Pounded by Poseidon

by Thea Masen, Holly Wilde

Winning the Mountcastle Cove Sand Sculpture Competition was supposed to be Isla Moore’s ticket to sail past her daddy’s destructive actions at last year’s event.

When she loses, and her stunning sand sculpture gets struck by lightning, she thinks her hopes have been swept away like the tide. But then she meets a new daddy who wants to care for her and make her his. All she needs to do is trust him and surrender everything to his control. Easier said than done.

In this new sentient sand romance, Holly Wilde and Thea Masen give you a daddy dom unlike any you’ve seen before. He’ll make you kneel, give you a necklace, spank you pink, and tell you to STFUATTDLAGG.

Daddy’s coming.

Genres: Novella, Fantasy, Romance, Spicy, Erotica, Smut, Summer

84 pages, Paperback

Published June 14, 2024

Reviews

[Sadie E · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There’s no doubt in my mind that I want the king of the sea to be the king of my P.”

I’ve read the entire Sentient Object Holiday Romance series (no regrets), so I knew exactly what kind of commitment to chaos I was signing up for. But somehow, this still managed to escalate in ways I wasn’t fully prepared for.

A year before the main events, Poseidon, who is, at this point, sand (yes, sand) observes our FMC and thinks: “She walks along the shoreline like a goddess crowned in fury.” And I paused, not in shock, but in recognition. Ah. We’re doing this again.

Because the thing about Holly Wilde and Thea Masen is they commit. Hard. The writing's genuinely good, and the wordplay's relentless. The wordplay rivals the foreplay.

Our FMC, Isla, has a bit of emotional baggage. Specifically a potential “Daddy Dom” who couldn't keep it in his pants. Not in the way you’re thinking, but still enough to leave a mark. Naturally, the narrative solution is not personal growth alone, but a new Daddy.

A sand-based one.

Posei-daddy.

During a sandcastle competition, she builds Poseidon. A storm hits, the sand becomes sentient, and suddenly there's a fully formed, tentacled sea god standing there.

With a face. And presence. And immediate chemistry that no one questions. Not even me.

Isla certainly doesn’t.

"The way he says my name has my panties flooding like it’s high tide.”

And at that point, I just accepted my fate as a reader and kept going.

Poseidon, for his part, is nothing if not confident. “I know your panties are wetter than the rain pounding down around us, Isla. I’m the king of all things water, and you’re hiding an ocean between those thighs.”

Why is he so emotionally supportive though??

Somewhere between the tentacles and the tidal metaphors, this sentient half man-half sand-half god (ManBearPig but make it sexy) is offering reassurance and validation, plus a surprising amount of care. I didn't expect emotional intelligence from a magically animated sandcastle, but here we are.

And then, of course, the necklace situation. Isla loses hers. Normal, human inconvenience. Poseidon replaces it in a way that is entirely on brand for this book and deeply, deeply unfortunate for my sense of peace 🦪

What makes all of this work is the imagery. It’s vivid and creative. I didn't know there were this many ocean-based metaphors available, but this book finds them and uses all of them with absolute confidence.

By the halfway point, the pacing has fully detached from reality, the logic has dissolved, and yet the writing keeps you anchored just enough to continue. At some point it stops being about plot and becomes about witnessing just how far the premise will go, and the answer is: exactly as far as you think, and then slightly further.

[Peter Topside · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I’m the king of all things water, and you’re hiding an ocean between those thighs.” I must be reading way too much again. I actually dreamt that I was going through my to-read list last night. And, somehow, the cover to this book came up as a priority. Sentient object smut has invaded Peter Topside’s dreams. Could be worse, I guess. I could be dreaming about how much my healthcare premiums are going to skyrocket in 2025. Makes me cringe. Ok, so we have a book to discuss…cocktacles, high-grade sexual encounters, and enough fantasy to shiver the heartiest of timbers. The author chose to alternate POVs to between our lead, Isla, and her sea god, as they ravaged one another in the name everlasting love. The writing was done very well and, despite the premise being so silly, Thea Masen took this as far as possible to make it a coherent tale of lust and affection. A fun erotica for the masses. Bon voyage!

