"Bound to Please" by Lilli Feisty

I recently received a review copy of Bound to Please by Lilli Feisty (love the name, right??) from Hachette Book Group. From first glance (the cover bears the picture of a nude woman’s back and profile), I knew that this was going to be a smokin’ read. And I was right.

Bound to Please is the story of Ruby Scott, a seemingly prim, proper, and totally controlling event planner. Of course, Ruby has a secret. She’s not quite as vanilla as she seems. Especially in the bedroom. And when Mark St. Crow meets her at one of the party’s she planned, he can tell this from across the room. Something about her demeanor just shouts “Dominate me!!” Which is what he sets out to do.

Mark is an up and coming musician; his band one of the most popular new acts in the country. He makes no pretenses about what he likes behind closed doors. He is a classic dom. And despite her commandeering demeanor, he recognizes Ruby as an incognito sub. He approaches her almost immediately, and after an intensely erotic encounter, the pair agree to meet after his show to get themselves out of each other’s systems. Unfortunately, rather than being appeased by their incredibly intense night together, the two of them realize that they want more of each other.

With each new encounter, their bond with one another strengthens, and it isn’t long before they realize that they may not be able to let each other go.

All in all, Bound to Please was a quintessential contemporary erotic love story. Please note the use of the work ‘erotic’ in the previous sentence. It is there for a reason. This book was one of the new wave of mainstream, graphic erotica novels that is permeating the romance genre with increasing tenacity. Now, I do not have anything against graphic sexual content in any book. A little know fact about me is that I write and edit erotica. I find it titillating. However, for those readers who prefer their sex scenes to be more about subtlety and innuendo, this book may be a little too explicit and graphic. As far as a rating goes, I give the book 3 ½ stars. The story was good (albeit predictable), but there were times during the my reading of it that I wanted to take out my red editor’s pencil and make some changes to the word choices that were made. And I find it very distracting when I am compelled to start editing a finished, published book.

If you go into the reading of Bound to Please with realistic expectations (i.e., the realization that you are reading a sexually explicit story, and that you already know how it is going to end), you will probably enjoy the ride. It was a great book for escaping reality for a couple of hours.