Review: Very charming, super hot erotic BDSM romance.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 9, 2012
Camilla is a social anthropologist/computer programmer who lives in an apartment building near the local university, mostly populated by academics. They're all friends who hang out together a fair bit, but Camilla only has a crush one one of them: Ivan, the rocket scientist.Ivan is a genius who understands lasers better than people. He has an extremely ordered life, every activity part of a routine, every minute scheduled. His routines are a coping device, basically, that allow him to navigate the world without freaking out or making a scene. But he's got a big fundraising dinner coming up, he's a post-doc at the university with an insecure position, and he needs to prove that he can be a rainmaker and win grant money if he wants to succeed in academia. So he enlists Camilla as a coach, teaching him the ways of cocktail party chatter and conversational pitching of his ideas.Thus Camilla gets to spend time with this guy she's got a massive crush on. It's frustrating because he doesn't seem to notice her in a sexual way at all...until the dam breaks and we find out that he was holding back because his sexuality, too, is an ordered, strictly regulated thing. He's a dom and he's really only interested in BDSM sex.I have to admit that this kind of BDSM "scene" stuff does not turn my crank. The ropes and the flogs and the getting a spanking if you say, "Yes," instead of "Yes, Professor," makes me roll my eyes a little, so it's a testament to Delphine Dryden's talent that I nonetheless found the novel scorching hot.Even if you skim the sex scenes, the novel's rewarding - the character interaction is really wonderful. Camilla is this very cool, balanced individual and the way that she nurtures and cares for Ivan is almost motherly, which somehow combines perfectly with her submissive role in the bedroom. She's really trying to understand him, to accomodate his quirks, so there's always a sweetness to the hotness.Really, I thought this was a little gem of a novel, and I hope to be reading more from Delphine Dryden in the future.