Tag Archives: Mountain Masters

Review: The Dom’s Dungeon by Cherise Sinclair

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Cherise Sinclair has become one of my favorite writers over the past few weeks. She has 2 series, Masters of the Shadowlands and Mountain Masters that i really enjoy so it was a natural progression for me to search out other stories by her. The Dom’s Dungeon certainly didn’t fall short of my expectations.

The Plot: We meet our leading lady MacKensie (or Mac as she often refers to herself when she’s trying to internalize) as she’s making her way to her vacation home exchange in Seattle. she’s from a small town in Iowa (of course she’s a small towner) and she’s trying to make a fresh start of things in Seattle. Mac finds herself at quite the upper crust example of a home – the man she’s exchanged homes with is wealthy and is among Seattle’s elite, and she was fortunate enough to come upon this trade because she’s a vet and the home owner wanted to make sure that the person who was in his home would care for his dog Butler just as he would.

That takes us to the home owner – Alex who is our typical Dom which to be honest, even thought Cherise’s doms are predictable i really enjoy them. He’s what we expect – handsome, wealthy, warm heart -not quite in the mindset to have a lasting romantic relationship but really enjoys a stable dom/sub one if he can find it.

So the way that these 2 actually meet in person is completely unexpected. of course with a home exchange, they aren’t really supposed to cross paths, but due to an array of unfortunate circumstances for Alex, he finds himself missing his flight to Iowa, and returns home, to find Mac having gotten into his locked dungeon and checking out what’s going on there.

So of course, we know that Mac is a small towner and can assume that she’s quite the innocent and naive of all things BDSM. Suffice it to say, as much as that appears to be the case somewhat – she’s had a troubled past and that’s kind of shaped her experiences and lifestyle both in her personality as well as her perception of men and how she chooses to interact with them. Basically, she’s a bit gun shy with them these days.

This is where it’s a great opportunity for a dom to come in and take over and that’s what Alex strives to do. He finds that there’s quite a bit of digging that he needs to do to figure out the back story on Mac while she’s trying to get her fresh start and then to see if there’s value in pursuing her and possibility there.

All in all, i’d give this story 4 of 5 stars. It was good – a nice and easy read – decent character development, however you don’t get too into Alex’s background to understand how he is why he is. we learn more about Mac, but it didn’t take away from the story too much. The downfall that i saw in this story that’s a-typical from other Cherise Sinclair books is that there wasn’t quite as much anxiety in the back third of the book – but i guess not EVERY story can have that right?

My Liege of Dark Haven (Mountain Masters #3) by Cherise Sinclair

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This third installment in the series brings together some of those very things that we love in a romance – passion, mis-trust, mis-guided confidences, anxiety, sarcasm/humor and high intelligence.  It’s that balance between passion, intelligence, and sassiness that i have found the author to have really honed the skill at.

Xavier is the owner of Dark Havena BDSM club in San Francisco that we were introduced to in earlier stories in the series.  I don’t believe we’ve met him before so that was a nice twist.  He’s got all the traits that we’ve come to expect from our brooding males – a sexuality that rolls off his body and makes every woman (and some men) cower around him and wish to do his bidding just for some attention.  He’s clearly VERY intelligent which is really nice to see – and his past has onlly shaped him.  Cherise Sinclair even managed to give him a profession outside the club that falls in line with the ‘giving back to community’ that she did with Master Z in the Shadowlands series.

Abby finds herself ag Dark Haven because of a few different circumstances.  Her boyfriend breaks up with her because she’s just too vanilla for him, and he’s been part of the BDSM lifestyle for a while – actually being a member of Dark Haven himself.  She also has concerns about her job as a professor – knowing that they are doing lay-offs and that she needs to get published ASAP in order to try to keep her job.  so all that together puts quite the innocent into the club – into a world that she doesn’t know was made for her.

So we’re drawn into the introduction of Abby to the world of BDSM where she doesn’t know the protocol and doesn’t quite grasp what needs to be done to be proper.  She is more focused on trying to understand what’s going on for the members around her, what makes the lifestyle click and even what the similarities are among other communities and things of that sort.  She’s so interested in trying to write her paper that she almost misses what’s right in front of her face and is quite possibly the best thing that could have happened for her.

we have another main character that isn’t the stick thin model which is a big issue for her.  what we know though from all these series is that our favorite doms tend to prefer a bit of curve to their women so Abby has everything that her ‘liege’ seems to like.  The question is will she ever feel good enough about herself to get comfortable in the lifestyle?

so after many twists and turns in this story, we find ourselves dealing with relationship conflicts, cattiness and lots of ‘funishment’ and repentance.  it’s one of Sinclair’s better stories i have to say that i didn’t even want to put it down to go to sleep.

