Triple Review!

What Worse Place Can I Beg in Your Love? by Syd McGinley
Stars: 3/5

Overall
This is a very strange story. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the story as a whole, or even in part. The writing is pretty middle of the road, done in a simple and straightforward style that is fitting for the narrator. The content did nothing to move me emotionally and parts creeped me out a little, but logically I can appreciate what McGinley did in the story. This isn't a romance, it isn't a slave/master story and while sex is described (in detail), most people won't consider this a "hot" read as the sex happens between a human and an alien and mostly sounds painful. I think this story would be more disturbing if not for the ending, which provides an amount of comfort for the reader.

Oddly enough, if you don't go into this story expecting a romance, it's actually a very interesting (and slightly disturbing) study of the lead character and humanity. While I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, or even most people, if you aren't easily disgusted and read Borges and Vonnegut, then you may find this an interesting story.

If you like aliens with large dicks training their pet human to be a good pet, then you may enjoy this as well.




Velvet Dragon by Sean Michael
Stars: 3/5

Overall
Another Sean Michael book in classic form. We return to the Velvet Glove where we meet Serius and Dragonne. Serius is new to the Glove and looking for a sub, preferably a challenge and Mal offers up Dragonne who gives the facade of submitting beautifully but never actually submits. Unlike most of Michael's other Velvet Glove stories, this one doesn't focus on the more hardcore elements (whipping, etc), although there is at least one scene with them. The focus of this story is getting Dragonne to actually submit when he's been trained his entire life to not give up those things that Serius is demanding. I enjoyed the different perspective that this story offered although it isn't what I'd call one of the "hot" stories.

My one issue was that Serius was described as kind of stone faced and emotionally cold and while there was a little bit of progress that we saw, there also seemed to be a large jump from stone cold to caring. I would have liked to see a little bit more of the change happening. But overall a pleasant little story.



Got Your Back by William Neale
Stars: 3/5

Overall
This was a cute story told mainly from the perspective of a dog. I enjoyed the concept and the overall story, but the writing left something to be desired at times. While it wasn't a waste of time, I wouldn't have wanted to spend more than I did on it, which is sad, because I think it had a lot of potential.

Strengths
Grady. Easily my favorite part of the story, the writing in the italic bits indicating Grady seemed well written, witty (with a touch of snark) and still caring. Grady loves his owner with all the devotion of a dog, but that doesn't mean he can't get frustrated with him! In the short space we have to get to know everyone, I fell in love with this sparky dog. Very sweet.

Weaknesses
Dialogue. Much of the dialogue felt stilted and unnatural. I couldn't imagine two men talking like that to one another, especially after having only known each other a week. Part of me wonders if the desire/need to keep this story short make the dialogue get bunched together, but it felt awkward to me. This goes along with some of the internal dialogue/internal actions that happened. After the natural flow of Grady's mental dialogue, the humans felt like cardboard cut outs.