Review: A touch of winter
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2014
This was offered as a freebie short story and it's okay for free but may be best left to fans of the accompanying novel if paid for separately.A pair of people who need to make some lifestyle choices have been separated by business. When the lady reporter returns from a jungle assignment, for some reason she gets herself waxed and buffed all over before going near the love of her life, which tends to say that he's rather secondary in her priorities. Surprise, he's up to tricks with another woman, a former girlfriend. Naturally the reporter gets upset and childishly smashes a glass statue of his.The two later have a discussion about their relationship, which can't take place until the man has physically restrained the woman he loves and persists in thinking of as 'the sub' and beaten her mildly. I think I'd be getting a restraining order. I also thought it extremely peculiar that this self-sufficient tough girl had not learned martial arts for just such situations. I certainly would not see this as the foundation for a future. Nobody talks rationally in these stories; nobody asks the reporter whether she could apply to a magazine or paper for editing and feature work if Haiti and other destinations are wrecking her family life.The assembly of words leaves a little to be desired: "He pulled one loose, and before Abbie could get up, and used it to tie her wrists together." Then, having described the tying up with care, and emphasised which foot or hand was tied where, the authors neglect to show how the bonds vanish when in the next instant the lady gets up and walks away from the man.  Maybe this is what comes of working in a team, each taking part of the work which is not quite unified. I am sure the novel will have been edited with more care.A lengthy sex scene occurs to lead readers into the peculiarities of the submissive and dominant lifestyle.  It doesn't seem to matter that the woman is not submissive; the man cannot countenance any other way of relating to her. Having read several erotic novels which take this stance, it does seem that women get brainwashed into being used and abused by testosterone-fuelled men who won't want to know them when they have toddlers or they are forty. My suggestion is that anything the man does to a woman, the woman should be able to do to him next. If the man won't hear of it, dump him and find someone decent.