Review: Master of the Abyss (Mountain Masters #2) by Cherise Sinclair

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Title:  Master of the Abyss
Author: Cherise Sinclair
Publisher/Year:  Loose id LLC 9/28/11
Length:  314 pages
Series: Mountain Masters #2

Overview

On the mountain, the watcher seeks out evil women. And then they die.

Two years ago, when Jake Hunt uncollared his slave, she committed suicide. Guilt-ridden, he will commit to a woman for one night only, devoting his energy to a mountain lodge that caters to a BDSM crowd.

Kallie Masterson is tough. Unwanted as a child, she worked hard to become a wilderness guide. She’s proud of who she is, and hurt that Jake frowns on her for acting like a man.

After rescuing the macho guide from a bar fight, Jake is stunned that the ugly men’s clothing hides a warm, responsive woman. A submissive woman. When guide business brings her to the lodge on BDSM night, and she is obviously aroused by the play, Jake takes the little sub right into his world of pain and pleasure. He warns her: one night only. But she responds so beautifully — so joyously — under his command, that one night soon becomes two, then three…

Then a missing hiker reminds Jake of his past lover, and he realizes he’s become too involved. He pulls back.

Meanwhile, the watcher on the mountain has rendered his verdict: Kallie Masterson is evil. The sentence: Death.

My Thoughts

Thank goodness the second installment of this series was readily available to me.  i don’t know what i would have done if i couldn’t just download it and read on since i really wanted to know what was going to happen next for the Mountain Masters and for Jake specifically.  This is the trait of a GREAT author – that’s for sure – one that keeps me so engrossed into a series or a set of series that i have to keep on reading.

Without spoiling what happens in the book, i can honestly admit that Cherise Sinclair not only hit the nail on the head with the sex and emotional connections, machismo, and family bonds, but she managed to throw me for a loop with some of the twists that the story took.

We first met Jake in Master of the Mountain, and started to learn more about him and how he’s protective like Logan, but just a bit more gentle.  He’s a great guy but had such a bad thing happen in a past relationship that he’s afraid to open up to anyone new.  He is the kind of BDSM master that wanted a full time slave – or so he thought, and fell in love with that person. When he realized that he likes to be a dom but not a full time 24/7 Dom, he tried to do the right thing and ‘uncollar’ her, and that ended with a bad result.  The girl threw herself from a mountain and died – leaving Jake with all the guilt that surrounds that.
You can’t blame the guy for becoming a player and king of the one night stands can you?

We then meet Kallie (Kalinda – which is a GREAT name i must say) who is a tomboy to the extreme.  I get the sense from her that if she was left to her own devices that she could be quite girlie however given her living situation and how she grew up, i’m not at all surprised that she felt like the best way to be accepted by her family was to be more of a guy.  I love how when we meet her though, it’s at a bar with her friends who are all googlie eyed over Jake, and she even finds herself melting a little to him.  Then a fight ensues, she defends all the girls, he comes to her aid, and even more melting happens – which she’s not sure that she wants.

Fast forward a little bit to the agreement that Kallie’s family has made for their guide company to partner with Serenity Lodge (the Brother’s place), meaning that everyone would be spending a LOT more time together.  Kallie’s cousins with whom she lives know of the reputation of Serenity Lodge and how they cater to a much more diverse crowd are fearful of letting Kallie get into that environment at all, but since she’s so macho and wants to be equal, she manages to get them to give in and let her take her rightful place.  She goes to the Lodge on a night that a BDSM club is there (The brother’s friends from a club in San Fran actually – where thankfully we get to see Simon again – cause i really like him based on how he was with Rebecca in Book 1).  Unwillingly at first, she allows herself to absorb what’s going on in the lodge and even manages to let Jake get his hands on her (literally and figuratively) to participate.  All things go downhill from there for her because she finds that she’s much more attached than she should be or wants to be, and doesn’t know what that means for Jake since he continues to use his mantra of ‘this is just for this night only’

well, Jake manages to break his rule a little by convincing himself that as long as he prefaces every encounter with her as ‘just for this night only’ it makes it ok and he won’t get attached.  We all know how well that works when there’s a lot of hot sex involved.

aside from all the sweating and action that we see between this couple, there’s also a bit of a dark side weaving itself into the plot.  there’s a guy who thinks that he sees ‘demons’ in women and feels that he has the job to exorcise them, and kill the women to make sure that all the evil is gone.  He prays on women in the area, and that’s just a domed thing for sure!  The question is – who is this guy and who is his next target?  all great questions that lead to an even better climactic ending!

