• Story of O by Pauline Reage
• The Beauty Series (The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, and Beauty's Release) by Anne Rice writing as A.N. Roquelaure
• The two Molly Weatherfield books (Carrie's Story and Safe Word)
• Mr. Benson by John Preston

Then there are some nice Urban Fantasy type books, like

• Chaos Magic series by Jay Lygon (Chaos Magic, Love Runes, and Personal Demons)
• Soul Mates series by Jourdan Lane, even though this one is more Urban Fantasy than BDSM, it's still got a lot of elements of BDSM. 
• I also always seem to remember Calendar Boys - October: Trick Of Silver and On The Ragged Edge Of The World, a little duology by Jamie Craig that nicely integrates Urban Fantasy with D/s. I'm not sure why it sticks in my mind, as I don't remember it having anything memorable as far as BDSM went, perhaps it was the depth of characters.
• One that's kind of hard to find now is Obedience Training by Mya -- an incredible BDSM story and it just happens to also be a wonderful Urban Fantasy story, with a few new critters creatively thrown into the mix. I wish she would write a follow up story, I loved the characters and want more of them.

There are also the other-planet type series, like:

• The Velvet Glove series by Sean Micheal
• Morgan Hawke's Interstellar Service & Discipline series (Victorious Star and Fallen Star) - both of which are incredibly hot. Humanoid life forms from another planet who have two penises.... need I say more?
• What Worse Place Can I Beg In Your Love? by Syd McGinley

A few that are very realistic, like:

• The Deviations series (1. Deviations: Submission, 2. Deviations: Domination, 3. Deviations: Discipline, and 4. Deviations: Bondage) by Chris Owen and Jodi Payne. A fifth book is in the works, entitled Safe Words, but no word of a release date yet.
• We mustn't forget the Nature of Desire series by Joey W. Hill (Natural Law, Ice Queen, Mirror of My Soul, and what could be the most touching BDSM romance story I've ever read: Rough Canvas)
• The Hammer series also probably fits here, but the entire series as a whole isn't as well put together as some of the others. 

The books in the above category are all a part of a series, I'm sure there are plenty of single titled realistic BDSM books that should be listed, but the series books are the ones that tend to stick out in my head.


Sometimes I'm up for a good capture/kidnap type book. Both of these books are by Claire Thompson. They are not for everyone - they are both rough, and should be kept in the realm of fantasy. There is no safe, sane, or consensual in these books.

• Frog: A Tale of Sexual Torture and Degradation 
• The Toy 

Others are harder to explain but they've stuck with me, like:

• Butterfly Unpinned by Laura Bacchi and Bonnie Dee 
• Dark Angel Sounding by Habu - this one is pretty short, IIRC, perhaps I will read this one again so I can properly review it.
• Possibly even the Dr. Fell series by Syd McGinley. Perhaps it should go into the realistic section, but for some reason I have a hard time putting it there. 

I would probably not have given every book listed here a 10 of 10, but I'm listing them because the stories have stuck with me over time. Of the books and series listed, my favorite is probably the Deviations series, followed by all of the classics I listed in the first section, then the Joey W. Hill books I listed (you'll note I didn't list the whole Nature of Desire series), then Morgan Hawke's Interstellar Service & Discipline series, Syd McGinley's What Worse Place Can I Beg In Your Love?, and Obedience Training by Mya. Next would come Butterfly Unpinned by Laura Bacchi and Bonnie Dee, and Dark Angel Sounding by Habu.  Dark Angel Sounding is very dark, but the tone of the book, the way it's told... it's stuck with me over time and I've read it a few times.

There is actually another very dark book that has stuck with me (and is another that is hard to find): Keep You by Cindy Rosenthal. It's a story of two boys (young men, but mentally they are boys in many ways, though men in others) who got lost somehow, boys on the outside of society who sell their bodies to survive, who join together and survive as best they can. It's another of those stories that I didn't enjoy all that much while reading it, but I couldn't put it down, and it's stuck with me, even years after I read it. And it's the best explanation I've read of that itch you get when you just need a good flogging, and then how it feels to finally get the itch scratched flogged.

I've realized that I have a whole lot of M/m books listed. I actually prefer M/f scenarios, but as it turns out, a lot of the M/m stuff delves deeper into the BDSM psyche. Is it because you can skip the gender issues of Man as Dom and woman as sub when it's M/m? Or is it just that men can be rougher with each other? Whatever the reason, oftentimes the M/f stuff is more BDSM Lite, while the M/m stuff jumps right in without apologizing. That is not always the case, I can quote lots of books where it isn't... but most of the time it seems the M/m BDSM doesn't feel the need to tread as delicately as so much of the M/f stuff. And, as it turns out, BDSM isn't about gender, it's about people exchanging power... and about sex and love and trust. It goes beyond gender.

I think that my first M/m book was Rough Canvas by Joey W. Hill. It is still, in my mind, one of the best BDSM love stories, ever. Not just the best M/m BDSM love story, but the best BDSM love story no matter the gender make up. It's a seriously good book.

The Deviations series delves quite deeply into a BDSM relationship without the romance. That's not to say there aren't feelings there, it's just not terribly romantic. I love the way the relationships progress, even though for a while some of it makes me uncomfortable. Not the BDSM, I don't think any of the BDSM made me uncomfortable... it was the feelings involved, the emotions. I also love that the submissive is clear on the difference between a Dom and a bully and the difference in Dominance and abuse. And it shows that Doms sometimes make mistakes, and it's the submissive's responsibility to safeword when that happens. It has some rough points, but it is very realistic and beautifully written. I can't wait for the fifth book, and will probably re-read the first four books before jumping into the fifth.

Some of the books I've mentioned here I have reviewed on my Book Series Review blog. I've linked below to the books I've reviewed over there:

• On The Ragged Edge Of The World by Jamie Craig
• Soul Mates series by Jourdan Lane
• Chaos Magic series by Jay Lygon
• Butterfly Unpinned by Laura Bacchi and Bonnie Dee
• Deviations Series by Chris Owen and Jodi Payne
• Nature of Desire Series by Joey W. Hill

This is not, by any means, a comprehensive list of the BDSM books and series that I've enjoyed. It's just a list of what immediately came to mind.


.