Menage Monday – Together in Cyn by Jennifer Kacey

Together in Cyn

Grade: B-
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: High Kink
Genre: Contemporary, BDSM, ménage (with some f/f)
Series: Members Only #1
Reviewed by Kate
157 pages


Cyn has been best friends with twins Chris and Jared for 12 years now, and for 12 years now she’s also lusted after the pair. Unable to choose between her best friends, she keeps her feelings to herself and shares her wicked fantasies with her diary. Come on, you see where this is going, right?

Jared and Chris have owned a fetish club (that Cyn does not know about) for a while now and have always dreamed of bringing Cyn there as their submissive. They assume that she won’t be accepting of the BDSM lifestyle, so they never approach her. And then… Jared stumbles across her diary one day.

I really liked the premise of this book. Friends become lovers…with some whips and chains thrown in for fun. I jumped at the chance to read this one. I have three main gripes about this book though.

1. There is next to no conversation between Jared, Chris, and Cyn about what she’s willing to try in this new-to-her world of BDSM. The boys have read her diary and have taken that as her permission to have all those things done to her. I would have liked to see a little conversation before Jared and Chris added other club members into the mix.

2. Safeword. Let’s say it together now. Safeword. Jared and Chris are owners of a highly exclusive, members only fetish club. They are hyper aware of the security and safety of their members. Yet it is not until 91% into the book that they ever talk about a safeword with Cyn (and a lot has happened to Cyn by that point). Maybe this ties a bit to my first point, but I really wanted there to be a conversation between the three of them about a safeword before anything went down.

3. There’s a villain in this book (it’s not actually the villain I have a problem with, more the presentation). We know that Cyn has something hiding in her past. There have been multiple hints dropped throughout the book although we have no clue as to what this secret is. And then all of sudden-BAM! There’s a villain. And not just a villain, but a villain that has managed to corner Cyn. It just seemed so sudden and out of place.

The really strange part is that even with these 3 issues, I actually liked the book quite a bit.  It’s the friends becoming lovers hook that I enjoyed the most.  Plus, when you add in the BDSM aspect, I’m a goner.  There were plenty of secondary characters for the author to continue the series with and I hope she does.  I think we’ll see great things from Jennifer Kacey in the future.

Gabriel’s Inferno by Sylvain Reynard

Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno, #1)
Grade-D
Hotness Level-Inferno
Kink Level-No Kink
Series-Gabriel’s Inferno #1
Genre-Contemporary
Reviewed by Kay
545 pages

Gabriel Emerson is a college professor whose specialty is Dante, from Dante’s Inferno fame. He teaches a class based on Dante. He was adopted by a wonderful family that loved him and treated him very well. He has temper issues, former drug abuse issues and man-whoring issues. Not to mention he’s kind of a douche.

Enter Julia Mitchell, college student trying to specialize in all things Dante. She has a past with Gabriel, which he doesn’t remember. She has loved him for years upon years. Her past is troubled also. Her mother was negligent with her raising of Julia, her father was emotionally unavailable for her and she had an ex-boyfriend who was emotionally and physically abusive to her. So her self image definitely needed work.

This book started out so good. Julia was a meek, sweet character you rooted for. Gabriel was an ass in the beginning to her and everyone else. About three fourths of the way through the book I wanted to stop but figured I’d went this far, so I had to finish. This book was WAY too wordy! The relationship built nicely but fizzled epically at the one, yes one sex scene. It wasn’t even descriptive, I mean at all. My biggest complaint though was that the two main characters were both so very weak and whiny that I wanted to slap them both. I won’t go on to the next book.

The Officer and the Secret by Jeanette Murray

The Officer and the Secret (Semper Fi, #3)
Grade-D
Hotness Level-Ember/Blaze
Kink Level-No Kink
Series-Semper Fi #3
Genre-Contemporary
Reviewed by Kay
346 pages

Dewayne just got home from a deployment and is having a hard time adjusting to life in civilian world. He has pretty severe flashbacks and seeks help from a chaplain. He does enjoy spending time with his friends and especially Veronica. They skyped a few times when he was trying to reach his friends. He realizes that their talks and her voice got him through some rough times in his deployment.

Veronica is a cousin of one of the other characters in this series. She is very awkward and shy as a result to being raised by religious zealots in war torn third world countries. She left that life to have what she called a normal life. She has a job, a place to live and is studying for her GED. She also wants to try to date and have sex.

This started out so cute it made me giddy. The development of their relationship was slow and sweet. Between his PTSD and her sheltered to the extreme childhood, it was a wonder it happened at all. I liked the characters and was interested in hearing their stories. Then the sex happened and just kept shaking my head. It was so non descriptive it was all most off page. I had to reread the sex to make sure I didn’t miss something. Boring. From there it was downhill and I won’t read anything more by this author.