Under the heading of "books I have no idea why I bought them" comes this - a love story with a side order of Stockholms. I mean; I guess that it's believable given the apparent chemistry and feels but you know, if I'd been aware that the h spends the better part of the book as a sex slave, I don't believe I would have bought it.

 

So our h is in a pickle. Her husband paid a couple of what passes for local law enforcement to kill her. Only, the ship she was flying on was a former smuggler's ship, and the captain had clued her in on the smuggler's hatch. So she was able to escape the assassination attempt. Now she's hiding, and through what seems to me to be a massive oversight on the part of the smuggler/captain, broke (what? No bag of coins stashed in there for emergency?). She attempts to rob what looks to be a cripple only to find herself face to face with the leader of the local law enforcement. Punishment for robbery plus managing to cause his injury to flair up is a total that equals 38 days of indentured servitude. Since she has no marketable skills, that translates to sex slave. He buys her. I mean; she could have ended up in a brothel...

 

Over the course of a week or so, there's a discussion about rape in which he informs her that sex slaves can't say no, much sex, a couple of escape attempts - all following seeing something about her apparent death on the news. That last one was a doozy - he was having lunch with her husband *and* the two killers. So she has a damn good reason for not telling him who she is.

 

And of course, there's the starlight rite - a planetary orgy. She got him to take her to the place his clan would partake in the ritual, then tried to escape. She's caned, and gets to participate in the ritual whether she wants to or not.

 

After he has her sent back to the indenture hall for resell, he gets around to doing some serious investigating, manages to find the video was altered, find footage of her leaving the terminal, etc. Meanwhile, he's also inadvertently let her husband know she's alive and where she is, so when he figures out what's what, there's the mad rush to save her.

 

Things that bugged me:
The setup obviously
The lack of emergency funds - you'd think a smuggler might hide something as backup
The rite taking place at the clan one of the killers belonged to (yet he apparently was a no show. Hmmm)
A professional singer (the h is famous) that has never performed publicly, and in fact, nobody knows what she looks like. I mean; I can't imagine that being pulled off *today* and this book is set in the future. Nobody took a snapshot of her at a studio or something? Eh? This conveniently to explain why she was not recognized by anyone until she sang in an attempt to cause a distraction when her husband was trying to drag her off planet.

I think this was the best Shadowlands book so far. With a great mix of erotic scenes, real life and a side order of crime syndicate and FBI, the story just flowed.

Sam as our male lead showed another side to the Gods of Shadowlands; older, sadist and emotionally closed, all something a little new! He didn't always get it right, he wasn't always perfect!

Linda, our female lead and submissive in this book, was again, something a little different. Older, mother, and masochist, Linda is also a survivor and tough as nails. Not that the other subs weren't, but this was just different, more real!

Despite the S/M relationship being a strong part of the story, and not to my tastes, I thoroughly enjoyed the story with all of it's ups and downs.

Things in the bedroom got a little repetitive and dare-I-say-it 'boring' at either of their homes, but Shadowlands play sessions were amusing and exciting despite being pain related. Towards the end of the book things got more interesting which helped the pacing around the climax.

I liked that serious relationship issues, including failed marriages and communication concerns were explored and felt very natural to the relationship. This was by far the best representation of relationships I've seen from Cherise.

Some of the supporting cast had large life events in this book which was a nice touch to remind the reader that the lifestyle isn't all sex and chains, but that real life continues too, with all its craziness.

If you're put off by the S/M relationship, don't be, it was handled well and the pain rather delicately described. Quite a few explosions and pleasure waves were ridden between these covers.

To me, this was one of the sadder tales in the Shadowlands series. And that's not because the others lacked sadness, but more that these characters felt very real, with Linda's self-loathing and doubt and Sam's emotional withdrawal. They both did and said things that real people do. 

The added sweetness of Conn, Sam's trusted canine companion, and the lovely ladies of Linda's seaside hometown wrapped things up nicely.

I am quite interested to see what happens in book 8, the next one in the series! I will be getting to it in short order!

Master of the Mountain (Mountain Masters...

Master of the Mountain by Cherise Sinclair is a well-written book.  The story is amazing.  It does have BDSM elements so it may not be for everyone.  While I'm not interested in the BDSM lifestyle, I don't mind reading a book with it now and then.  To me, a good book is a good book, no matter what type of sexy bits live in it.  And this one was good!  Rebecca and Logan's story was packed with drama, humor and smoking hot sexy bits.  The author gets an A plus from me for the characters and dialog in this book.  Fantastic.  I enjoyed reading Master of the Mountain and look forward to reading more from Cherise Sinclair in the future.  Master of the Mountain is book 1 of A Mountain Masters & Dark Haven Series but can be read as a standalone.  This is a complete book, not a cliff-hanger.

Meh. This is definitely my least favorite Shadowlands book so far. It took several tries for me to get into this one, and I only made it through because I paid for the book and Cherise Sinclair is one of my favorite authors.

I'm not sure what it was that kept me from connecting to Master R and Kim, but I never did. I felt sorry for Kim, but I didn't even really like her. She wasn't a bad character or anything, I just didn't feel like we got to know her as well as some of the other women from earlier books. Something about the dialogue in this one was really off-putting for me, too. It made it even easier for me to remember I was reading something and snap out of the book world, which isn't something I like to happen while reading. It just wasn't believable. I kept thinking, "People do not talk this way, ugh," every few pages.

I thought a few of the sex scenes were pretty hot, but not as consistently hot as some of the other books. Possibly spoilery? I did like the fire scene, though. I think this is the first book I've read that had fire play. I wasn't crazy about the whips, but that's just a personal preference thing. I'm also not really a fan of Master/slave relationships, but it usually doesn't bother me. This one did because (I know, this is fiction and everything tends to move faster) I just couldn't believe Kim could handle everything that soon after her captivity and abuse. I kept thinking "Stockholm syndrom!" about it. I mean, I like Raoul and everything, but even he didn't seem to be a fan of subjecting Kim to all that so soon after being freed.

I doubt I'll give up on the Shadowlands books, but I've definitely lost the excitement I used to feel about reading the next one.

Re-Read this yesterday and can't believe I forgot how much I LOVE Marcus...yummy!!