[Becky (romantic_pursuing_feels) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: Some of my goodreads shelves can be spoilers

Overall: 4.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥
Humor: Yes
Perspective: first person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium to fast
When mains are first on page together: The hero (sentient sand) observes the heroine immediately, but they don’t interact until 26%
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes ‘many years later’
Format: read an e-book version from kindle unlimited subscription
(Descriptions found at end of my review)

Should I read in order?
This is a stand alone romance.

Basic plot:
Isla is desperate to win the sand sculpting contest this year after her daddy’s despicable behavior the year before, when her sculpture comes to life and wants to be her new ‘daddy’.

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary sentient object romance
- Mountcastle Cove setting – a sleepy seaside village
- sentient sand hero
- medium to higher steam – 2 full scenes within a short page count including some kink elements

Ages:
- didn’t see them mentioned

First line:
The roar of the sea crashing onto land startles me awake, and I watch as the blue-green comforts surrounding me turn foamy white.

My thoughts:
I overall enjoyed this short sentient story! I will admit my expectations were high, because Stiff by Masen was AMAZING and one of my favorite books recently and definitely my favorite paranormal-ish/sentient-ish romance. And Stiff still has my heart! But still this one is fun.

It’s a shorter story, so you don’t get a ton of background. I liked the set up for this and thought the ‘miscommunication’ of the first couple chapters was so funny. I loved Poseidon as a hero and the spicy scenes are perfection. Always happy to give these a read!

Cock/Hero Stats:

- the hero is sentient sand. He’s sculpted into Poseidon, and struck by lightening to glaze him over.
- his tentacle cock is rough but not gritty – a cocktacle!
- he tastes of salt water taffy


Endearments

Hero calls the heroine ‘little island’


Content warnings: (This should be taken as a minimum because I could have missed some!)

- sex on the beach with a sand monster – possibility of being discovered
- spanking, tentacle holding…
- talk of breeding
Author given content warnings: disappointing father figure, daddy kink, dom/little sub, breeding, tentacle play, impact play (spanking), bondage, degradation, oral, anal, sex in public, sandy sex on the beach



Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

Safe sex: No
Hows the consent? It’s good
37% - 🔥 bj, tentacles and suckers grabbing the heroine make her come, throat play with tentacles, hero comes on the heroine’s neck, giving her a pearl necklace
63% - 🔥 oral for her, her on top-ish, spanking, anal fingering, anal with the trident


Extra stuff like what my review breakdowns mean, where to find me, and book clubs


Full break down on what my ratings above mean here:
Overall: How I felt about it everything considered!
Readability: How ‘readable’ was the book? Did I fly through it? Did I have to tell myself to pick it back up repeatedly? Were any passages confusing? (I will probably score like (1) is literally unreadable due to formatting/typing errors, etc (2) There were lots of errors that made it difficult to read OR It was extremely confusing and I had to reread passages to make sense of it OR I disliked it so much I had to bribe myself to keep reading (3) I didn’t really want to keep reading and would have preferred to abandon the read and start something else OR some minor continuity issues/confusion (4) I liked it fine, maybe a minor error or 2. I was happy to pick it up when I had time. (5) I never wanted to put this down. I thought about it when I wasn’t reading it. I hid in the bathroom from my kids to read. I threw inappropriate food at my children for dinner so I could read instead.)
Feels: Totally subjective to each person but did the book give me any tingles? Any butterflies? Did it rip my heart out (in a good way?)
Emotional depth: How well do I feel I know the characters at the end? How much did I feel their emotions throughout the story?
Sexual tension: Again, subjective, but how strong was the wanting and longing to me between the characters? A book might have strong sexual tension without a single touch.
Romance: Was there romance? Did romantic things happen? This can be actions/words/thoughts of the characters and again is subjective.
Sensuality: This is how the intimate scenes are written. Kisses and sexual scenes – how sensual were they? Were they on the mechanical side? Was there emotional pull tied in? Were the details explicit or flowery? These are subjective but generally (1) too short to get a good judgement (2) not all what I'm looking for - very vague or flowery prose (3) either not explicit enough or not enough emotional pull (too mechanical/physically descriptive without the emotions) (4) what I love in a scene (5) absolute perfection - perfect balance of emotional longing and explicit descriptions
Sex Scene Length: How long the bedroom scenes are (generally (1) is 1-3 sentences (2) is a few paragraphs to a page-ish (3) is about average, a few pages (4) more well developed scenes, quite a few pages with descriptions (4) the majority of the book takes place in the bedroom. This is always hard to tell for me on audio!
Steam Scale: Generally, each flame is a scene. If scenes are super close together I sometimes combine them. If a scene is super short or so vague I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t count it. There’s some levels of grey but generally the number of flames is how many sex scenes there are (I max out at 5 so I’ll put a + after if there’s more than that)



