Freed by Stacey Kennedy

Available from Loveswept, 2014

Not my first foray into romance or erotica but this is my first full reading of a genre book about BDSM. I tried reading Shades of Gray but urgh, it was so terribly written I just couldn’t slough past the first chapter.

I can’t honestly say Freed was much better. The writing was basic…good enough not to be distracting yet lacking in a voice that was compelling. Not that I expected much of the voice in this category, so that point ends up with an average rating.

The characterization was pretty basic as well. Also as expected, so also average on that rating point. However, the narrative that dealt with the characterization was so terribly repetitive I skimmed much of it.

Now, in romance, the formula is that whenever the characters are apart, they pine for each other. Fair enough. But the pining of these two could be categorize as:

Guy: Desperately wants this woman who is clearly the woman of his dreams (oh, and every time he thinks of her, “his cock twitched in his pants.” Well, I was glad to hear he wasn’t going around dangling free all the time, so was grateful to learn that it was always in his pants. Always. Every time. Repetitive, see? And that’s only one example).

Gal: Still grieving for her dead husband but doesn’t know it. These bits at least have some flashbacks (very poorly handled by italicizing…italicizing!!! Like readers won’t otherwise know it’s a flashback!!!) so at least it provides new info. But the rest is summed up as: she wants something but are her feelings betraying her dead husband? Why oh why does she feel so torn?

And, since this is a steamy (erotic) romance revolving around BDSM, I am obliged to provide an analysis of the sex scenes. Pretty good, actually. Nicely drawn, lots of details without getting cheesy with the euphemisms.

So, the rating. For general reading, it would have to be 2 stars. But when you pick up this kind of book, you’re not looking for general reading, you’re looking for hot spicy sexiness. And maybe some true love on the side. So the rating in this category for this book would be:

4 stars

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