THE DOM PROJECT

TITLE: THE DOM PROJECT

AUTHORS: HELOISE BELLEAU & SOLACE AMES

Pages: 157

Date: 19/01/2014

Grade: 3

Details: Received from Carina Press

              Through NetGalley

Own / Kindle

The blurb:

“By day, Robin Lessing has a successful career as a university archivist. By night, she blogs about her less-than-successful search for Mr. Tall, Dark and Dominant. Living up to her handle "The Picky Submissive," she's on the verge of giving up and settling for vanilla with a side of fuzzy handcuffs when she discovers her best friend and colleague has a kinky side, too.

Sexy, tattooed techie John Sun is an experienced Dom who never lacks for playmates, male or female. If he can't satisfy Robin's cravings, maybe no one can—after all, he knows her better than anyone. So he offers to help her master the art of submission for one month.

Robin eagerly agrees to John's terms, even the pesky little rule forbidding any friendship-ruining sex. But rules are made to be broken, and once they begin their stimulating sessions, it's not long before she's ready to beg him for more—much more…”

My thoughts:

I seem to be saying it a lot these days and I’m getting a bit tired of it, but once again I’ve finished a book that I feel could have been a lot more. Another book in which I loved the idea behind the story and wasn’t as happy as I’d hoped to be with the way in which it was executed.

The idea; I loved Robin’s quest for a Dom and her frustration with all the creeps she meets along the way. And I adored Jason. He had the exact right combination of arrogance, dominance and vulnerability to make me a very happy reader.

I guess I didn’t click with Robin. In real life I would say that I had nothing against her but she wasn’t doing anything for me either. She left me cold. I had problems with her switching from perfectly poised professional in work to squeely geek on her blog. I felt myself in the strange position of rooting for John’s happiness (and if that was with Robin so be it) and not caring at all about Robins. On top of that I found myself torn between thinking how nice it was to read a book in which the characters manage to stick to their no sex contract and wanting to shout at them to get on with it already.

But what got to me most was the lack of communication between these characters. John is an experienced Dom and as such well aware of the need for good communication, yet he doesn’t open his mouth. These two are supposed to have been friends for ages and yet they don’t talk to each other when it is important. It’s not so much that I had a problem with the lack of communication as such – there are plenty of books in which the same idea fits the story and characters perfectly - as that it didn’t make sense for these two specific characters to fall into that trap.

And finally, there were moments in this book where the writing just didn’t work for me. I don’t want to have to read sentences twice because I’m not entirely sure what I just read. It didn’t happen a lot, but often enough for me to want to mention it. The following sentence is an example. The sentiment is so beautiful and yet there’s something about the wording that makes it lose its power.

“He remembered thinking of love – love could mean so many things. Pain and pleasure and compassion all braided together and tied them close, Robin and John, hearts and flowers and collars and mine.”

On the other hand, there were moments when the writing worked all too well and managed to touch me.  

“I’ll always want more from you. Even if you give me yourself, even if you give me everything, I’ll want more.”

And then there were the moments when the authors managed to make the sexy poetic.

“I’ll be your doll. Your toy. Serve you as long as you make me feel this way, like heaven made flesh, like dying, like coming alive.”

And the same is true for the sex scenes. Some of them rocked my world, took my breath away and managed to draw me completely into the story. Others left me more or less cold. I didn’t always feel the chemistry between these two characters and when I didn’t, the story more or less fell apart for me.

I guess you could say I’m conflicted about this book. There were parts of it I loved and parts of it that just fell flat. And I’m afraid that I’m sounding far more negative about this book than I want to. It is not as if there is a lot wrong with this book. It just didn’t have the wow factor for me. I was expecting more and disappointed when I didn’t get it. I’m convinced there is a multitude of readers who will find exactly what they are looking for in ‘The Dom Project’.