Guest Review: Deliver Us (Deliver Us, #1) by Lynn Kelling

Darrek thinks he is just a straight, hard-working but lonely guy. When he decides to try a session at the private BDSM club, Diadem, Darrek is unprepared for the life-changing encounter with beautiful, powerful and very male Dominant, Gabriel. Once they cross the line, nothing is off limits and nothing is enough as they crave ever more – more trust, more pleasure, more pain, and more devotion. Carefully buried secrets and abusive pasts are revealed in the chaos.

Novel (145,000 words)
Genre(s): Contemporary, Romance, BDSM

 

Reviewed by Vivian

Like anal beads through the hourglass, these are the gays in our life.

This was one epically HAWT story. Like Sexapoolza for S&M. One's gotta like some decent pain with a firm, but caring hand to enjoy this. The opening scene starts with some serious CBT, cock and ball torture. Cringe worthy. There's no warm up as one of the main characters, Darrek jumps straight into the deep end.

And this is where I had some of my first misgivings and perhaps alienated other readers. It's Darrek's first time visiting the club and frankly, it was a little loose with the safety rules. To be fair, Gabriel seems to respond immediately to Darrek's needs and safeword.

Now, I hope you like it spicy because the story just keeps on with the hits. Sadism continues with some intense figging which leads to a whole host of activities it explores: fisting, watersports, more fisting, needle play, barebacking, chastity, orgasm denial, prostate milking, medical play, sounding, anal beads, vacuum beds/mummification, mmmm...

So yeah, there's sex. Like a never-ending Chinese noodle box of sex. And, it is HOT. Trust me, if you're looking for sexy times, WINNER. Alright, I'm on board with the sexfest, but there is a weird disconnect in the tone of the book between embracing intense BDSM and the appropriate rules/actions and faux reality TV. There's a drama llama, telenovela quality to the crazy ride of Darrek and Gabriel and their counterpoints, Kyle and Ben. I also had issues with moments where the characters' speech and actions were not ringing male.

And I’ve let Ben—my Master—I’ve let him do things to me. I was trying to save some stuff, some parts of myself, for you, even though, logically, I knew I’d never have you.

“Just ignore me,” Kyle grins, wiping at his eyes. “Must be my time of the month and hearing your awesome love story.”

Then there's the head hopping conga--Everybody join in. The tennis match POV makes multiple appearances. At some point, even good sex is... enough already. I like sex, but this is nonstop let's throw in everything including cleaning the cum out of your ass in the kitchen sink--seriously. Editing, this would have benefitted from aggressive editing. Some flashbacks are unnecessary and just there's just too much. This book is over 400 pages and could have easily cut 25% and felt tighter. It's an inelegant sprawl.

Now come some of my personal peeves. I have major issues with persons using toys/equipment that they've never used that are dangerous and potentially lethal. I have major issues with characters playing psychiatrist, especially since they know they're messing with Gabe when they're doing it. I am also not thrilled with the implication that persons who want to practice these sorts of activities have some mental disorder. Individual reader aggravation will vary.

So, when it came to rating this story I had a difficult time. How do I judge it? Pure entertainment value, it is 5 stars for the plentiful and creative sex if I think of this as fantasy erotica. If I judged this as a contemporary erotic romance it would be closer to 2 stars. I think reader expectations really determine whether or not one will enjoy this and since it straddles two sub-genres that makes it complicated.

That said, the content of the scenes are ridiculously hot and play into fantasies well and as long as one views it as a HBO show and not reality, it works.