Not Your Damn Submissive (Denial #1)

I’m beyond pissed off with Callum Connors.
Yeah—THE Callum Connors, star of my favourite TV show…and all my most private fantasies.
He’s a self-confessed Dom, and he wants me, even though I told him outright that I’m not interested in submission or in him.
But then I kissed him.
What possessed me? I don’t even remember who started it, me or him—just that I brushed against him, and then we were on the way to third base in the middle of the set.
Maybe I should have told him no again afterwards, but I just wanted to escape before he tried to take it further. I didn’t think I’d be able to resist him.
I still don’t.
Now he’s somehow thrown us together for two whole weeks, getting the studio to temporarily change my job from set decorator to his personal assistant. I can live with being his assistant, but I am not his damn submissive.
No matter how sexy he is.
~ Goodreads

Amazon | Book Depository

Review

I blame myself for this 2 butterflies reading experience, let’s just get that out of the way. It’s entirely my fault, because reading the blurb, coupled with the interesting cover and kickass title, gave me the idea this would be a story about a Dom wanting to get a sub, and the sub not going there. So what I thought about the story, before even starting to read it, was that this would in fact be a sub-doesn’t-submit-to-Dom kind of romance. I was all on board with that, it seemed fresh and new and exciting. That’s what I expected to get from this read, based on the blurb and title combo, honestly. It’s my fault for expecting the story to be that, and it wasn’t that at all.

It actually was a kind of sweet romance, with a side-dish of BDSM, if I’m to describe it in short. A story about a sub who’d gotten abused ten years ago, got scared, didn’t look into this thing that she was interested in – neither before, nor after the abuse, in case you’re wondering. She meets a Dom she’s attracted to, has to confront her fears.
I won’t go into the “Why?” game on any of these aspects of the story, because if you’re getting into that, then the story has failed to suck you in anyway, and there’s never going to be a good or satisfying answer to any of those questions.

The worldbuilding is more of a setting, the whole famous stud meets girl next door sort of trope, and while the movie star scenario might have been fun, Amy Valenti doesn’t lean on it, doesn’t speculate the angst possibilities it might have offered. I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing, I don’t really fall for the famous stud scenario anyway.

Would I have fallen in love with either of the characters, I could have rolled with the rest, but unfortunately I didn’t. I didn’t even like them, either of them, and didn’t feel either their chemistry or their feelings for each other. I will say this though, despite my lack of chemistry with the couple, romance, and one on one (surprising, I know!), Amy Valenti does something very interesting in this read. Despite the BDSM tone of the play, the actual romance is very sweet, a combination I do believe I haven’t ran into up until now. It’s no wonder I didn’t respond to it, since I don’t really respond to sweet romance. More often than not, you get angsty, convoluted, twisted romance with BDSM reads, which is why I like reading them, lol.

The writing style was very fun, easy to read, very conversational, a nice first person narrative, past tense, his and her POV. If Amy Valenti’s interpretation of the tropes and scenario happens to hit your buttons, then you will most likely love this read. She certainly has an original interpretation, and I admire that, even if it didn’t turn out to be my thing. I won’t read the next story in the series, because I didn’t click with either characters, romance, or even one on one scenes, they just weren’t my thing. Despite that, I was interested to read the story, and I think this can easily be a great read for many of you.
It just didn’t happen for me.

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The_Butterfly_Livia

Book lover, customizations OCD-er and list-lover extraordinaire. Unrepentant coffee addict, smutty romance and sexy bad boys/villains lover of doom.
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