Phaze, $2.50, ISBN 1-59426-906-8
Contemporary Erotica, 2007
Breaking Skye is, as its title would suggest, is a BDSM story. The plot is simple: Skye Ballard, an artist, wants to experience just once what it feels like to be dominated in a fantasy of sexual submission. In the name of art and all that, of course. She puts out an ad and finds Adam Dunne at her doorstep. Adam specializes in training lovely young girls into submission but sure enough, Skye will challenge him into losing control even as he subjugates her under his control.
Now, I’m not a BDSM person so the love scenes aren’t really my cup of tea. However, I like the fact that Ms Bradley attempts to delve into the psychology of the roles of Dom and a sub to let me know why these people enjoy doing the things they do together. This makes the story a much more convincing BDSM tale than some I’ve read previously, where the author would go, “Oh, and they tie each other up, have some spanking, and ooh, everyone had fun!” Here, Adam has to really control himself and Ms Bradley lets me know why it is very important for a Dom to be always in control and what exactly such control entails. I like such little details that help me understand what is going inside the heads of the characters.
There is also a reasonably-developed emotional aspect in this story that makes Breaking Skye more than just a tale of BDSM sessions. Skye causes Adam’s control to break and he becomes emotionally attached to her. Ms Bradley also shows the interactions of her characters outside the bedroom and therefore, while I’m not too convinced that these two characters are in love at the end of the day, they do like each other and they’ll probably be fine in the long run.
I just find one thing mystifying though. Skye keeps crying. She must be an emotional person because she’s not just crying when she’s being spanked and all (which will be understandable), she’s crying pretty much every few pages in this story. It’s a good thing this story isn’t long enough for her crybaby tendency to bug me considerably.
Breaking Skye is not my cup of tea when it comes to the kind of love scenes in this story but it is a well-written tale nonetheless with an attempt by the author to show me that the characters are in love as well as in lust. Even if I can’t say I enjoy reading the love scenes (they don’t bug me, but I can’t say I am too wild about those scenes either), I’ve a pretty good time nonetheless with this book on the whole.
