Review: Tender Mercies by Kitty Thomas

Tender Mercies
~Kitty Thomas

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 283 KB
Publisher: Burlesque Press
Publish Date: May 6, 2011
Language: English
ASIN: B004ZR9OGU

From Goodreads:
“Grace. That word that finally meant something again. Mercy. Favor. Good will.”

Fed up with play kink, Grace Warner moves to an island that embraces erotic slavery to be with a man she met online. Within hours of her arrival, everything is ripped from her, and she quickly learns play is preferable to the realities of actual enslavement.

Asher Collins has spent the past year mourning and blaming himself for the death of his slave, Darcy. When Grace catches his eye at a showing, obviously abused, he becomes obsessed with buying her and finding a way to atone for his own past sins.

Grace Warner wants to be an erotic slave. So much so that she's been considering moving to a private island where it's legal...and binding. She's been communicating with Lucas Stone, a resident of the island nation Eleu, for almost a year. He wants her to come out and be his slave, but she's just not sure she's willing to give up her citizenship and become his legal property. After they have an argument and quit communicating, she realizes it is what she wants and agrees to go to him.

What happens once she gets to the island is not at all what she'd envisioned - he's a vicious and sadistic master. Eight months into it, she barely recognizes her beaten, bloodied appearance or even her own name. Then, when she thinks things can't get worse, he sells her to Asher Collins, a man reputed to have killed his last slave.

What Grace doesn't know is that Asher didn't kill his slave, but feels responsible for her death anyway. His guilt has prevented him from purchasing another slave,until he sees how Lucas has been treating Grace. He sees in Grace a chance to atone for his mistakes and save a life where previously he did not. But has Grace been tortured beyond repair? Can she unlearn the lessons taught by such a sadistic master as Lucas was? And is Asher a strong enough master to save her?

Kitty Thomas writes darkly erotic novels that are not easily forgotten; Tender Mercies is no exception. Her psychologically disturbing yet erotic stories take the reader on a journey of submission and trust as a way to fulfillment. Comfort Food, Guilty Pleasures, and Tender Mercies all explore the slave/master dynamic, but she manages to make the story different and intriguing each time. Her stories are well-crafted and even though the scenarios are fantastical in a kinky, masochistic sense, I don't have any trouble falling right into her stories and becoming fully vested in the characters and their experiences. I am slightly disturbed by how much I enjoy her books; as if something this dark should not be enjoyed, but I do. Very much.

Note: This book contains non-consentual sex scenes, so if you have difficulty reading those types of scenes, this may not be the book for you.

My Rating:

This book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Comfort Food by Kitty Thomas

From Amazon.com:
Emily Vargas has been taken captive. As part of his conditioning methods, her captor refuses to speak to her, knowing how much she craves human contact. He's far too beautiful to be a monster. Combined with his lack of violence toward her, this has her walking a fine line at the edge of sanity. Told in the first person from Emily's perspective, Comfort Food explores what happens when all expectations of pleasure and pain are turned upside down, as whips become comfort and chicken soup becomes punishment.

DISCLAIMER:
This is not a story about consensual BDSM. This is a story about “actual” slavery. If reading an erotic story without safewords makes you uncomfortable, this is not the book for you. This is a work of fiction, and the author does not endorse or condone any behavior done to another human being without their consent.

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I was first made aware of Comfort Food when Cecile reviewed it, then did an interview with Kitty Thomas. Cecile -thank you.

I don't know where to begin....All I can say is, "Wow." I read this book in one sitting, I was sucked in from the first page and couldn't put it down.

Comfort Food is the story of a true Master/slave relationship, not a fetish, but an actual way of life. Emily is kidnapped, held hostage, and manipulated emotionally until she is a willing slave.

Ms. Thomas says in her interview at Cecile's place: "Any readers who are expecting a lot of physical violence or some type of brutal rape ... that doesn't happen here."

She's absolutely right - it's all psychological, and both horrifying and fascinating at the same time. I didn't find it a dark read, more....almost clinical, if you will, and I think that was due to the descriptive quality of Ms. Thomas' writing. The "cell" was light, the other rooms were bright - I never got the impression she was ever left in darkness.

The "relationship" that developed between them was so fucked up I just couldn't look away:

"....I came to trust him more than I'd ever trusted anyone. Because even if he was a monster, he followed his own rules. And he was my monster."

I didn't miss the irony of Emily being semi-famous for writing self-help novels, and that she had a degree in psychology. She knew what was going on and was still helpless to stop it. I was very interested in Master and the reasons behind his actions. I wanted to hate him, I knew I should hate him, but I was fascinated with his motivations. I was thrilled when Ms. Thomas gave us a peek into Master's journal.

"If I have this dark need to have compete power over her, she has an equal almost pathalogical need to give it to me."

Although I thought the fact that Master was rich made things a bit too easy, it didn't bother me for long. I just couldn't put the book down, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished reading it.

We never do learn Master's name, and I can't stop wondering if Emily ever does either.

My rating: