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Author Topic: review: Willing Sacrifice (Knights of the Board Room #6) by Joey W. Hill  (Read 1938 times)

Offline lulu7005

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Book: Willing Sacrifice (Knights Of The Boardroom #6)by Joey W. Hill
Genre: BDSM Femdomme
Published year: 2012
Rating: 2 out of 5 (**)
The blurb:
Janet Albright prefers her men submissive, her relationships confined to a club environment. Which is why her attraction to former Navy SEAL Maxwell Ackerman doesn’t make a lot of sense. There isn’t a submissive bone in his muscular body, suggesting her interest in the man is best indulged as a private fantasy.

When a crisis situation reveals different sides of them both, the attraction becomes mutual and undeniable. Janet and Max take the plunge, willing to see if the give-and-take of their unexpected relationship can satisfy their deepest desires. Until ghosts from their past emerge, threatening to destroy the delicate balance of power before their love can find a way to tip the scales.

My Review:

"If you figure out how to put a collar and leash on me, Mistress, I’d rather you chock me with it than take it off.”

"He wasn’t sure if it was the right play, but that was the deal. Certain things couldn’t be a game for him at all, honest or not."


With the prologue, the book started with a 4 stars feel. Then it slided to a 3 stars, but still with the potential to become a 4. When I reached the half or so, the story started to piss me off so much that it dropped to a 2 stars (the 2 stars were for Max).

But then this happened:
Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.

Then:
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?!?!

If I wasn’t already 95% through the book at that point it would have been my first DNF.

I’m giving it two stars because of Max and also because the last scene could have been so much worse. But fortunately Janet saw the light. Just like that, after being a manipulative stone-cold selfish bitch all through the book, she suddenly had an epiphany.

It’s been a very long long time since a book made me so angry.

I love reading romance mostly because of the relationships between the heroes and the emotions that go with it. In a healthy relationship there is give and take from both parts (not just on the sexual level). Janet and Max relationship was so unbalanced it was plain wrong.

I usually don’t like it when the heroines are Domme, I can’t explain why but to the exception of one book, each time I have to read a scene when the heroine is on “Domme” mode I can’t help but roll my eyes. But here the hero isn’t a sub, so I was curious to see how the relationship will unfold and evolve. Also, I knew Max from the previous books and he’s a character I already liked a lot.

"That had been the goal with every woman he'd ever had beneath him. Giving them both what they wanted. At least for that one moment."

"Come for
me, baby" he murmured into her ear. "You're driving me fu*cking crazy. Trust me with it."

As the title announces it, in such a relationship compromises can’t be skipped and giving the cover of the book I hoped that the “willing sacrifice” would go both ways. But no. All the “willing as well as debatably willing sacrificeS” were from Max’s side.

Debatably willing because there is a huge difference between doing something willingly and being “forced” to do something. All the times, in the book where Max indulged in Janet Domme’s demands, he was acting willingly. But when Max who definitely isn’t a sub and a pretty private man put himself in the hands of a sadistic mistress who will ultimately very publicly “done everything to debase and humiliate him.” This is no willing act but the desperate behavior of a man who wrongly believes he deserves to be punished and because he also hopes that this will make Janet react. And why does he believe he deserves that and chose that particular kind of punishment? Because of Janet’s stone-cold bitch selfish behavior. And then, what does she think? “No one but his Mistress had the right to do that.” Someone kill me!!!

All the book is about what Janet needs, what Janet wants and when and how she gets it. She knows without a doubt that Max isn’t a sub, but does that knowledge stop her? Make her wants to alter her routine? Consider other ways? No. She wants him but on her own terms.

“You’re no one’s boy toy, Max.” Dale gave him a serious look. “Are you trying to convince yourself you are, just to get what’s behind her whip and boots? That doesn’t work.”
“You can’t see me in collar and leash?” Max asked, arching a brow.
Dale Snorted. “Yeah right. Sorry, man. I had to ask. There are a few mistresses out there who are convinced every guy wants to be Dominated, and if a guy says he doesn’t, he just hasn’t met the right Domme to do it. That’s not the case, any more than every woman I meet wants to be my sex slave, more’s the pity. However, those kinds of Mistresses can be pretty convincing, especially when her target is thinking with his dick. Which, admit it, happens to the best of us.”


Janet uses his SEALs training practice and his willingness to please her to have Max play the sub for her. Always up to a challenge, Max obliges her and never complains, even when one time after he gave her 3 orgasms she left him with blue balls for a week. Fortunately, he also uses those moments to indulge himself in any way Janet allowes him. Because even in those moment where he is sexually in charge it’s because she allowes it and on her own terms. Max is simply too much a gentleman and a man of honor to not stop if she demands it what ever it costs him and she knows it (the blue balls are a good proof of it).

