Review: Guilt-free Erotica
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 2, 2013
This is not your typical erotica.I've waxed rhapsodic about the other books in the Original Sinners series, and looked forward to this collection of five short stories with unabated glee, but it's a very different book than both your typical erotica as well as the other books in the series.For starters, the other Original Sinners books are inextricably tied together. Could you read The Mistress Files without reading the others? Probably, although you would miss the subtle hints of what we already know of Mistress Nora's past, as well as what I hope are clues to what we can expect in the upcoming four books that will be part of "The White Years."The stories in The Mistress Files are more straight-up erotica. While the predominant plot here is Mistress Nora recounting sexcapades with five of her clients, each story delves into personal issues of the clients and why they have come to Mistress Nora. It's less a Dominatrix's how-to guide -- as billed in Nora's first-person narration -- and more a counseling how-to.Unlike a large percentage of BDSM erotica currently on the market, The Mistress Files demonstrates that sex -- even so-called "vanilla" sex -- is about being open, accepting all parts of yourself, and doing the same for others. Nowhere do you find the "broken" people who turn to BDSM and need to be fixed.Mistress Nora is a god-like figure in her own right -- accepting all who come to her without judgment, caring for them as if they were her own, and then sending them out into the world again. This is the one "smut stories" book you don't have to feel guilty about reading.(This review appeared previously on Goodreads.com)