Find me
Instagram || The Storygraph || Bookbub

Book Clubs
The Ton and the Tartans (Historical Romance)
Upturned Petticoats and Undone Cravats (Historical Romance with Steam Requirements)
A Love Less Ordinary (Science Fiction, Paranormal, Monster, Fantasy Romance)
Modern Manuscripts (Contemporary Romance)
Words for the Wicked (Contemporary Romance with Steam Requirements)
Vintage Romance (Old School Romance – published 2000 and prior)

[Анастасія ꒰⁠⑅⁠ᵕ⁠༚⁠ᵕ⁠꒱⁠˖⁠♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

На один раз підійде, сумніваюся що колись її буду перечитувати.

[Kate Dash · Rating 4 out of 5]

You don’t have man — make one from sand.
It was funny, it was def not what I expected
4⭐️

[Kirsten | Bookish.kir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I let my curiosity get the best of me more often than not anymore and I'm not even mad about it.

[christinac_reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

To whom it may concern: I would like to scrub my brain and erase the last hour of my life from my memory.

[Bria · Rating 1 out of 5]

A sentient sand sculpture? There are places sand should never be and I guarantee Isla has sand in all of them.

[Biblio · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Isla's daddy is a sore loser and ruins the sandcastle competition for her she swears the following year she will do it alone. When the following year goes awry Isla learns just how special sand can to be to her, especially when it wants to be your new daddy. This was a wet and wild summer read from two amazing authors, Holly and Thea. The smut was hot and heavy and this read is sure to leave you wet in all the right places. No sand in your buttcrack thjough, I promise. Someone call wet and wild and show them what we want (this).

[...Bookshocker... · Rating 3 out of 5]

Per la rubrica dei libri con il trope "Oggetti strani e dove infilarseli", Poseidone si piazza (per ora) al 3 posto, anche se Mr. Egg potrebbe spodestarlo 😅
Diciamo che è "l'oggetto" meno strano tra quelli incontrati finora. È tentacoloso ma senza effetti speciali (per questi si veda, invece, Mr. Egg 🥚 🤣🤣)
A suo sfavore anche la questione che Poseidone non brilla di acume in questo libro. E la protagonista? Tutta sta fissazione per la gara delle statue di sabbia 😵‍💫... trovati un altro hobby meno stressante 😅

[Andrea]

Ik dacht dit ironisch te kunnen lezen voor shits and giggles. Heb ik gedaan bij de proloog, hoofdstuk 1, laatste hoofdstuk en de epiloog. Alles daartussen? Gewoon een NEE

Echt met moeite gelezen. Ben er gewoon een beetje naar van.

Nu dat mijn boekendoel is behaald kijk ik er naar uit om minder traumatiserende boeken te lezen.

[Jasmine Wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 🌟


Tentacle porn, need I say more?

[Megs 📚 · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is why I’m in therapy

[Ryn Emilee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book review: Pounded by Poseidon by Holly Wilde

Just when you think you’ve seen it all in the spicy short story world, along comes this sandy sea-daddy to absolutely wreck your sanity—in the best way. I was not ready. I thought I was ready. I was wrong.

Let’s start with the sand. Not just any sand. SENTIENT. EMOTIONALLY SUPPORTIVE. SEXUAL AWAKENING sand. This grainy little hero is just vibing, minding its own business on the beach when it spots our sad girl chucking shells like she’s in a one-woman Olympic shotput event. The sand is like, “Oh nooo, she has daddy issues?? Don’t worry babe, I am the daddy now.” I almost choked on my tea.

