Author: Julia Sykes
Publisher: Independently Published via Kindle Direct & CreateSpace
Genre: Erotica/BDSM Romance
Rating: 2 Stars
This is the compiled version of all six installations of the series: Pursue, Captured, Teased, Bound, Tested, & Collared.
The story starts off with Mallory working as a server for Jake’s party, where we learn that he knows all the right people and has more money than any one person should ever really have. From the moment the two meet, Jake seems to want Mallory, and goes to lengths to get her to agree to go out with him. It than follows their ups and downs as he shows her the BDSM lifestyle he lives by to her ultimately agreeing to wear his collar.
The story over all would be an interesting one, except for the fact that I don’t feel that the characters are given enough time to truly develop. Everything happens so fast, and certain betrayals that should take a couple days to work through and get over ends up being worked through in a matter of hours. In that regard, it’s just a matter of pacing. I feel like if she’d lengthened the ‘books’ to be longer, worked out more of the character’s personalities and reactions to a more believable time frame, this would have been a lot better.
I also had problems with how Jake handled Mallory. Their very first time together, he bound her hands with a belt. To me, having Mallory just go with it and find it hot, this stranger she isn’t even sure she likes binding her with a belt like that, is a little too fast when she’s supposed to have been a straight vanilla before Jake entered her life. As well there are a couple scenes where he knocks her knees out from under her in order to settle her on her knees in front of him, or knock her to the ground. I know this is supposed to be a BDSM book, but personally I don’t see that as anything but manhandling her in all the wrong ways, BDSM relationship or not. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t feel like doing that to a woman shows all that much respect or care, which is supposed to be at the very heart of a relationship like this.
Over all, the premises is interesting, but the execution of it just really didn’t hit me as great. It also could have used an editor, because a couple sections were littered with spelling errors and it completely throws me off to find more than one or two.
