Hot Sauce Publishing, $4.99, ISBN 978-0-9989125-5-4
Sci-fi Erotica, 2018 (Reissue)
This one was previously published by Loose Id back in 2016, and then they closed shop, and now we have a new indie version of the story. Incidentally, Hot Sauce Publishing has nothing to do with this website, and as I’m sure folks will be able to tell by the end of this review, I’m not related in any way to the author. Just putting that out there, folks, so that there is no misunderstanding.
Maon Keefe is a Marshal of Tallav, which is basically a fancy name for a hot guy with a badge that will roger any female that looks his way. To be fair, he only seems to indulge in amorous activities when he’s off duty, so I guess he can be considered a professional. He encounters a Domme, Lasair, during his amorous shenanigans at his BFF’s naughty house, and he’s also into Selina Shirley, our fashion house CEO who is secretly learning to be a Domme. You see, she needs to get married, but when she does, she’s going to find a completely submissive husband that won’t be a bother to her, and there’s no better way to do that than to train as a Domme. I guess she’s planning to flog the man on the first date and marry the one that squeal the loudest and the happiest.
I’m sure you will be utterly shocked to learn that Selina and Lasair are one and the same. At any rate, Maon will have time to catch up with the rest of us, as he’s assigned on a case that puts him in close proximity to the Dumb Dumb Domme.
Maon: Marshal of Tallav is a story torn in two directions. The author doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether this one should be an erotic romance or some kind of fun Dara Joy-esque romp even by the last page, so she tries to do both. The end result is a story that is only half of each. The suspense-action-comedy part never feels complete, with some key scenes either happening off-scene or taking place in a rush. Each time the suspense seems to be building up, the author interrupts it with some comedy that completely disrupts the momentum, and vice versa. Consequently, this part of the story is like a car that keeps coming to a stop every mile or two. Worse, the comedy ends up making Maon quite incompetent at his job, and I don’t think the author intends for that to happen.
The sexy parts are actually pretty well done, but just like the suspense-action-comedy aspect of the story, this one goes on for a short bit before the story shifts tone and there is no reaching a boiling point. Early on, for example, our hero has his testicles stretched, which is actually pretty steamy (hey, don’t judge), and then he gets to spend some time with a sub that he’s won in a challenge. Since this was a Loose Id title, I expect to be inundated by a whole lot of wholesome shenanigans involving all kinds of acrobatic contortions, but no, the author abruptly cuts to the hero after all his no-doubt energetic, dramatic exertions. Come one!
Oh, and yes, while the author claims that Selina is a Domme, this story proves that finding an actual Domme in the erotic romance genre is like looking for a dodo in Alaska. I know, I know, we romance readers are all willowy damsels that swoon loudly and rapturously at the notion of being swept off our feet by a romance hero, so we’re supposed to violently reject any hero that doesn’t fit the alpha all-day mold. Hence, despite claiming to be a Domme, our heroine exhibits a very familiar dynamic with the hero – she is flustered and unnerved by him, his attractiveness makes her shiver and become unsure of herself, et cetera. Indeed, take away the Domme angle and this one would still have passed for any standard romance that follows the same old mighty man and his woman relationship dynamics. So why make our heroine a Domme? That aspect feels like a rather insincere marketing gimmick to make this story stand out from the crowd.
The frustrating thing here is that those scenes of Moan under the control of a Dom early in the story are hot. This one could have been one nice erotic read if the author had ditched away all that plot about missing shipments and focused solely on Selina’s training as a Domme with Maon as her student. That would still require these two characters to break some stereotypes, however – Selina should have been allowed to be a Domme without being bogged down by eye-rolling “Ooh! He makes me so wet and weak, I don’t know how to even stand straight!” nonsense, and Maon needs to be a bit more of a proper sub, with none of that equally eye-rolling “I’ll challenge my Mistress with quips and winks because I can’t be a romance hero in any other way!” nonsense of his.
Mind you, I don’t think that Maon: Marshal of Tallav is a badly written story. It’s alright, with clean narrative and characters that would have been engaging and interesting were they be given a more cohesive story to play in. It’s just that the story itself feels like two different stories clumsily forced together to be one half-baked tale. Even then, the reader will have to be very forgiving of the so-called Domme-submissive dynamics of the hero and the heroine that is anything but.
