Second Bookses

The buzz about Tiffany Reisz's The Siren has been all over Twitter, so when NetGalley offered a chance to read and review, I jumped at it, especially in light of my disappointment at the current popularity of a wannabe BDSM novel. I tore through it in one sitting, and had to sit on it a couple of days before I could review.Nora Sutherlin is a writer, a Domme, and a Dominatrix. As the novel opens, a book contract is on the line; her publisher's ideal editor for her has six weeks left in New York City before he departs for his new job on the West Coast. He doesn't want to be editing erotica, but Nora lures him in, as well as into her life, complicated by her former Dom, Soren (yes, I'm missing the special letter) and her 19-year-old live-in assistant, Wesley, who's harboring one hell of a crush on his boss.As Nora and her editor, Zachary, move forward with the novel, they become closer, complicated somewhat by Nora's secret (that she's a paid Dominant), her relationship with her former Dom, and her relationship with Wesley, as well as Zachary's feelings for his estranged wife. When it comes to the writing and the voice, The Siren is a definite five stars. It makes you want to keep reading, and Nora is a feisty, fun character you want very much to side with. Her attraction to all three men in her life is understandable (if not always relatable when it comes to one of them), and theirs to her makes total sense.So the reason I took off one star when I obviously loved the writing? The disappointment I felt in the relationship between Nora and her former Dom. Where The Siren succeeds on so many other levels, I felt it failed in the relationship between Nora and Soren, which is crucial to the story's arc. My perception of their relationship was that it was not a healthy one, and while the tenets of D/s note that the Dominant has power over the submissive only by consent of the submissive, due to Soren's age and position (not gonna spoiler it for you, sorry), I felt their relationship had a power imbalance from the start. Soren's omnipresence in Nora's life is downright creepy and manipulative most of the time, and his feelings for her appear less like love, or even Dominance, than obsession. I'm bringing my own wants and desires into my reaction to the book, but just for once, I'd like to see a BDSM novel that has two reasonably psychologically healthy people in a D/s relationship without head games. Maybe one that doesn't involve filthy rich people in exotic clubs or former virgins who've never had vanilla sex.The rest of the book, however, I loved (especially Wesley), and I will definitely check out the next book in the series to see where the characters go from here.