M/F BDSM Romance - Unlock the passions of a secret love affair.
The year is 1961, the location is the private law office of the handsome but very exacting Mr. Stevenson. Innocent secretary Olivia, returning to the work force, finds herself both confused and aroused by Mr. Stevenson's many rules and punishments for failure to follow those rules to the letter. Olivia is slowly but inexorably drawn into the erotic world of sensual submis
Claire has been writing for nearly two decades, and has published over 85 novels. She writes BDSM romance and abduction tales, spanning both m/f and m/m genres. She has received numerous awards for her bestselling work, including the NLA-Int’l Pauline Réage Award and the Golden Flogger Award for best BDSM fiction.. Her darker works press the envelope of what is erotic and what can be a sometimes dangerous slide into the world of sadomasochism. Ultimately her work deals with the human condition, and our constant search for love and intensity of experience. Connect with Claire and get a FREE starter library! https://clairethompson.net
I originally bought this book because I saw someone compare it to a written version of Secretary and having recently watched and loved that movie I jumped at this book. This took me a bit to read because I kept putting it down and reading other things. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but the affair element bothered me which is probably why I was taking breaks. What worked for me was having Olivia's story unfold through her diary entries while seeing the impact it had on Tess' life. I enjoyed reading about Tess and her exploration of her submission. I enjoyed her storyline a bit more than Olivia's (again the whole affair thing left a bad taste in my mouth). Also, the scene at the end was a bit uncomfortable for me because of how the characters know each other (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers, but after reading hopefully what I mean should be clear).
I honestly don't know how to rate the book. I liked it in some ways but didn't in others. In some places, I found it hard to continue and in others, I was really into it. It has 2 stories that fit together. One in the '60s and the other in the present. I liked the premise and the author does know quite a bit about BDSM but, I honestly think I would have enjoyed it more had it been even a 2 part series. One with the 1960's story by itself and another with the now. They just kind of didn't mesh well going from one to the other. The Voice Actress was great, she probably really helped for me to get through it, but just wasn't completely for me.
The excessive exclamation marks drove me nuts. Story-within-a-story made the plot more interesting and added to the variety of BDSM scenes (they were the better ones, IMO). Milder than some of this author’s works and quite romantic. Yes, there’s an affair (the part of the story that happened in the 60s). Yes, she’s someone’s grandmother (but not at the time she writes the diaries). Neither of these were a problem for me in this particular book.
I liked the exploration of the relationship between Nicole and Brad. I liked the diaries and watching Elizabeth's submissive transformation. It just felt a little off that Nicole got off on reading her grandma's diaries, but hey to each his own. I liked the aspects of the book separately, but I'm not sure if I liked how they came together.
**************
Re-read of this on 9/21/12. I pretty much feel the same way about this that I did the last time I read it. I liked the present time storyline, but still got a bit squicked out with the way Elizabeth handled her grandmother's diaries.
This was a very interesting book. I received it from first-reads. It isn't something I would normally pick up, but if I was going to read an adult romance book this was a good one to.
Another stunning page-turner from Thompson.Can't wait to read the Secret Diaries volume and find out the provocative connection of Olivia and Tess's powerful and controlled erotic life.