Cut to: sandcastle contest. Our girl loses. Tragic. Cue dramatic freak storm and BOOM—Poseidon himself rises from the sandcastle. This dude is built and ready. Is she shocked? Yes. Is she also down? Also yes.

Now here’s where the beach-themed kinkyfuckery truly sets sail. We’ve got:
✅ Trident play (yes, that kind of play)
✅ Tentacles doing the most in all the places
✅ Breeding kink

This book had me blinking in disbelief, laughing like a maniac, and then clutching the book so hard when sandman gave a pearl necklace. It’s a wild ride, an unhinged, chaotic, delightful little novella that exists purely to bless your brain with laughter and depravity.

If you’re in a funk? READ THIS. If your week’s been trash? READ THIS.

[Valeria Jiun · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS NOVELLA IS UNHINGED IN THE BEST WAY 🌊 🐙🐚 can you think of an ocean, sand, or sea innuendo, pun or metaphor? Because I guarantee you it’s in this book and it will make you giggle! >>>> it’s giving Hot Frosty but sand sculpture of poseidon… tentacles and all.

It is a perfectly ridiculous, VERY spicy, SOR that checks all the boxes. If you are looking for an unhinged read that makes you scream WTF AM I READING AND WHY AM I INTO IT? This is it 😂

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Read if you love:
• sentient object romance (SOR)
• tentacles
• obsessive/possessive mmc
• the netflix movie hot frosty but wished it had spice
• fast paced, short, sm^tty read
• HEA
• summer/ beach vibes
• small town

[Dakota Cockaday · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pounded by Poseidon was so much fun. I usually steer clear of dom-sub tropes because so many authors seem to think it's merely a relationship with a lot of abuse, but Holly and Thea knocked this dom-sub out of the park. Poseidon is the absolute best Daddy Dom of the summer. Now I just need a Greek God of my own....

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was deeply silly and not as terrible as I expected. More descriptive (and perhaps overwritten) than some of the other unhinged spicy books I've read recently, I did get bored at times. The premise is totally ridiculous, and the flash forward at the end had me literally LOLing.

The sex scenes had cringey but funny language and were...not horrible. Give this one a read if you want a laugh!

[Jy’s Books]

Not for me! But a very interesting short book!

[cey ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

that was quite the trip 😂

[Guami Mommy · Rating 1 out of 5]

GTFOH

[Charlotte Trimble-Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

short and spicy beach romance. he’s a god and the king of her p

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I’m the king of all things water, and you’re hiding an ocean between those thighs” las carcajadas que me sacó este libro, qué buena onda. Recomiendo.

[♡︎ ink ♡︎]

the sea-themed sex puns made me laugh

[Stacie Butcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d have given 4 but I kept getting confused between real daddy and Poseidon daddy 😅

[Nootka Lenoir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost left because of the sand
Stayed for all the sea puns

He may be made of sand, but he’s an ocean, wild and tranquil all at once. And I’m adrift in his current.

[Bree Mcbride · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars mostly because I love the line: “There’s no doubt in my mind that I want the king of the sea to be the king of my P.” *chefs kiss*

Other than that, there is no version of an erotica book that will convince me sand up my ass is a good thing.

[Shannon McCullough · Rating 2 out of 5]

The sand must have gotten everywhere…

[sydnee johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a spicy read ! Just a quick little dive into pound town. One of the more realistic scenarios for these types of books I would say, (doesn’t mean realistic lol). Now am I saying I would let Poseidon take a little swim in my cave … the answer is yes. Do I love the premise of him wanting to replace her father and have her call him daddy um not so much!

This book got 4 instead of 5 because I get the ick from daddy books. Listen I have daddy issues for days but I certainly don’t want to call the person I’m banging daddy. It’s a weird convoluted situation, muddies the waters a bit 😉. Clearly I am not a fan of daddy books, love a little dom/sub but the daddy thing turns me off.

Would definitely still recommend this to someone who is weird like me and has just realized they love strange monster erotica 😜

[✮⋆˙Fari ﾒ' · Rating 1 out of 5]

...

[shelby · Rating 1 out of 5]

we read and don’t judge