Review: Solid Non-Traditional Love Story, Fantastic Heroine
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 13, 2014
Desperate times call for desperate measures and 23 year old Emily Malone is beyond desperate. She has loved Paul Jarman for as long as she had been capable of love. Unfortunately Paul only sees Emily as his best friend’s little sister and has rebuffed her advances numerous times. As thoughts of Paul begin to consume her every thought, Emily decides that she’s willing to lie to get what she wants from Paul even if it is only for one night.What I Loved: Fate is a super easy read that moves quickly and blends erotica, romance, drama, and even humor. Author Nikki Sex had me quickly falling in love with plucky heroine Emily. I felt for her spending the majority of her life in the shadows of her family and friends only to find the courage to fight for what she wants as a grown woman. She may not go about making her wants known in the best (or healthiest) way but that just made Emily more human to me. I also appreciated the balance in the story between the main characters commitment to the BDSM lifestyle and the development of their romantic relationship within that world. BDSM often gets a bad rap of being smut but Fate manages to balance the complexity of exploring emotional and physical limits.What I Didn’t Love: Emily is such a sweetheart that I couldn’t help but cheer for her to get her man. That said, I have to confess that at times Paul tested my patience. His moods would shift so quickly and the strength and vehemence in which he lashes out at those around him would occasionally pull me away from the character.Favorite Lines:“She’d loved one man too long, too much, to the point of madness… and her plans were dishonorable.”“To Emily’s mind, love was a virus. A disease. And there was no cure.”“It was courageous to go against the opinions of those around you, little rabbit. Perhaps you are in fact, the little lioness. I salute you.”I know some people are a little afraid of the BDSM genre but Nikki Sex does a phenomenal job in humanizing her characters and making you invest in them. I easily saw the characters as flawed, real people trying to find their own happiness in the world and if that happened to include some non-traditional “happiness”… so be it.Don’t be scared, Fate is worth reading. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.Happy reading.This review is for The Reading Room Blog.