AUTHOR: Bonnie Dee & Laura Bacchi
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 86k)
GENRE: Contemporary BDSM erotic romance
COST: $5.50
When he accepts a job to create four unusual columns for a wealthy photographer, woodworker Bryan Lapahie is stunned to find four submissive women voluntarily enslaved in the house. The fragile Butterfly captivates him, as does the kink potential, but the extent they carry the lifestyle leaves him cold. His presence disrupts Butterfly’s delicate equilibrium, and for the first time in the five years since she entered the contract with her Master, she questions what she really wants. Escape might be possible, but it requires
NOTE: This is a review originally written for Uniquely Pleasurable.
Heroines don’t come any more damaged than Butterfly, the submissive, exceedingly fragile woman in Butterfly Unpinned. The story begins in her perspective, with a glimpse into her lifestyle as a consensual slave in a Dominant’s household. She is fearful of punishment for a disobedience infraction, as well as losing her status within the household. The latter isn’t necessarily for this mistake, but rather, because of a new slave in the house, a bold woman named Jasmine, who preys on Butterfly’s insecurities as well as Master ever did. There is no sugarcoating here. Though the prose is lovely and evocative, it doesn’t refrain from illustrating the extremes of her lifestyle or the depths of her emotions. She lacks true identity, voluntarily taking on the mantle of this submissive in its place because her previous life overwhelmed her. Then, in the aftermath of this particular disclosure about her mindset, we’re introduced to the outsider, the hero who provides a fresh outlook on the entire arrangement, and there, the story truly begins.
Bryan Lapahie is a tall, striking, talented guy, who’s left the Navajo reservation behind in
The butterfly metaphor is carried throughout the book, and while it’s an apt one for the heroine in many cases, it has a tendency to get overplayed. Time and time again, the imagery and explanation of a butterfly learning how to fly is elaborated upon, from the specific passages in the heroine’s entrapment within the mansion to individual incidents afterward, like the butterfly landing on Bryan’s dashboard. I got a little tired of it being beat over my head, quite honestly, and would have much preferred a more subtle methodology to making the metaphor rather than the often literal one. It ends up losing much of its meaning for me by the end, and what could have been a true wallop of an emotional payoff ends up being merely satisfactory as a result.
That’s not to say it doesn’t still work. It does. The balance of Butterfly’s fragility and
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Readability | 9/10 – Sensual, with a vivid palette of descriptions |
Hero | 9/10 – My only bump in the road with just how much I loved |
Heroine | 7/10 – Fragile and heartbreaking, though I never always believed her growth |
Entertainment value | 8/10 – Dark and evocative |
World building | 9/10 – Both worlds – BDSM and Navajo – were painstakingly painted, they just didn’t necessarily feel like the same book |
TOTAL: | 42/50 |
1 comment:
Thanks for the great review. Laura and I really appreciate it, and hope others are as moved by the story. We poured a lot into it.
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