Title:  The Master
Author: Tara Sue Me
Publisher/Year:  Penguin Publishing 2/2/16
Length:   223 pages
Series:  Submissive #8

Overview

She’s ready to try again. . . .

Sasha Blake is scarred from a BDSM session gone wrong, but she can’t deny how much a strong Master turns her on. Determined to overcome her fears and rejoin the Partners in Play community, she asks Abby and Nathaniel West to set her up with a Dom who can help her feel safe again as a sub. They know the very experienced Cole is exactly the kind of man who can push all of Sasha’s buttons—and she soon wants to go much faster than she had planned. . . .

Cole knows that Sasha is not the kind of submissive he needs. He wants someone who will serve him 24-7, not a part-time partner. Still, the further they go into their play, the more Cole begins to wish he could make Sasha his all the time. . . .

When forbidden desires turn into scorching action, Sasha and Cole come face-to-face with their demons—and realize their scorching relationship might be too dangerous to last. . . .

My Thoughts

I love this series, and i think that as we’ve grown to know more and more of the doms in the group – it’s nice to see how each gets their own story.  I think that one of the great things that Tara Sue Me does when she writes this series is that she’s able to continue to pull through the characters and couples that we love while also making sure that we get a true continuation of the bigger story.  She’s also really good at setting up story lines for the upcoming installments.

In this series, we already knew a bit of what to expect with Sasha – we learned about her horrible experience in past books – about how she was whipped too severely by a dom who wasn’t allowing her the ability to safeword out, and it’s through this next installment that we see healing begin to happen for her.

We also had met Cole, a Brit who we learned was quite the demanding dom – one who actually has a penchant for the more severe Dom/Slave relationships – and it’s both interesting that he was selected to retrain and welcome Sasha back into the group and expected because i think that it’s those that push us the most sometimes that make the most impact.

So throughout this next installment, we see how Cole is able to heal Sasha – make her feel safe and secure while finding what she needs and craves out of the lifestyle.  It’s also Sasha who’s able to help ‘heal’ cole as he’s come out of an eight year relationship recently and needs to find what works for him too.

True to our author’s form, we get some of the steamiest scenes that you can imagine, with several of them not involving actual sex, but just the foreplay bits of the BDSM lifestyle.  We also get to see how the relationships here in the BDSM world are much more than just physical.  there’s a lot of depth, and substance between all of these couples, especially with Sasha and cole – and that’s what i love.

The questions that i have through most of this story is what it will take for each of them to realize that they are more than a re-training exercise – that they matter to each other.  It’s not something that any of them are ready to admit, and i think that there’s a lot of paths that this story could take to get to the point where they realize that maybe there’s more.  I think that we get to a few different points in the story that you feel like they will come to the conclusion that they are right for each other, but of course – that’s too easy.  So our author keeps us guessing and wondering all the time.

Last but not least, the teaser that we get for the next book seems like it’ll be a good one.  In one of the past books, we learned quite a bit about Abby’s boss Meagan and it looks like we’re finally getting to the bottom of why meagan and Luke (another dom in the network) have so much tension.  So on that note – have a great saturday everyone!