Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Wade is a throwaway, forced into prostitution at fourteen and living on the mean streets of Los Angeles. Nearly four years later, and now calling himself Trick, he’s still struggling to survive. While huddled in a doorway on a cold rainy morning, he thanks his lucky stars when an expensive Mercedes pulls up and rolls down a window.

Phoenix, known as Master P, may be a big intimidating Dom, but he has a soft spot for vulnerable young men. When he sees a homeless kid trembling in the cold, he has to stop and pick him up. What he finds is a boy with a naturally submissive nature and a damaged soul. As he begins to train the boy at the online BDSM club where he’s employed, DOMZ.com, they form a fast and explosive combination.

When Trick begins to fall for his big Dom, Phoenix is forced to tell him that this is only play. The resulting fallout will shake Phoenix to his very core. Is this chance encounter doomed for failure or can the two men find a balance?

Book Review

This is the first book in a series of novellas taking place at DOMZ.com, a business making money from streaming sub training sessions over the internet. An interesting idea, and subtly different from "just porn", but that is a matter of semantics. The fact is that, from what I have seen in this first book, the series is still about boys who get paid to have sex – except it is on camera, not in the streets or some seedy motel. However, that is just what happens on the surface. Underneath it all, as always, there are human beings with all their physical and emotional needs and it will be interesting to see how the various participants in this series are motivated and how they end up dealing with the reality of their jobs.

Wade, who named himself Trick when he was kicked out of his own home as soon as his parents found out he is gay, has survived on the streets of LA doing whatever he needed to do to survive. Mostly he sold his body, and, now eighteen, he has no hope and no expectation that will ever change. His self-esteem is nonexistent, so when Phoenix, also know as Master P, picks him up, feeds him, then offers him a job to have sex (or be trained, as he calls it) on camera, Wade has no idea what to think. Mind you, his issue is that he doesn't trust the offer, not that he wishes he could get out of the sex trade. That is three steps beyond where he is at currently. His other problem is that he is falling for Master P (I suspect this is mostly Stockholm Syndrome, the misplaced gratitude of a victim toward his jailor). Wade wants to be cherished, he needs affection, and if it weren't for the fact that he takes to the kinky things Master P does to him like a duck to water, I'd probably yell "abuse". As it is, I am willing to suspend judgment and give him a few years to grow up and figure out what he really wants to do. At least he is physically safe for now.

Master P is a piece of work. I know, most people will probably see him as the savior of a young, endangered boy, but I cannot quite get there. All I can say is that he may mean well, but he is too immersed in the sex trade himself, and loving it, to conceive of someone else wanting a different life. He is also very selfish in wanting to make Wade "his boy", so he never gives Wade a choice. Granted, he does get Wade off the street, which makes him a somewhat decent human being, but he isn't really the "savior" or "white knight" that society and those who like fairy tales would like to see. If that were the case, he'd have offered Wade a job as receptionist, or have him trained for any of the other jobs at DOMZ.com.

So, if you’re looking for a story a la "Pretty Woman", you will be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you want a look at the grittier side of life, if you enjoy reading a "forbidden" fantasy about a somewhat romanticized version of what it's like to be a sex worker, and if you’re looking for a hot read where a strong Master rescues a suffering boy to make him his sub, then you will probably enjoy this novella.

 

 

 

 

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Additional Information

Format	ebook
Length	Novella, 29800 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	05-March-2013
Price	$3.99 ebook
Buy Link	https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-trick-1098232-145.html