Review of Dark Silence (The Bound Subject #1) by Katze Snow

by Katze Snow

3 stars

Claude Galen was brought into this world to train slaves, not to want them.

When his latest victim, a twenty-one-year-old boy named Tristan Kade, begins to see Claude for who he truly is, only one thing can be done to stop Tristan from escaping: punish him.

Trapped in a padded white room with no windows or doors, all Tristan can do to stay alive in this world is to obey Professor Galen.

Submit to him.

Yield. Break.

But what happens when Tristan's body is trained to work against him? When he starts to crave the pleasure instead of fear it? When he begins to see the man behind the monster?

With it being Halloween week we delved right with this Dark Thriller ……romance – not really, from Katze Snow.  It is a dark, psychological erotic thriller and, although satisfied the dark we felt it missed the building of connection between the main characters.  We enjoyed it, we think, but left us felling a bit sad, and wishing the second book was here already.

What did we love?

-      -    If you are looking for a Dark read, pick up Dark Silence.  There is kidnapping, sexual exploitation, torture; it is twisted and sadistic in parts.  But, not to say anything is too much, we didn’t find ourselves putting  it down because it was too much (unlike some Dark reads that we have had to stop reading!).

-     -     We really enjoyed the set-up of the story, the part before Tristan was kidnapped.  There was great tension that kept us flipping the pages just to see how this would all play out.

-     -     Connection to Tristan.  To be honest we felt for Tristan, Katze Snow builds a likeable character in Tristan and we really did like him.  We felt the horrible things Claude subjected him through and wanted to wrap him up and take away all the hurts.

What took away from the story?

-        -  Editing – call us snobs but poor editing, or continuity takes away form a book, it takes us out of the story.  There are quite a few examples of bad editing, or continuity issues; he was wearing PJs and then the next page, his jeans are getting too tight – hmmmm.

-       -   Tropes – there are a lot of tropes going on here.  Virgin, closeted, struggling with his sexuality, and add that to the human experiments subplot, daddy issues it was a bit much.

-       -   Character Development – we feel in this Dark genre that there needs to be a serious connection between the kidnapper and the one being tortured.  And we struggled to find that.  We didn’t feel that Claude made any choices to lure Tristan over to being submissive, rather just kept pushing and pushing at Tristan’s boundaries.  WE just didn’t feel the connection between these 2 men, and subsequently we truly didn’t feel the push/pull struggle of Tristan wanting and hating Claude at the same time. Claude had no charm and we didn’t feel lulled by his attempts to woo Tristan into doing what he wanted.

-       -   The End – yes, we know that this is a series, but ugh, the end just snuck up on us and we were left feeling wha???????

Dark Silence is the first in The Bound Subject series.  It is and interesting read, dark, yes, but doesn’t push too many bounds.  The one reason that we read Dark Romance is the idea of Redemption that however bad things are there is hope.  But, with it being a continuing book series we didn’t get the satisfaction of a wrap of other the story and it has kind left us feeling a bit wounded.   

Review of Bred for Love by Revella Hawthorne

by Revella Hawthorne, pen-name for SJ Himes

4 stars

In a world where humans are genetically designed, altered and sold for sexual pleasure and breeding, a young prince of the powerful Cassian Dynasty decides to take a mate and sire heirs. Not wishing to saddle himself with royal and meddlesome in-laws, and a wife he would have no desire to bed, Prince Edward goes to Heritage Breeders, and finds far more than just a warm body to sate his lust and carry on his lineage.

Percy is the result of a master DNA architect designing himself his own personal sex slave and breeder. Yet when his creator and Master dies, leaving Percy alone at the mercy of the callous stable masters and the new owner of Heritage, he fears his future. Afraid he'll be bought by a wretched old man or a deviant monster, Percy is terrified when he is dragged from his cell and presented to the most prestigious client Heritage has ever welcomed...a Cassian Royal.

Prince Edward is immediately infatuated with the shy, nervous and enchantingly beautiful Percy, and claims him for his own. Yet not everyone is pleased by a royal purchasing a breeder, especially one like Percy, and tensions rise both in Heritage and in the palace.

Torn between desire, duty, a king's command and the innermost desires of their hearts, Edward and Percy are set on path that is anything but easy. Can Percy trust Edward with his heart as he does his body? Can Edward keep an angry king and unseen enemies away from the young slave who is steadily stealing his heart?

And what happens when Nature takes its course, and sex leads to more than just pleasure?

At 160 pages, Bred for Love could be a short story, but there is so much going on that it really feels like a full length novel.  We liked this story, but were really fascinated with the world, the fantasy.

Prince Edward is a Cassian Blood Prince, but since he has older brothers who have provided heirs to the throne he find himself not willing to get married to produce an heir, and instead turns to Heritage and procuring a breeder to carry on his line.  While perusing the merchandise at Heritage, Edward meets Percy, unlike other breeders, has been built to have conscience thought and be a companion for his mate, not just to produce a child and be stabled afterward. 

See, sounds like a pretty easy story, but throw in self-lubrication,  breeders just to produce heirs, male pregnancies, sex-slaves and poof, our mind was blown, and actually kept us reading because darn, we were just fascinated. It felt like every page turn brought us to another weird revelation, or another head-scratching tid bit of this fantasy world.

 But, let’s talk the relationship between Edward and Percy.  The idea of a breeder is simple; buy a breeder, mount, repeat until they produce and offspring, they are stabled and then repeat  process when you want another child.  Edward goes to Heritage with this intention, but finds Percy; shy, sweet, beautiful, and Edward wants to take care of him, and they soon find themselves falling in love – ahh, insta-love.  It feels a bit like a shifter story, with the alpha/mate connection. 

We didn’t particularly like Percy, he was meek, subservient, and docile, never meeting anyone’s eyes, but he is essentially a slave, and acts as one should.  And if he cried one more time we might have just hit him! We wish sometimes he would stand up for himself a bit more, or grow a backbone, but again being a breeder put him as a certain level in this society, and we felt that looking through our perspective , we just didn’t understand where he was coming from some times.  The breeder thing made us a bit itchy as well.  Percy self-lubricates (umm, yes) and the sex is very vigorous, descriptive, explicit, and HOT.  But, fair warning, there is a lot lot lot of sex.  So much for such a short read. 

Honestly we couldn’t put this book down, and read the other 2 in the continuing story the next day, there is a flow to the writing, it grabs you and keeps you, folding you in this weird world.  It is easy to read and ends on a satisfactory note that you want to pick up the next books.