Karen Nappa, $2.99, ISBN 978-1005672812
Paranormal Erotica, 2020
A Mistress for Christmas is a BDSM-tinged retelling of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and people, we have a Dominatrix here. As I’m all for ladies wielding the crop—mostly because there are so many men doing the D thing apparently because in the romance genre, it is not romantic if we have a man submitting to his desires—this one has me feeling most intrigued indeed.
Anyway, we have Club Indigo. I’m not sure why BDSM clubs in this kind of stories tend to be called that. Why not something like the Meat Cellar or Crucible of Cages? Club Indigo feels more like a place for folks that have a fetish for tickling to congregate and writhe around on purple pillows.
Our Scrooge is Ezra Stone. Ezra’s the rich business, like Scrooge, and he’s also a hard-nosed cynical bastard. He’s loved and lost before, so he’s surly when it comes to love, and he doesn’t think much of the holidays. When he accepts an invitation for his business partner’s “pre-Christmas party”, little does he know that the venue is Club Indigo, a BDSM club. What, he doesn’t look up that place beforehand like any normal person would when they are going to someplace new to them?
His business partner has his wife all tied up at the moment, so the Club sends Lynn Edwards to show him around. She’s tall, severe-looking, and wants to be called “Mistress Lynn”. She discerns that he wants to submit and lose himself in the act of submission, and boy, she is right.
Oh, and before I go on, I should probably point out that Lynn is a trans woman that has undergone sex reassignment surgery. I personally have no issues with this, but hey, I’m not judging those that feel otherwise—you do you, etc. I’m just sharing this information about Lynn because it’s not mentioned anywhere in the synopsis of this story, and this is probably something that some folks will want to know before they decide whether or not to purchase this baby.
Also, I should share that Lynn being a trans woman is not something that feels like a fetish fuel. She just happens to be trans; this aspect of her being isn’t portrayed in a way to titillate folks that get off on this, if I am making sense here.
In fact, the focus of this story is Ezra. Like Scrooge, he will be visited by three ghosts from his past, that helps him reexamine his past relationships with various Dominatrix ladies, and how these relationships shape his current views about love and life.
Well, there lies my issue with this story: it is not exactly the kind of romance I am hoping for. You see, this story patterned after A Christmas Carol means that there is hardly any interaction between Ezra and Lynn, at least compared to Ezra’s interactions with the ghosts of his past, present, and future as well as the ghost of his late wife. In a way, this is appropriate as the original story is not a romance.
However, this one is marketed as a romance. See the problem? I want to know how Ezra will react to finding out that Lynn is a trans woman. Will he be accepting or will he need some time to accept that; what kind of emotional drama can this lead to? I want to read more about his submission to Lynn. I want to know more, because I don’t cozy up to BDSM, yet this is one of the rare BDSM stories that make that lifestyle sweet and romantic without sanitizing the whole thing for normies.
Lynn and Ezra seem to have a good chemistry brewing, and I am so excited to be a voyeur into their new life and sexy times together, but no, this story focuses more on Ezra and his ghosts instead. I’m fine with this, but I wish I can have the cake and eat it too: I wish the story is longer so that the author can also delve deeper into the developing relationship between the two characters.
In fact, I look up to see whether there is a genuine sequel to this one, and all signs point to no. If I am wrong, please, tell me because I’d be thrilled to be wrong this once! If there is no sequel, what should I sacrifice and to whom should I make the sacrifice to, so that Karen Nappa can write the much-anticipated sequel Sore Rear for New Year?
So, A Mistress for Christmas. I’ve never been happier as well as disappointed to read this story, and it’s all so perplexing. Life is complicated enough, sexy stories shouldn’t be too. Just give me more of them Lynn and Ezra, damn it, because what I get here is just a tiny morsel of an appetizer that leaves me begging for more.