Master of the Mountain (Mountain Masters #1) by Cherise Sinclair

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Coming off my ‘high’ from the Masters of the Shadowlands series, i knew that i wanted to pick up another series in the same genre, and happily i found one by the same author.

so here we are in the first installment of the Mountain Masters series – which is a very different environment and feel from the other series.

We are introduced to Rebecca who has the life that most women want.  She’s got a great job, one the path to fast promotion, and she’s got this amazing boyfriend that she lives with.  He’s great on paper, but what we all know about real life, is that great on paper sometimes falls flat in life.  So their ‘falling flat’ is sex.  boring, very vanilla sex.  Like most women, Becca wonders if it’s because she’s not super skinny like everyone else or if she’s destined to having boring sex.

Well, turns out the perfect boyfriend isn’t quite so perfect after all.  Matt in essece is your regular guy – has a decent job, wants a good relationship…what girl wouldn’t want that right?  He did what girls love and didn’t really ‘put a ring on it’ but asked Becca to move in with him so things were on the right path.  Then, out of no where, literally, he mentions to Rebecca that he belongs to a club that she doesn’t know about, and not just any club – a swingers club and that there’s a long weekend holiday coming up that he’s planning on attending.  now what gets me here is that he had this vacation planned w/o her knowing about it and without telling her and they live together and that’s just supposed to be ‘ok’?  If it were me, i don’t know how ‘ok’ it would be.  Rebecca though – in her hopes of saving her relationship that’s kind of losing some of the spark decides to try it out and see what it might be like. 

so they head up to Serenity Lodge in the mountains which is a really amazing sounding lodge owned by Logan and Jake.  Apparently swingers groups are just some of the different types that come to the lodge, all of course a result of the interests that Jake and Logan personally have.  Let’s not let that detract though from how amazing it is to be in the mountains.  There are endless opportunities to hike, swim, be outdoors and just get away from the City (which is something that Becca keeps being reminded of – that she’s a city girl).  We will focus on Logan for this story though – he’s the ‘older’ brother, and he’s got this Dom thing down pat.  very in control, watching everything, knowing what others (especially Rebecca) are thinking/doing to make sure that their experience is the best it can be.

From the moment that Logan sets eyes on Rebecca when she and Matt check into the lodge, his ears perk up.  It’s interesting how guys are like that – they can just tell when someone is out of their element yet it’s something that they could really get into given the right teacher.  So as the weekend progresses and Logan’s role is to oversee the group, take them on a hike and show them the mountain so they can all ‘play’, he notices that Rebecca really isn’t into it.  She’s set herself apart and he’s not having any of that.  He sees that she’s really uncomfortable in her own skin (that’s #1 since all the girls are toned and thin) and she doesn’t like seeing Matt with another woman.  She tries to get past it but as the evening comes and everyone gets even more friendly, she’s had enough and decides to go back to her room.  there she finds Matt and the other girl and that just doesn’t work for her either, so she leaves, lands herself outside the main lodge because everyone’s inside having sex there too and just curls up outside and goes to sleep.

Logan the overseer decides that’s not ok, and well, he really likes her physically since she can cushion him and feel all soft and womanly, so he brings her back to his ‘place’.  Debauchery ensues from there, and we see that Rebecca puts on her big girl pants on some level and comes into her own.  It’s never cut and dry though because although i didn’t go into it too much, not only is Logan the older and protective brother, he’s been to war, has come back ‘damaged’ from it, and has a resolution that he’s made to himself never to let anyone get close again because he’s afraid of what he’ll do to them.  (what he did to Jake was bad enough – almost killing him)

The great thing about this first story is that you wonder if she’s coming into her own to take it back to her life in San Fran, or if it’s going to alter her life in San Fran after the weekend.  There’s a lot of potential here, especially since well, she’s got this HOT HOT guy in Logan that’s interested.  Well, like we always know, nothing ever comes easy, and what she had she loses, or gives away, what she wants may be out of arms reach, yet, it walks right into her life….