F
Genre: Erotica/Erotic Romance, Romance
Theme: BDSM, One Night Stand
Archetype: Single Parent/Guardian
(TW/CW: dubious consent, statutory rape, coercion)
Way back when, I started the Masters Unleashed series by Sparrow Beckett. The first book, Finding Master Right, got a B+ grade. I went on to read the next two books, which follow the initial hero’s two best friends. Each book was less enjoyable than the last. When I saw that the co-writing Beckett team would be returning to Masters Unleashed, I felt this was a great opportunity to get back into the series with hopeful results.
I was wrong and it earned a single star, which to me is even worse than a DNF (did not finish) grade. I had so many problems with this book that I don’t think I’ll ever return to the series, even if more installments are released.
The romance in Master in Shining Armor is between a Dom who runs a BDSM club and a woman contracted to do renovations on said club. At first, I thought this would be a super sexy renovation romance with plenty of kink. Doesn’t that sound awesome? Unfortunately, this book comes nothing close to my initial assumptions.
The heroine, Juliet, knows very little about the BDSM lifestyle, so the hero, Will, doubts her ability to assess what the club needs. Will has hired a construction/renovation company owned by Juliet’s family and Juliet is the one that ends of taking the contract. However, Will never really specifies to the company that he owns a BDSM club, as Juliet assumes she’s there to fix up a night club. Why he chooses this particular company is something I don’t remember being addressed. Now that I think about it, having a heroine who works in “kink fixer upper” construction would have been really neat.
While I agree Juliet needed to do some research on BDSM clubs, the actions Will takes to acclimate her to BDSM felt borderline abusive and predatory. He definitely had no business running a club for BDSM clientele, given how he treated Juliet. But the premise of the book is that Will needs to introduce Juliet to BDSM because of the renovations she’ll be managing, and, of course, he’s attracted to her “vanilla” innocence (VOMIT). He doesn’t think she’ll account for small details like the space required for “scenes,” for example, if she doesn’t fully understand how the equipment works. So he shows her through demonstration. This is a whole new level of “dubious” for me.
The main tenets of kink are that things should always be safe, sane, and consensual. I’d classify some of the interactions between Will and Juliet to be dubious in consent, simply because she just doesn’t have the experience or vocabulary to really know what is about to happen or what she’s gotten herself into. In my mind, she doesn’t know what she’s actually consenting to when it comes to BDSM.
Juliet has never done much experimenting with kink and Will frequently chides himself for being an established Dom and getting obsessed with someone so vanilla. Sexual compatibility is important and rather than taking things slowly or even realizing they aren’t sexual compatible and leave it at that, Will frequently pushes Juliet into extreme BDSM scenarios.
Their first time doing anything sexual, he has her tied up in his sex attic where he whips, flogs, and canes her to the point of her crying. She does have a safe word, but those things aren’t what I would choose for someone being introduced to BDSM. Juliet is left feeling humiliated. No actual sex was involved and she feels used, as if Will did this to embarrass her and exert his power over her. All of Juliet’s previous research via Google told her nothing of after care, subspace, sub drop, etc. Afterward, she hightails it home and winds up confused and feeling like she’s been hit by a truck. Her body is covered in bruises.
To me, this shows such sheer irresponsibility on the hero’s part. Nothing he did in the rest of the book would elevate him above assholes status.
I was never fully convinced that Juliet liked any sort of BDSM play. It always felt coerced, and repeatedly acquiescing to the sexual preferences of a partner is something I view as highly damaging.
And of course, they do have a working relationship. Will is her client. I understand that may squick people out, though that aspect of the romance didn’t really bother me. It’s, of course, a terrible idea, but I found it a little less aggravating given that it is Juliet’s company which was contracted by a client (Will), rather than it being a boss/assistant scenario.
There was another thing—one sentence really—that kept sticking with me throughout the rest of the book. The sentence wasn’t even THAT important and was merely a casual, throwaway line as a means of explaining how long the hero has been practicing BDSM.
He hadn’t been that patient since he’d been a fourteen-year-old kid misusing his knowledge of Boy Scout knots on the neighbor’s ecstatic eighteen-year-old daughter.
I interpreted this sentence as the hero, at age 14, was sexually active with an adult woman. For most states, the age of consent is around 16, and while I don’t know the hero’s home state, this sentence really bothered me. We’re supposed to assume that since the hero, as a kid, was the Dom, he wasn’t being taken advantage of by an older woman.
