Jim Menetti was Reed Davis's sub until Reed's old flame Jack came back. Jim picks himself up and makes a life for himself apart from his job at Indiscrete. He even begins to date but then Reed changes his mind.
Jim Menetti had a life at Indiscrete, the Gay BDSM club owned by Bear Drummond and Reed Davis. His life revolves around Reed, his Master, and his position as manager of the Club. On Jim and Reed's third anniversary, Jack Leary, Reed's on and off flame comes back and Jim's relationship with Reed unravels. Jim picks himself up and makes a life for himself apart from his job, he buys a home, makes it a cozy retreat and gets a cat he names Waltzing Matilda. He even has a new love interest, the mysterious Professor Caleb Brickner, an expert in the Spainish Inquisition and medieval torture. Then, Reed changes his mind.
AC Katt was born in New York City’s Greenwich Village. She remembers sitting at the fountain in Washington Square Park listening to folk music while they passed the hat. At nine, her parents dragged her to New Jersey where she grew up, married and raised four children and became a voracious reader of romantic fiction. At one time she owned over two thousand novels.
Now, most of AC’s books are electronic (although she still keeps six bookcases of hardcovers), so she never has to give away another book. AC writes GLBT andis to writing, a late bloomer, however, she’s found her niche writing GLBT romance. She currently writes for MLR Press, JMS Books, and Decadent Publishing
This has proven a really hard book to rate and review for me. But it came down to one question: After 14 pages in, I did a status update where I said that my stomach hurt and I didn't know if I was going to be able to finish the book. While thinking about how I was going to rate and review this book, because my feeling about it were so mixed, I looked and that again and actually said to myself, "I kinda wish I hadn't read it now." I think that is pretty telling.
This is not a BDSM book, with power exchanges and dominance and submission. If that is what you are looking for, this is not your book. I don't want to spoil anything, but the outcome of the story was not what I expected or hoped, but I guess you could call it HEA, because the MCs were happy. But I wasn't. I know I am being vague, but I really don't feel up to getting into it. It just wasn't my thing, even though it really should have been. It had tons of hurt/comfort and some killer romance towards the end, but it just felt... wrong to me. I can't explain it. Please just give me a pass on this one.
I can't recommend it, but if the premise intrigues you, I hope you give it a try and it is to your liking.
I rate this a three, which is highly dependent on context.
I started reading this at 2am when I had insomnia. I wanted a book that was not gripping in the least, so that the instant I felt sleepy I could put it down and try to recapture sweet slumber. For this very specific purpose, I enjoyed this book.
Nothing made me hate it to a degree that excited passion. It was entirely bland, and therefore somewhat soothing in the deep of the night.
Sadly I was still awake at 4am and I started reading book 1 in the series. This was my greatest mistake to date for 2013. Please learn from my error.
2.5 stars rounded up. Really just disliked Reed for most of the book. And was waaaay too sappy when the MC's got back together. Still kept me turning the pages though, so I'll probably buy the next book (if the series continues).
Jim Menetti had a good life as Reed and Bear's BDSM night club Indiscrete. Jim and Reed had a working D/s relationship and Jim's life revolved around pleasing his Master and helping to run Indiscrete. That all fell apart when Jack came back to town. Jim got the boot, a percentage of Indiscreet which Bear forced out of Reed and a start at a new life. Reed got Jack which was no bargain for either of them. Tensions ran high between Bear and his sub Brian and Reed while "Papa" Bear and Brian helped Jim get back on his feet. I loved this story. I admit that the cover is what drew me to it in the first place but the cover was deceiving. What I found inside was a well written story about four men that I couldn't help but become emotionally invested in. Ms Katt developed the characters of the four guys perfectly and wove a complicated dynamic between them. Bear and Reed had been friends since childhood and co-owned Indiscrete. Bear and Brian had a solid, loving D/s relationship and Jim and Brian were best friends. When Jack re-entered Reed's life, the whole dynamic changed. Bear or Papa Bear as the subs called him became the man caught in the middle. He needed to balance his friendship with Reed and his sub's friendship and the need to help Jim begin a new life. The further I read in the story the more I saw the dichotomy in Jim's personality. He played the flouncy sub but beneath that was a strong individual who ran a business and pretty much ran Reed. Both Jim and Reed had a boat load of baggage and I found it amusing that the psychiatrist that they both saw was a sub himself. The bond between Jim and Brian was wonderfully endearing to me. Caleb was just a sick bastard who's only redeeming factor is that he brought about the story's HEA. Aside from being a thoroughly entertaining story, the reader catches a glimpse of just how a healthy D/s relationship works and how a faulty one easily crumbles. I have not read book one in this series but it is next up on my plate although it seems that the books can be read as stand alones. I highly recommend this suspenseful, moving book.
