Customer Reviews

Desert Discipline

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I agree with the reviewer 'A Reader' that this particular work rates about two stars. Maybe two stars is a generous rating.

What I found in reading 'Desert Discipline' was the following:
All the elements of a rousing erotic S/M adventure were present, but -- the characters are flat, almost mechanical;
The story has its moments of fear, admiration, trepidation, anticipation, degradation, and pain, but -- there was a lack of emotion (at least there was a lack of it in this reviewer's reaction);
The scenes were mechanical and flat, more or less lists of actions and events.

Authors such as Aishling Morgan, Penny Birch, and Yolanda Celbridge, to name a few of my favotites, create much more believable characters, more exciting scenes, more delicious females, more lovable or more despicable males, and they keep the reader glued to the story with a progressing story line.

A note on the publisher: Silver Moon books characteristically have typos and typographical as well as formatting errors. This particular book was relatively clean in that respect, only a few misspellings (typos) were found.

This novel chronicles the capture, enslavement, and ultimate sexual submission of its heroine. Unfortunately, the author doesn't get inside her head enough for us to sense her gradual change from free woman to willing slave, so there's no psychological aspect to this book, just a series of sadistic scenes. As time goes on, we're told that she actually likes what's happening to her, but the author never makes this plausible by letting us know what makes her tick.

The dominant, male characters aren't portrayed so we can understand or like them, either. The scenes in the novel are well enough written, but no hotter than scenes in countless novels that don't have the flaws of this one. It isn't trying to be a deep psychological novel, and shouldn't be graded as one, but Lizbeth Dusseau and N.T. Morley have done better jobs with the s/m aspects, and if the capture & enslavement aspect is what floats your boat, there are countless romance novels on the market that handle that plot more believably. I give the book 2 stars instead of 1 mostly because the prose is better than some porn.