|
In the
interest of pleasing her lover, Kevin, Kate agrees to a weekend of play
with one
of his old flames. Kevin’s friend Mark,
bisexual and domineering, is used to taking exactly what he wants, with
or
without permission. Kate, still desiring
to please Kevin, goes along with the situation, fascinated by the men’s
play,
even as she is repulsed by Mark and his attitude. Confused
by her feelings, somewhat jealous of
Kevin’s deference to his old lover, Kate is forced to decide between
her own
feelings or her love for Kevin.
Ellora’s
Cave is quite accurate in giving this book an extreme rating. Ms. Thompson has presented us not with a
story of loving BDSM but with an example of when a woman, in the guise
of
pleasing her dominant, ignores all the warning signs of a situation
gone
horridly wrong. I, personally, was
disturbed by the way Kevin ignored his supposed love, Kate, in favor of
obeying
Mark’s whims. Kevin rarely defended his
lover, doing so only when she was panicked.
And when she truly needed his help, he’d been placed
in a situation
where he couldn’t give it at all.
While I
normally gravitate to anything that is BDSM, I found it difficult to
tolerate
this one. The heroine, Kate, came across
as an indecisive and unintelligent woman who wasn’t willing to trust
her own
instincts if her lover said that everything was fine.
The hero, Kevin, was wishy-washy and seemed
somehow one-sided and undeveloped.
Finally, there was Mark, who was a man gone out of
control, yet was
unpunished by the lovers, as it seemed they were more afraid of the
police finding
out about their lifestyle than they were in doing what was correct and
proper
by reporting him for rape. Overall, Face of
Submission was a disappointment to
me; I expected more plot, more
character development, not a series of extreme BDSM scenes strung
together to
make a book.
Reviewed by Meribeth
McCombs for The Road to Romance
July
6, 2004
|
