Bitter Bonds

COMBINED REVIEW WITH [b:Broken Bonds 17182020 Broken Bonds (Souls in Bondage, #1) Lex Valentine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1370503280l/17182020.SY75.jpg 23628942]Sometimes, when I'm going to spend the day cooking or other activity needing my hands but not so much brain activity, I like to check out narrators, though not necessarily on a book I really want to read and get lost in. The Audible Romance Package is a nice resource for this and many times I've been pleasantly surprised by the narrator and the story. This time it was a bag of nuts. I had a vague idea that this was a BDSM story but not much else. It is a story of people who are allegedly in this community, but I think most BDSM practitioners would be hard pressed to identify any real characters here. The first book, Broken Bonds, is surprisingly Christmas adjacent, in that it takes place on Christmas Eve, and has to do with a sh*tbag who calls himself a Dom, using mourning trauma to ill treat his current sub, kicking him out into a snowy night. Said sub, Haven, is a sort of naif who, though he's been through every Dickensian cliche, from foster home bullies to rape, keeps a hope filled heart but is woefully unprepared to face the outside world without his Dom, which leads him to the brink of death. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. Yes, I know. I'm a terrible person, but no one can take these seriously. Each book starts with two angels, watching over our Dom & subs, and losing feathers, which indicates that something is going wrong, and that the angels must intervene. It's a Hallmark/Lifetime Holiday movie 80's style. You watch/read these with liquor & the comfort food of your choice. I had fun, maybe it wasn't the author's intention but ... Book 2 Bitter Bonds revisits with the folks from book 1, but centers on Jake, a Dom with such an angelic voice that people are mesmerized when they hear him sing. However Jake is not pursuing a singing career or having a sub. The singing I get, dreams and plans change, and Jake is now in his thirties, the no partner? Romance nonsense of the “I've had no luck with relationships” variety which will be rectified when Finn, a Nordic version of an anime character, shows up at Darkness, the club where all the cool BDSM kids play. Finn is not only another badly used, helpless, holding-on-by-a-thread, sub, he's also a musical prodigy. What are the odds? Jake's buddies contrive to set them up, and voila. I don't want to rag on these books because I did listen to them, they got me through a long Sunday, and I laughed, but most of the credit goes to [a:Chris Chambers 3059129 Chris Chambers https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. The man almost spun gold out of straw, he even sang! My problem with these was that if I turned on my RL button I would've been saying WTF???, wanting to smack the subs for being TSTL, and having the so called Doms whipped, and not for fun. The literal “Angels watching over us” thing does afford these a fable or fairy tale flavor which could work if your feeling sentimental or in a [b:A Christmas Carol 5327 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396055652l/5327.SX50.jpg 3097440] kind of mood, which the first one does reference. My big problem is that the whole D/s dynamic is treated in an almost fantastical way. The subs are continuously referred to as The Sub, as if that sexual kink described they're whole being, and at times it was close to true. All the want to do is obey, submit, and be collared. To my liking this would've worked better in a non-shifter ‘verse where these dynamics are plausible, believable, and justified. As it was the subs seemed like people who need intensive years of therapy to repair self-worth issues that run deep. Anyway ... if you have the AB Escape package this is free. ;)