3 Adult Romances – Taste Test: BDSM

I don’t read a ton of smutty books, but I have been reading a few lately. These are three books that weirdly have some sort of BDSM theme in common. I decided it was a taste test! 😂

1. Markham Hall #3: The Punishment of Ivy Leavold (Sierra Simone)  ★★★★☆☆☆
published in 2015 – Kindle e-book

I read the previous two books in this series,The Awakening of Ivy Leavold and The Education of Ivy Leavold, a while ago and rated them 5/7 stars and 3/7 stars respectively. I feel like this one falls somewhere in between the two.

I like the characterisation and the the overall plot is pretty well written. The murder that caused so much unease between our main couple is resolved and the marriage finally happens. But really, the main focus of the book is the smut and the smut is indeed very smutty! It’s a thin line, but sometimes this was just little too smutty for my tastes, but the interaction between our two main characters inbetween the plentiful kinky sex kind of makes up for that.

I would like to read something with more of a contemporary setting from Sierra Simone at some point. I may prefer that as the time period and the events were sort of at odds with each other for me. There is also one more book in this series that I have on my Kindle. I will read that at some point, but I have no desire to do so it right now.

4 out of 7 stars

♦

2. Markham Hall #4: The Reclaimingt of Ivy Leavold (Sierra Simone)  ★★☆☆☆☆☆
published in 2015 – Kindle e-book

Of course this is all about the smut and that’s fine, but it really left me pretty cold in this one. There was some interesting observations on changes in perspective as you become a mother (or a father), but overall I have nothing much to say about this one, which is really nothing more than an epilogue to the other three books in the series.

2 out of 7 stars

♦

3. Submitting to the Rancher (B J Wane) ★★☆☆☆☆☆
published in 2019 – Kindle e-book

This was simply not for me. I don’t mind erotica at all, but this simply did not have enough substance for me.  The writing style was fine. The BDSM aspect did not really bother me, but neither did it float my boat particularly.

What did bother me how sex seemed to solve everything in this book. The girl’s angry, let’s make her have sex. The girl’s sad, let’s make her have sex. The girl doesn’t want to talk, let’s make her by having sex. And the other way around as well to be fair. The sex was consensual, and there was a clear mention of a safe word, but the way sex was used as a tool to solve all emotional issues just bothered me.

2 out of 7 stars

♦

CONCLUSION

I do like a smutty book every now and then, but this niche is not for me. There is clearly a tipping point for me when the smut becomes too much and this is mainly when sex starts to be the only thing happening in the book. I liked a couple of Sierra Simone’s Markham Hall books fine, because the main characters actually had conversations inbetween the smut. I found when that did not happen, I quickly lost interest. It just gets too much. As for the BDSM part, I really don’t care for it. I don’t mind a bit of kink, but again, there is a line that I don’t like crossed. No more BDSM themed books for me!

Do you read smutty books?

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