Purely Professional

by Elia Winters

January 13, 2014 · Carina Press

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This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Erica. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Best First Book, Erotic Romance category.

Here is Erica's review:

Purely Professional was pretty fantastic. I’m going to have problems, again, being critical. Now, I would classify this as somewhere between erotica and erotic romance. The sex is integral to the relationship, but it is a relationship and there is an HEA of sorts at the end.

So, Bridget writes for Sultry magazine, “sex-positive magazine for sex-positive women,” and they want edgier content, so Bridget’s new boss is kind of threatening about it and in a moment of weakness Bridget babbles about sure, she’ll write something about BDSM, implying that she’s involved in the community. She is not, so when she vents to her friend about her predicament, her friend hooks her up with someone who is in the community. This someone happens to be Bridget’s super-hot neighbor Max. Of course. And really, the absolute obviousness of this is my only real grievance with the story.

So she interviews him and he gives great interview and there are some serious shots fired at 50 Shades, which is FANTASTIC. For example:

“It wasn’t abusive, if that’s what you’re implying.” His expression turned severe. “God, why does everybody think Dominants are some twisted abuse victims?”

“Sorry, but it’s something I hate. People outside the community thinking that a tendency toward submission or dominance means that person must have been abused. It’s kind of frustrating to fight against that.”

Max also says that he only wants to dominate a woman in the sphere of sex, not her entire life:

“For me, when we’re not being sexual, I want a partner who can be her own woman, who’d stand up to me, but who would be completely at my mercy in the bedroom.”

He just generally gives great information. Have you ever read Sunny Megatron or her partner/husband Ken Melvoin-Berg (or watched their YouTube videos or their show on Showtime)? This is the kind of stuff that they talk about. It’s legit and it’s real and it’s very obviously trying to correct the misconceptions of BDSM put out there by 50 Shades. For which it gets all the stars.

So, after Bridget’s interview with Max is published, she gets propositioned into blogging for Sultry’s new edgier, kink-friendly online magazine. So, Bridget asks Max to teach her about BDSM and how it would work in a relationship. As one does. Then she makes him promise that there will be no emotions and it will be “purely professional” (they said the thing!) and everyone, including her, knows that this is never going to work out. But who cares?

Plus, the sex? It is HOT. I mean, it’s not completely off the wall bonkers, because Bridget is new and Max is trying to ease her in, but that doesn’t mean it’s not freaking fantastic. And each time they have sex, you can see their characters shift and grow and their relationship grow closer and more special.

I am mildly frustrated that I never got Max POV. I was really hoping for one, and it never happened. Which was annoying, but there was so emotion conveyed in the writing that even without his POV, I could see him falling for Bridget like crazy. And Bridget falling back, even as she’s denying the crap out of it.

One thing that I liked, to an extent, is that Bridget does have some trouble negotiating the disconnect between wanting to be a powerful, strong woman in her career life, but also loving being submissive in her sex life. She felt guilty about liking being submissive and didn’t want to become a “wimp” in her life all over, and I think that’s a fear that a lot of modern women who probably consider themselves feminists probably would have. I wish it had been resolved with more of an exploration of the power of being a sub – being the one who actually is in control because you have the power of the safe word and to call a halt to the whole thing. That didn’t happen and…

Another quibble, although this is a minor one, is that they never negotiate the ins and outs of a scene before it happens. That is unfortunate because I would have liked to see some of that to establish that see, this really is always consensual. But the things he does are surprises, and while she enjoys them, even when she’s freaking out about it, I wish there was some level of discussion beforehand.

Anyway. I don’t even care. I love this book. I love their relationship. I love the talking, I love the sex, I love the playing Scrabble after sex, I love it all. I’m going to take away some points for the lack of scene negotiation and the lack of sub power discussions. So, that will make this an A-.