Jim loves his Master Reed and is making a wonderful anniversary cake to mark their third anniversary, but he is scared to death because Reed didn’t come home the night before and Jack’s back. Brian and Bear (from A Matter of Trust) help Jim to pick up the pieces of his life and start afresh, but just when his life is looking up and a new man walks into his life Reed decides that he might have made a mistake.
This is a story that has a few surprises in store for us, but is disappointing if you were expecting BDSM. Jim has been Reed’s sub for three years and he thought that everything was nearly perfect between them, but when Jack, Reed’s ex, comes back to town Jim is dumped and slowly begins to rebuild his life, when he meets Caleb he thinks that he just might have struck gold, but it isn’t long before a shadow hangs over them and Jim begins to have his doubts. Reed has a past that haunts him and he truly believes that Jack is the only one who can accept him the way he is, but he begins to think he has made a mistake and he realises what he threw away when he let Jim go.
Jim is the character to watch in this story as he has a lot hidden up his sleeve and he is far from the twink we first imagine him to be. Reed is a character that you hate and then warm up to, as you learn just what in his past haunts him, you still find it hard to forgive his treatment of the wonderful Jim, but you begin to understand what drives him. The storyline is interesting with the mysterious Caleb and his overpowering nature and Bear and Brian are wonderful friends to Jim, the only disappointment that I truly had was there was no BDSM or anything like that really, it was mainly focused on Jim’s new man and on Reed’s handling of his past.
I will recommend this if you love complex men and their emotional difficulties, mysterious dangerous men, hidden depth’s, admitting your faults and finding forgiveness and love.
So when I started this I had the idea the hardest thing for me to deal with (and what would piss me off the most) was Reed cheating on, dumping, and then wanting to get back together with Jim. Sadly, by the end of the book that wasn't even on my radar anymore.
Luckily I am writing this a few weeks after reading the book so most of the vitriol has dried up. (I think.) Let me start with the good. Weirdly enough I can actually pick out some good here. Weird because even when I love a book I have an extremely hard time pointing out why, and when I don't like a book I tend to not see anything other than what I disliked.
After Reed dumps Jim we spend a little time watching Jim pull himself together and move on with his life. This was honestly my favorite part of the book and I really think I would have liked to see Jim stick to it and find someone who really deserved him, but he ends up back with Reed. *sigh* Which brings me to the second good thing. I can only think of one book that I have read and liked where one MC cheated on the other. The author has to give me some sort of reasoning on the cheater's part that will allow me to forgive him and want the other MC to forgive him. That is not to say that I think there is a good excuse, but, such as in this case, where Reed is messed up because of something from his past, I am willing to forgive. When there is cheating just because someone is incapable of keeping it in their pants...that loses all respect I have for that person. If you can't control yourself then you shouldn't be out with the rest of society. *rolls eyes*
On the other side of that, though, when Reed tells Jim his deep dark secret it is kind of...done in a very blasé manner. It was way too casual on both their parts. Then Jim has to expose his dark secret. Gasp! He was a Ranger and now that Reed knows he won't want him. Cripes, if the jerk is going to toss you aside for something like that then dump his ass now. *slams head into wall in an effort to make sense of it* What the hell is there to be ashamed of? I am guessing it was some sort of "OMG a sub can't be a Ranger" but that seems an awful lot like you are trying to say that subs are weak and incapable of doing anything but depending on someone else.
That bothered me a lot. When he is with Reed, Jim acts much more...flamboyant?...but at the same time very passive (and I mean passive, not submissive). But when he and Reed break up, he isn't like that at all. There is nothing wrong with his character being flamboyant and/or passive, but it felt like he was doing it because of/for Reed. That bugged me. Probably just the way I was interpreting it, but still.
Now the bad. There is some seriously bad dialogue in here. Seriously. Then we have Caleb (the creeper). Bear thinks Caleb might be a stalker or serial killer...but they do absolutely NOTHING about it. *speechless* Supposedly they can't afford to have Caleb (or Jim) watched around the clock, yet at the end of the book Bear is all, "We have enough money to keep the evidence from getting buried or lost." *dumbfounded* I'm not all up on my security/private investigator/bribe prices but it seems to me that it would probably cost a lot more to keep evidence against someone from a rich and prominent family from disappearing than it would to hire someone to watch them all night. But what do I know? Still, just the way Bear's whole life is described in the first book...I think he has enough money.
But where it really fell apart for me is when Reed drugs Jim to "keep him safe" then takes him to a secluded place. What is safe about any of that? You don't roofie your lover, for the love of...just no. What would even make you think that is acceptable? The premise is that Jim just wouldn't listen to them and be safe, but none of them actually tried to talk to him about it. They just drugged him with, if I remember correctly, something Reed had confiscated from someone at the club. I just...it...how...there are just NO words for this.
