Dark Secret Love: A Story of Submission, by Alison Tyler

(pb; 2013: erotic novel - first entry in the Story of Submission series)


From the back cover:

"Dark Secret Love is a modern-day Story of O, a 9 1/2 Weeks-style journey fueled by lust, longing and the search for true love.  Inspired by her own BDSM exploits and private diaries, Alison Tyler draws on twenty-five years of penning sultry stories to create a scorchingly hot work of fiction, a memoir-inspired novel with reality at its core.  A luscious and literary experience of authenticity.  Dark Secret Love is a romance for readers who desire sweetness edged with danger and a kinky fairy tale with a happily-ever-after ending."


Review:

Romantic, edutaining (educating and entertaining), nuanced and hard to set down, Dark is an excellent novel that has characters that are not only interesting but matter (beyond the cuffs and the floggings), whose emotional journeys will likely haunt this reader.

Alison Tyler is one of the best working erotica writers today.  Check out - buy - her work wherever you may see it, so that you might not only be entertained but learn from it (whether it be for her writing style or her characters' intriguing carnality).

Followed by The Delicious Torment: A Story of Submission.

Whip Smart, by Melissa Febos

(hb; 2010: non-fiction)

From the inside flap:

"Melissa Febos came to New York City as a college freshman to attend the New School. And while she'd always been a bit of a non-conformist, she hadn't planned to find herself - two years later - juggling her 4.0 GPA with a job as a professional dominatrix in a Midtown dungeon.

"Whip Smart is the story of Melissa's journey into a shocking double life. And she spares no one; keen observations about the motivations of her clients, her coworkers, and, most important, herself offer a rare look inside a fascinating subculture. . ."

Review:

This is a solid, interesting read that deals with BDSM (Bondage Sadomasochism)/sex work, as well as the mindset of an intelligent, briefly self-destructive young woman, whose self-destructive traits had little or nothing to do with her job or BDSM.

Those looking for a salacious recounting are likely to be disappointed by Febos' cool, analytic (but not too analytic) style. While she describes "sessions" (BDSM scenes she dommed), as well as her personal reactions to these sessions, her writing isn't lascivious. Her recollections, written in the first person, are akin, tone-wise, to that of an anthropologist studying an alien culture - factual, with a few personal asides, perhaps, but nothing more.

Good, element-balancing work that manages to inform and entertain with its unemotional veracities: worth checking out, this.