Innocence

by Caitlin Ricci, Robin Tennant

Attending a candlelight vigil for Kassandra, a murdered black transwoman, James meets Michael, Kassandra's brother and a regular at the kink club Sirenia where the vigil is held. When James goes to return a shirt Michael let him borrow, the two strike up a friendship, despite the years between them, the very different lives they lead, and racial tension in the aftermath of Kassandra's death. And as Michael introduces James to dating and kink, their friendship quickly evolves into more.

118 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 11, 2018

About the author

Caitlin was fortunate growing up to be surrounded by family and teachers that encouraged her love of reading. She has always been a voracious reader and that love of the written word easily morphed into a passion for writing. If she isn't writing, she can usually be found studying as she works toward her counseling degree. She comes from a military family and the men and women of the armed forces are close to her heart. She also enjoys gardening and horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies where she calls home with her wonderful fiance and their dog. Her belief that there is no one true path to happily ever after runs deeply through all of her stories.

Reviews

[Salem · Rating 2 out of 5]

**I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.**

So, here’s the deal. This book hits hard on a lot of topics that are trending right now—trans rights, racial tension, the prevalence of HIV and the stigma around it, and on top of that trinity of guaranteed drama, it has some BDSM thrown in. I enjoyed the fact that the author hit on those topics because a lot of books just glaze over the deeper, more sensitive topics to make for a fun, happy read.

With that being said, unfortunately the book sort of fell flat for me. The relationship didn’t bloom naturally but instead felt stilted, and forced. A lot of the dialogue was the same —the conversations didn’t flow well and I was left confused more than once when a conversation suddenly switched topics without a decent segue.

Overall, it was just okay for me. It was a quick read; I managed to finish it in just under three hours, but I found myself tempted to skim through certain scenes because the plot was dragging along. Again, I applaud the author on some topics the book hit on but I can’t bring myself to give more than 2.5 stars due to the lack of character development, awkward dialogue, and slow moving plot.