Lastly, the excessive use of the word baby. I don't mind it as an endearment. I know some people despise it, but I actually like it. But any endearment can be overused. Names can be overused. I don't know anyone who has to use the other person's name in every sentence in real life, so why do people do that in books? *confused*
Anyhow. So there were parts I liked, and details I liked, but they were a bit outweighed by the things that bugged me. I'm sort of coming to the conclusion that I just don't like the way this author presents her Doms. It just doesn't work with my perceptions/interpretations/whatever.
Mostly I'm just a grumpy badger. *sigh*
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Great story with lots of drama. I started out ready to deck Reed for his handling of everything and how stupid he seems. But he final takes steps to move things along in his own life and to get himself in a better space. And when Jim needs him he's ready to be there for him. Of course Jim has his own secrets he's been keeping as well.
I loved the premise of the book, with Jim picking himself up after Reed throwing him away. He became a stronger person with a big personality. But as the book went on what I liked became less and less.
I generally don't like stories where I'm told things happened, rather than being there with the characters when it's happening. It takes away all the emotions and things feel sort of bland instead.
For all the talk of pounding someone in to the mattress, there is very little pounding of any kind and what happens is brief. At the end Reed seems unwilling for Jim to sub, Jim have lost his great personality as soon as Reed waved in his direction. It seems the only way the author could get the two chars together again, was with making Caleb an over the top creep with actions that made little sense.
I really did enjoy this story. Especially Reed's character. i thought he was wonderful. However, I really didn't think Jim was worthy of his love. I really wished the author had wrote him more likeable but i just couldn't take to him. Think Reed deserved more. Reed obviously gets into some trouble with the new love in his life. But he is a strong character and with the love and support of his best friends, he faces the challenges ahead of him. Jim finally realises that Jack will never stay and decides to try and win Reed's love again...ugh!! I think he should have suffered a bit more tbh.
It's a really good story though, and I'm glad it end with a HEA.
Bear’s still nuts (yet actually makes some good sense a few times) and of course I can’t like Reed (although I’ll give him that his deeper reasons for being a jerk are as horrid as it gets), but Jim is pretty cool (how is it even possible to flounce while sitting in a car?) and overall the writing feels more consistent and less over the top.
Sure, there are blips such as the subs being sent out of the room and Bear then addressing Brian… But that stuff can slip by, I guess. It’s certainly not game-breaking. (Interesting, too, are the grammatical and homophone errors – which I wouldn’t expect from someone with that sort of vocabulary.)
I definitely see traces of the sort of material wish-fulfilment you’d expect from Kindle Alexander (who incidentally also had a character named Reed - whom I loathed), plus the proclamations of love at the end do feel rather on the psychotically destructive side.
I suppose I should say that this isn’t my usual type of book (stylistically and so on), but for some reason I did enjoy it. Maybe this is largely thanks to Jim as a character and the improvements overall compared to the first book in this series.
Jim's story of growth from adversity. Jim seems to have been badly treated throughout his previous relationships, and Reed continues this theme, throwing him over after 3 years for an ex. Reed comes over as self-centred, and sad too, but obviously its not the whole story. I did like that Bear was supportive of Jim, not automatically siding with his fellow Dom. Jim's story of growth continues whilst Reed's life is going downhill fast. And Caleb, vibes from the start! Jim also has his secrets and I'd have loved more on this part of his history. I liked all the characterisation but felt the dialogues were a bit off at times - more what they would say in a very proper world rather than the real world. And if I was Jim I'd have made Reed's grovelling much harder! I enjoyed it, good for when you need a feel good read.
I did not like this book at all ... I can't put my finger on what exactly made me dislike this book ... I think it's a combination of factors including the scenario; style of writing; characters; etc etc ... I don't think the book is bad, I just didn't like it ... although I wouldn't recommend it, I wouldn't actively discourage either ... Sorry! ... I know I'm not usually so 'nebulous' about my opinions on a book but this one just irritated for no apparent reason.
I think it would have been better to have Jim and Reed as newly met or if they had been carrying a flame for each other but never acted on it before. The first part of the story was not to my liking at all. If you take out the fact that Jim and Reed had been in a relationship before all this 'Jack' stuff - it is an okay story.
After meeting Jim and Reed in book 1 you have to read their story here in book 2. The opening is shocking. On their 3 year anniversary Reed throws out Jim because Jack is back. You have to read the story to find out why. Both have secrets from their pasts that have to come out before they can get their happy ending. If you liked A matter of Trust, this one is a must read.
A big improvement on the first book though the sudden personality shift of one of the main characters was rather far fetched. The problem with AC Katt's writing is that she doesn't really understand how to build a believable character and how that affects their choices and actions.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.