I picked this book up for a ridiculous reason: a misreading of the title. I read Dom-Con – a convention of doms and I found that idea hilarious. That notion was quickly dispelled when I read the cover again followed shortly by the blurb. I’m thankful for that silly mistake of mine because I had a lot of fun.
Rae is a total newbie to the BDSM world when she rocks up to a BDSM club looking for a dom. She’s given the name of Sunny by the staff member who welcomes her. There she meets the General, an experienced dom who can’t tear his eyes away from Sunny. They play out a pretty mild scene but it rocks their world. Sunny freaks out a bit and runs away from the club. The General is frustrated that he can’t provide aftercare.
Come Monday morning, who is the new consultant at the matchmaking app that Rae works at? None other than Grant, aka the General. Yup! If you’re thinking that office supplies are about to be used creatively, you’d be right!
Grant’s whole thing is that he doesn’t do long term anything. Doesn’t live in a house for long, doesn’t do long term relationships, doesn’t even have a pet. None of it. He makes a deal with Sunny that he’ll be her dom for the three weeks he’s contracted to be a consultant.
You can have a great deal of kinky sex in three weeks. And there is a lot of sex in this book. What I appreciated, though, was that each sex scene pushed the characters closer together. More intimacy, more emotional development, more orgasms. Yes, orgasms and emotional development are directly proportional. So for me the sex scenes were exciting primarily because of how much those scenes led the characters to reveal more and more of themselves emotionally. Such vulnerability!
One of the ways in which Rae grows is learning to say no to people. This is something that Grant is adamant about as her dom. There is also some great fat rep: Rae is described as ‘plump’ but in the sex scenes, Grant will kiss her ‘soft belly’ and her curvy ‘dimpled’ bum. It was clear in each sex scene that this was sex with a fat woman and I loved it.
There is more plot than just two people growing closer through sex. Grant is actually employed as a security consultant because the CEO’s dirtbag of a son-in-law claims there’s been a data leak and that he should take over from his incompetent mother in law. So there’s that. There’s one particular plot thread that doesn’t make sense in all this. It’s not huge and maybe the fault is mine for reading too late at night, but suffice to say the plot of the attempted overthrow doesn’t make 100% sense.
The staff at the matchmaking app are deeply unconventional as is the CEO. This is not a profit-over-people workplace. I really enjoyed this part of the story because a functional happy workplace in which staff are happy and fulfilled and the work they do is good is very fun to read about.
Is there a third act break up?
Yes, and it’s fuelled by cowardice. Frustrating I know.
So while I was frustrated by the third act and by the plot line that didn’t make sense, I was delighted by everything else. I really enjoyed reading Dom-Com and am very happy to recommend it to the Bitchery!
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Thanks!
Anders is an interesting writer, publishing in different romance sub-genres (sometimes as Adriana Anders, sometimes as A. Anders), including romantic-suspense and erotica, as well as “standard” romance. Not everything she’s published has jibed with me, but she’s usually interesting and engaging. I’ve put DOM-COM on my never-ending TBR.
I’m just as delighted about getting to read about a fat woman, but what kind of representation do us fellows get from the hero?
(Oh, and if anyone wants to read more about fat women having a romance, I highly recommend the superhero comics series Faith.)
I also saw the title and thought it was about a convention for doms. So apparently now someone needs to write that book.
This sounds like it could be fun but the spoiler line, it itches at me!
@Mikey
I wish I could tell you that I remember the hero’s body type but alas I do not. I don’t remember it particularly standing out for any reason, but that might be my shoddy memory!
@Mikey, I just finished reading this book and the MMC is described in ways suggesting he’s a traditionally handsome romance hero & not fat.
@Mikey: We did run a Rec League for body diversity in heroes a couple years ago.
@Kris I want at least one panel for dealing with dom drop at this convention, in case we’re crowd sourcing this book. I hope someone is taking notes.