"He was restraining himself. Catering to her needs, her wishes. Her nature. Yet she could feel the power and response building in him, stoked by her actions. Eventually, it would be too much. He'd tear loose of his self-imposed control and sweep them both away.
It was an unspoken give-and-take, and intuitive power exchange so erotic because of the lack of defined boundaries and words, its unpredictability. She felt as free as a wild animal in truth. She could desire and demand anything from Max. He was strong enough to handle it, and her, and still make her feel safe. At least in this moment."

“When she had a brain to think about it, she would be considering this carefully, but she had to give him his due. He’d said she wouldn’t be able to think much, and he was delivering on that promise.”


The only concession she does in the book is to have intercourse (with penetration) with him -but then she can’t help it- and invite him at her house. And when he manages to have her talk about her past she slams him out right after. For weeks.

When she contacts him after weeks of shut down, Max offers her a séance at the Progeny. She knows that he isn’t a sub, that it’s an out of love gesture to show her that he accepts her as she is.

“I trust you, Janet. I not only want to prove it, I want you to believe it.” “[...] I trust you to know what I am and what I’m not.”

"He'd seen the things Janet did with her subs, and he was starting to think he was crazy, imagining himself in similar positions. One night, she'd led a poor bastard around the club on hands and knees. He'd been buck-naked, except for a cage-like think around his cock. What if any of the K&A men were there? He cut the vision of Matt seeing his limo driver being led around by a cock leash right out of his head, because the mere thought would make Max break out in hives. It would probably make Matt break out in hives as well.
He hadn't thought about any of that when he offered this.[...]
Except it hadn't been his cock leading him, but his heart."


But not only she accepts it but she goes for almost everything Dana told her not to do (including sensory deprivation) and icing on the cake: without safe word! Not respecting his nature or what he is (or is not, for that matter) just wanting to assuage her selfish needs. Counting on his “brave, alpha, all-guts-and-balls side of you to take your punishment like a man”. And she “worked him too hard, too relentlessly, for a little macho hang-up like his concerns about sexual orientation to get in the way.” “She’d wanted him to lose focus, to see if he could trust her that much, if she could overcome bone-deep training. Arrogance on her part, an unreasonable demand, but it was a female thing she wouldn’t deny herself.”

Then she tells him: “I can hold control over others, and I don’t cause harm. I don’t take without giving back in equal or greater measure.” and I almost chocked on my tea but fortunately this follows : “I’m self-aware enough to know that might be a coping mechanism rather than truth, but if you can find an illusion to bring balance to your reality, it makes every day possible, manageable. Right?” At least she isn’t totally deluded.

And when Max invites her for camping, what is her reaction? “Yes, she’d completely lost her mind. Camping. Showing the depths of her insanity,...” Really?! I’m telling you, this woman isn’t for real! She pushes Max’s limits everyway she can and in a very hard way, but he invites her to go camping for a week-end and she is overwhelmed. And not because of some strong phobia but only because she won’t have indoor plumbing and the comfort she’s used to!

Even at the end, when Max life was at risk and it was a moment where he at last could let go of part of his demons, Janet
Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.
had to have a breakdown and bring everything to her then brutally slams him out. Again. And what did Max do? He assumed the responsibility for her reactions as well as the others decision to come to his help.

Honestly, at this point, Max too started to piss me off, because he is too much a gentleman for his own good. If he had had the barest jerkish tendencies, maybe the unbalance in the relationship wouldn’t have been so big and I think I would have enjoyed the book better. And I have to say that the way he was caught and then in need of a rescue also made me roll my eyes and I expected better from Joey W. Hill than that kind of cheap about-face.

Another thing I didn’t like in this book is the kind of parallel that was made between the SEALs training practice and the BDSM practice. For me there are worlds, to say the least, between being able to lead or follow the lead of a person you know because you shared repeated harrowing training in particularly difficult conditions and surrendering power to a sexual partner you don't really know.

To end this review on a positive note, I'd like to add that I enjoyed the participation of the K&A men and Dana who is really the shit as well as the epilogue.

"I was trained to be the best of the best, but it means nothing if I’m not there at the critical moment I’m needed."




« Last Edit: May 15, 2013, 08:29 AM by lulu7005 »
 
The following users thanked this post: lady1013, book^gurl, dijya

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