The fact that the hero’s inner monologue seems to take pride in this memory is even worse. Sexual abuse against men happens and this sentence perpetuates the myth that boys and young men can’t be abused by women. “He was a guy! He was the Dom here! He was tying HER up!” But it doesn’t delve deeper into the implicit power dynamics that come with being a child and dealing with an adult, especially in a sexual situation.
The book does have a secret baby element. It’s not a surprise as it’s in the book’s description. That part was fine, I guess. It’s one of my least favorite tropes, so I don’t think it’s fair for me to comment too much on that and it certainly doesn’t factor into my final grade. But in a book I already wasn’t enjoying, it was the last thing I needed.
When I read BDSM romances, I fully expect details to be correct. I want there to be safe kink practices where both parties enthusiastically consent and have taken every precaution so that it is an enjoyable experience. Romance, in general, includes positive (mostly) portrayals of body autonomy and sexual education and fulfillment. I can’t underscore how important that was to me as a reader. Seriously, I learned about sex and my sexual preferences through reading romance. It’s greatly helped teach me the language I needed to be open and honest with my sexual partners.
Master in Shining Armor was a huge misstep in that regard. Because of Will’s horrific ignorance of how to treat Juliet in her introduction to kink, there was no way that the two of them staying together would have been a happily ever after. Will’s sexual needs always took precedence over Juliet’s and I really hate the notion that a man knows a woman’s body better than she does. With Will’s constant pressuring of Juliet into BDSM scenarios, especially given her severe lack of beginner knowledge, I’d be worried this would bleed into other areas of their relationship. I’m not sure if the series is being continued past this book, but if so, I won’t be partaking.
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I have only read one previous book by these authors and it was an F for me. A peripheral character questioned whether the heroine was underage (she was not, just small) and the hero and his friends threatened to beat up the guy who asked. I get it’s really annoying to be mistaken for someone underage, but child protection is everyone’s business and this sequence disgusted me.
“At first, I thought this would be a super sexy renovation romance with plenty of kink.“ Yes—I’d read that! What a shame it wasn’t this book. As Jean Luc Goddard once said, the best way to criticize a bad movie is to make a better one. So perhaps some enterprising writer in Romancelandia will write the “vanilla (but curious) contractor fixes up bdsm club for owner/dom (whose focus is always on safe, sane, and consensual).” I know there’s a Lexi Blake novel where the bdsm club gets damaged and has to be repaired, but I don’t think the contractor or the repairs play a major role. Now I’m wondering if anyone is aware of a good bdsm romance featuring renovations and repairs.
Yeah won’t be reading this. I do like some well written BDSM romance – Cherise Sinclair is a favorite because even though some of the plots are a bit daft she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to the life-style and why things like aftercare are important. The whole Dom knows that the woman is secretly submissive even though she obviously isn’t comfortable at all with the whole scene is really icky.
*insert nopetopus gif here*
I read a lot of BDSM romance and everything here sets off my Bad-Dom-o-meter. I’m fine with accepting some fantasy elements in my romance and erotica, but I wouldn’t be able to get past the fact that if this toxic man really existed, he’d be in prison and that club wouldn’t require renovations because it would have been paved over into a parking lot.
Agree with Amanda that this series started strong and crashed fast and hard. There are REALLY good kink club book/series options from Cherise Sinclair, Roni Loren, and Laura Antoniou, and personally, I’d re-read (actually: re-re-re-read) one of those before trying this. I’m not aware of a kink club book that includes a reno component but I’d read the hell out of a good one.
I don’t read a whole lot of BDSM stuff because it doesn’t interest me, so take this FWIW but I can’t get past the idea that Will thinks she to HAS participate in BDSM in order to do her job. WTF? No. She has a job to do; she’s not required to have sex or participate in a kink to do it. What if the person who won the contract was a 60-year-old man? Would he have needed to participate in the kinky stuff to do the job? Ick, ick, ick.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Yes! And there’s a way that you could handle her inexperience. Here’s a scene outline that would address Amanda’s discomfort with how he decides he has to show her how much space is needed for a scene:
She asks how big x room needs to be.
He says “well, this big to accommodate the swing of a flogger” or whatever the concern is.
She’s fascinated, or surprised, so she encourages him to show her because she wants to do her job on the renovations well. He demonstrates *not* on her, and she finds it more erotic than she expected, and leaves, and thinks about it, and does some research, and later she’s an active participant in BDSM, not a reluctant one.
I would read this book in a heartbeat.
Things don’t have to be gross!
