BDSM Reviews

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Secrets Revealed by Katrina Strauss


Reviewed by Elise Logan

Title: Secrets Revealed: Book One of the Eldritch Legacy
Author: Katrina Strauss
Publisher: Loose ID

ISBN: unavailable
Genre: BDSM erotic fiction
Rating: 3.5 out of 5


This first installment of the Eldritch Legacy is a fantasy of magic and court intrigue. It is not, however, for those looking for a clean happily ever after sort of fairy tale. The characters in this work are complex and shadowed. This is a dark fantasy, and the characters are definitely not Disney. Though the early part of the book focuses on the enslavement of Inga and her introduction to life under the whip, the latter part of the book gives a more thoroughly developed picture of complicated and conflicted characters. While I would have enjoyed seeing more of the character development in the beginning of the story, the rich character and plot development in the last third of the book are worth the wait.

The wait isn’t without its rewards in other ways, as well. The first portion of the book awakens our innocent (very innocent) main character, Inga, to the domination of Lord Eldritch. Lord Eldritch is a legendary figure in the land, a bogeyman used to frighten children. Under his tutelage, Inga explores her sensual response to pain. As the story progresses, there is significant change and development on the part of several characters. There are also a number of exciting scenes which use various fun equipment. Truthfully, though, my favorite scene in the story was a dominance scene toward the end which involved no toys at all (just goes to show that the author doesn’t need the props to make her scenes work).

I enjoyed the book overall, but I felt that the lack of characterization at the beginning of the story really slowed things down. I found myself spending a lot of time asking myself about the characters and their motivation. Through the first half of the book, Eldritch was nearly completely opaque to me as a character, with near psychotic mood swings which make Inga’s growing devotion something of a mystery. I felt that without the insights into his character provided by some “straight time” later in the book, his character would be completely lost. Inga is conflicted in the beginning, but sets aside her misgivings, her innocence, even her ethics with hardly any internal dialogue or explication. I felt that there were several points in the book where this lack of internal dialogue/explication made it difficult to sympathize with her. Her later character development clarifies things a great deal.

In short, this story has a lot going for it, but it started slowly for me.


Posted by Elise Logan :: 7:59 PM :: 0 Comments:

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