This is my first book by this author. She is a fairly new author and so I'm going to grade on somewhat of a curve. For a relatively new author, this was ok but there is certainly potential for better work in the future.
I liked the premise of the story. Jess is a reporter who wants to break into "serious" reporting. In order to do that, she needs to break a "serious" story. She gets it in her head to do a comparison between the BDSM depicted in romance novels and the real lifestyle. Enter Adam. Adam is like the King of Vegas. He owns a casino or two and also owns the newspaper that Jess works for. Oh, also, Adam likes to initiate brand new subs into the "lifestyle." He is the sub initiator. So when Adams friends and partners who run an upscale Vegas sex club with him spot a newbie, they hook her up with Adam. Jess gets the invite when she goes to an afternoon "munch"- like a BDSM lunch or whatever. She goes to meet up with Adam not realizing that is who she is meeting and that the guy is technically her boss.
From this point on, I just had a hard time with the story line. It just wasn't....credible. I've read a lot of BDSM sex club books. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll tell you I don't really know what is real and what isn't. I don't practice a BDSM lifestyle and I've never been to a sex club (besides like college dorms) so you can take my opinion with a grain of salt. All I know is of all the books I've read in this subgenre, this one just felt very unrealistic and forced. Adam didn't seem like any Dom I've read about and he didn't come across as the kind of Dom I want to see. As for Jess, I always have a problem with female characters who want to practice submission and then aren't submissive. I mean, you pretty much know what you're signing up for if you say you want to be a sub, you gotta sub. But Jess was one of those characters who struggled with her definitions. This was particularly weird to me because, hello, she was doing this all for a story. I would have thought she would have jumped into the lifestyle with 2 feet so that her story would be authentic but nope. I just didn't care for the individual style of Adam or Jess and so I didn't really like them together as a couple.
The author adds a mystery sub-plot to keep things interesting. That is a good plan but the execution wasn't all that great in this book. The "mystery" is pretty easy to figure out and so that makes it seem like a throw in. And then the ending of the book is really rushed. It's like the author hit her page limit and had to wrap things up really fast. Despite my issues with this specific book, I would not have read it to the end if the author did not have some skill. I absolutely think she is worth looking out for in the future.
**ARC provided by Give Me Books**
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