When my eyes hit the title of this post my brain reads it as “Bastard in Shining Armor.”
I’m sorry you have to break up with an author you have enjoyed in the past. That can be a sad time.
Thank you for affirming my decision to DNF this a couple of months ago. I got a few chapters in but all of Will’s actions kept make me go, “this guy is an experienced Dom?!?!” and then I felt a deep need to extricate Juliet from the whole situation.
Lilia Moon is an author I recently discovered via the #RomBkLove twitter chat a few months ago. The first book in her Fettered series has a wedding planner visiting a BDSM club because she just got clients who want to marry there. I don’t remember specific details of that book but I’m pretty sure the BDSM newbie was handled far better than it sounds like it was here. There were many discussions around enthusiastic consent. One of the other books has the guy who designs the BDSM furniture as the main character.
@Vicki: thank you for the tip. I just checked the kindle store and the first three books in Moon’s Fettered series (YIELD, REVEAL, and DESIRE) are available in a box set for 99-cents. YIELD features the wedding planner. Moving it to the top of my tbr right now.
I recall enjoying the first two books of this series but never being able to get into the third (still haven’t finished it!). I’m glad to know I wasn’t missing out on something great by not reading it.
Interesting that the authors have announced that they will no longer be writing together. IMHO, they should have quit before they wrote this book. It was awful.
These books so badly remind me of those old Victorian/Edwardian, proto-BDSM books, like The Lustful Turk or The Sheik, and even the Marquis de Sade.
And yet, these books don’t even come close to the dubiousness and questionable nature of the old books (they were extremely depraved and sickening).
I liked the first book too. Thanks for the warning on this one.
That trivializing of statutory consent thing is such a flashing red no for me. IMO should be in the first line of the review. Yuck. Nope nope no.
(Correcting myself – I see it was in the subhead for the review!)
The premise seems to be that if you want to build a stable, you first need to experience being a horse…
I read this one a few months ago and while I did finish it, I was a bit taken aback at how Will just seems to railroad Juliet into their initial sexual encounter and then is kinda oops about it afterwards. And I’m tired of reading books about ladies who wander into BDSM places and are then treated like “oh let’s make the newbie blush” when they don’t know why a bench isn’t just a bench. Maybe I’m transferring because I was that kid teased by people and now when the same people do it, I’m just “oh you think me not knowing this thing is funny? I dare say. Now back on topic…” So I have promised myself that should I ever find myself in such an encounter (I don’t know how but you never know) I’m going to lie on the bench and declare it fierce comfortable altogether, great craftsmanship! That’ll learn ’em. Or something.
@Vicki, yes I also recently read four of the books in the Fettered series and I was delighted with how the Doms in those cases are nearly falling over themselves to make sure they’re doing proper introductions to the scene and the club. There was a distinct lack of male posturing in those books. It was very refreshing. So I read three of them in a row.
I’m glad I passed on this one. As a mother of a junior high student, I can’t imagine the ‘hero’ behaving as described at 14. It’s distasteful, but I think we’ve established that. It’s also sloppy writing. If the author wanted to establish for the ‘hero’ a long history of dominant kink, this could be done more tastefully and effectively through an early fantasy or yearning. Having a character unfulfilled in some way adds some sexual tension and anticipation to the plot. Instead, he’s had all he could ever want in bed since his teens? Yawn. But wait, he hasn’t had vanilla girl and her magic hoo-ha! Except we all know he will, several times over, before the end.
God, my least favorite thing about d/s romances is always, consistently and without fail, when authors don’t realize there’s a line between rape and d/s. If your sub is crying, and it’s not from joy, guess what? YOUR CHARACTER IS AN ABUSIVE CREEP.
HAVE YOUR CHARACTERS PRACTICE AFTERCARE. I DON’T CARE IF YOU THINK IT RUINS THE FANTASY. I’D RATHER READ ABOUT THAT THAN ABOUT HOW YOUR HEROINE’S ORIFICE IS BLEEDING FROM ROUGH, LUBE-FREE ANAL SEX.
The whole “well, I’ll show you if you wanna know how to properly fix my rig!” subplot is beyond gross. No she doesn’t. These things come with manufacturer’s instructions for a reason, and if you’re doing home rigs for your expensive bdsm night club then you’re asking for an accident.
Oh, no, no, no. Not now.
I’m avoiding this title for my brain’s behalf. I don’t need statutory stuff and nastiness in my book choices.
Thanks for reviewing this title… I’m going to look at something as unrelated to this as possible. Like cute images of potatoes.