Title:  The Collar
Author: Tara Sue Me
Publisher/Year: Penguin Publishing 7/7/15
Length: 336 pages
Series:  Submissive #5

Overview

Nathaniel and Abby are struggling to navigate the challenging waters of their own relationship, when they get a surprising phone call from their partners in play, Dena and Jeff, who are in need of a helping hand…

Seven years ago, blonde, beautiful lawyer Dena Jenkins was tired of her carefully controlled life. Desperate for something exhilarating to help her escape the pressures of her demanding job and her senator father, she joined a steamy, local BDSM club as a submissive. There she met brooding Dominant, Jeff. The attraction between them was undeniable, and, despite Dena’s doubts, they couldn’t stay away from each other.

Except, as the years have passed, their blazing connection has proven difficult to maintain. Dena and Jeff have a history they’d rather forget, but Dena can’t let go of the past, and Jeff is ready to move across the country to give her space. Now, to save their passion, they’ll have to rediscover what it means to trust each other—and give themselves to each other completely…

My Thoughts

To be honest, the first little paragraph here isn’t necessarily true.  Nathaniel and Abby aren’t really brought in to help Dena and Jeff – they are just there when their help is found to be useful.  Regardless, i think that from what we know of that first couple, and the series that we’ve enjoyed with them so far, we’ll have a great read with any additional supporting characters.

In this next installment, we have a lot of back and forth in jumps in time so that we can see how the relationship between Jeff and Dena was established and ultimately broken.  I think that their issues were certainly valid – but what we know from this genre, coming from vastly different backgrounds is never enough to keep a couple apart.  Once they manage to overcome that, (Dena being wealthy, a senator’s daughter and very very intelligent, and Jeff being a high school drop out), well we see that one hurdle is never enough.  There’s so much more that happens here, that i’m surprised there’s even a chance to rekindle, and throughout this story- i don’t know that they will.  That’s the big question.

Opposed to the great scening that we typically get from Tara Sue Me, in this installment, it’s a lot of ‘delayed gratification’ – meaning that we see that Jeff doesn’t allow himself to invest his soul and emotions back into anything with Dena, and as a result, we see a lot of basic BDSM but nothing that’s typical of this series.  You get to learn a lot – for sure – but it’s not the same rough deep passion that we’ve come to expect.  Don’t get me wrong, it certainly helps the case of this story – and it’s actually something that works well – letting us see that things are never going to just fall into place as you want.

The other bit of this story – is that while they are trying to figure out how to not hate each other, we know that Dena’s being threatened by someone, yet we don’t know motive and the person.  While i’m typically able to figure out twists quickly, this one threw me for most of the story.  I didn’t know who ti could be and surprisingly, the person that i thought it was going to be turned out to NOT be that person.  The question though is how close will this person get to hurting Dena and will Jeff, Nathaniel or Daniel be close enough to be able to help.

I’m happy to say that this series will be continuing.  I wasn’t sure where the next phase of things could go since we know that Nathaniel and Abby are in a pretty good place, but where our author is taking things next is sure to be hot and steam.  with a name like Exhibitionist, i think that we’re going to see a lot of hot activity in the playroom and that’s something that i love from Ms. Me.  I hope that we get to see more than just that happy couple participate since i think that something she’s great at writing is the interactions between couples when it’s not just emotion but the physicality of being in a D/s relationship.  It’ll be hot i’m sure – where this installment was a bit more sweet – and i’m sure we won’t be disappointed.  On that note – Happy Monday all and have a great week!