FOUR GAY BDSM THRILLERS, the "Power Exchange" series by A.J. Rose

POWER EXCHANGE
A.J. ROSE (Power Exchange #1)
The Grim Writer Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the moment Detective Gavin DeGrassi steps into the world of BDSM to solve the brutal slaying of Dom George Kaiser, his course is not his own. Mesmerized by the context in which the victim lived and the images seared into his soul, Gavin has to find a way to navigate these unknown waters. With his personal life in upheaval due to a marital split, and his professional life uncertain with the assignment of a new partner, Gavin needs all the help he can get understanding the case.

Enter Ben Haverson, a psychologist and a well known Dom. With Ben’s help as a consultant on the case and attention to Gavin himself, Gavin delves deeper than he ever thought he would into the world of restraints and paddles. Forced to take a closer look at himself, his true nature, and his innermost desires, Gavin has a choice: keep the fear of submitting at bay, or dive in and solve the case with the knowledge he gains? When another victim is discovered, Gavin’s choice is made for him, and he’s pulled headlong into the deepest, most emotional journey of his life.

Unfortunately for him and Ben, a killer has noticed, has taken stock, and has set his sights on the D/s pair. Can Gavin outwit him, or will his first exchange of power be his last?

My Review: Everything that celebration of abuse and belittlement Fifty Shades of Grey wasn't in terms of the BDSM lifestyle. Realistic depiction of how contracts between Dom and sub work, and how very deep a D/s bond becomes in a very short time. It's amazing what committing to eliminating bullshit and nonsense does for a relationship. The sex is really better than the mystery. Not that I'm complaining. That was one fine cherry-popping, A. J. Rose, mighty mighty fine.

The mystery part wasn't deft. Gavin DeGrassi isn't detecting particularly well, given some very very basic events he seems simply not to have noticed. In fact, I spent more than a few minutes screaming at the frequently dumb as a box of rocks Gary Stu "detective" to act like he earned his badge and didn't simply find it in a box of Cracker Jacks....

I could have lived happily without chapter 13 being *quite* so intense. Going over the top here was skating on a razor's edge of being torture porn. Be aware: This is rape, this is abuse.

I picked up the next three in the series after Gavin's Dom said this:

“Gavin, we're going to grow old together, and whether you pick up a gardening hobby, or learn to make you won sushi, or even decide to learn an instrument, I will be right there with you, growing with you. We'll share our whole lives, our quirks and bad habits. It's not just learning your past and who you are today; its getting to see who you'll become tomorrow. I want to be there for that.”

Really, what more can one ask of a gay-themed series than to have the best of us mirrored in the world that even members of our own community regard with alarm.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SAFEWORD
A.J. ROSE (Power Exchange #2)
The Grim Writer Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Everywhere Detective Gavin DeGrassi looks he’s reminded of his attack by the Breath Play Killer. It’s in the house he lives in with his partner and Dom, Ben Haverson. It’s in the sympathetic yet pitying looks he receives from his fellow detectives when he returns to the force after a year-long hiatus. It’s in the suffocating coddling of his entire family, and the relentless reporter demanding an exclusive of his ordeal.

Most of all, it’s in his lack of submission to Ben, who isn’t convinced Gavin’s recovered enough to trust the power exchange between them.
The miraculous recovery of two teen boys from a twisted kidnapper gives him heart, and Gavin's determined to prove he can handle anything despite increasing strain between him and Ben, painful nightmares, and panic when anyone touches him.

But his next case is too close for comfort: a friend and colleague found raped and murdered in a fate chillingly similar to what could have been his own, and this killer isn’t stopping with one cop. As the body count rises and taunting souvenirs are being hand-delivered to Gavin, he faces a frustrating lack of leads, a crushing need to prove himself, and a sinking suspicion the imprisoned kidnapper’s reach is further than originally thought. A miasma of uncertainty and fear threaten to suffocate him when he asks a question with which he’s overwhelmingly familiar: what happens when a victim is pushed too far?

My Review: Wow, what a ride. What an amazing adrenaline rush of an ending. What can Rose do to top this one? I'll tell you below.

So, after I found out about Consent, let me revisit this book and explain why it is my personal favorite of the books in the series to date.

The end of Power Exchange was, to put it mildly, a horrific test of the men's strength and commitment. The awfulness of the events that Ben and Gavin endured can't be overstated. The impact of the extreme publicity surrounding the events can't be overstated. These two men were traumatized physically, psychologically, and publicly. In Consent, their violated beings are shown in the process of healing. Their family relationships are shown in all their realistic upheaval and flux. The source of their identity as a couple, Gavin's submission to Ben's Domination of his body and his spirit, is fractured and despite their mutual and deep desire to recover that connection, they aren't able to...but they are not either one vaguely in the mood to give up trying.

Ben loves Gavin, Gavin loves Ben. This is the given point from which this story operates. Nothing that has happened has changed them so much that the facts aren't true. But then there is the other stuff lying between them in huge mounds of rubble and vast slicks of toxic waste. The trust issues that follow in the wake of being raped. The fears of inadequacy in the face of your beloved partner's pain, which you can't fix. The awful moment when your own broken inner self seems to be too much for your partner to handle, so you feel you *should* release them from your further fulfilling your needs.

"You still need someone to take control sometimes, but now giving that control unbalances you. Believe me, I understand. I may not feel exactly the same, but I do understand."

"Do you?" I pulled back to look at him. "Does it bother you that I can't seem to trust anyone, even you?"

–and–

"You are the only one I want, sub or not, fucked in the head or whole. This last year, with you, I've woken up inside. I used to think it was the thrill of the whip, of seeing someone on his knees for me, or the heat of a freshly reddened ass that made me feel alive. Getting someone to fly with me, taking submission for the gift it is--that's a heady thing. It makes my nerves sing and my heart beat fast. Gets me hard and I feel like I can do anything. And that feeling is a pittance compared to being with you."

And then the sense of the thing reasserts itself: NO. NOT A DAMN CHANCE. Ben and Gavin each reach this awful precipice and look into the abyss of aloneness after each man finally discovers himself, his best self, in the other man's eyes. They say no, they grab hold of each other and they move together as far away as they can from that horrible annihilating aloneness.

And they do so while solving a horrible crime and rescuing innocent young men from vile servitude. They don't come out of this case unscathed but they come out changed for the better, is also a great deal sadder.

Far and away the best of the series to date.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CONSENT
A.J. ROSE
The Grim Writer Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Cole, what’s wrong?

Former detective Gavin DeGrassi likes his new life and his job as a university professor, molding the minds of the next generation of law enforcement. It keeps him in the field he loves, but out of the media and out of the danger he seems to draw. He’s settled and happy with his partner and Dom, Ben Haverson.

It’s Myah.

Until a middle of the night phone call from his brother, Cole, whose desperation and fear yank him back into the world of criminals and countdowns. Only this time, the stakes are much higher.

She’s missing.

Detective Myah Hayes, Gavin’s sister-in-law and former partner, has a past of her own, one that has returned to claim her. With only their instincts and the help of a rogue CSI, Gavin, Ben, and Cole will do whatever it takes to find Myah, following a flimsy trail of evidence to Chicago, where all is not what it seems—dirty cops, moral pimps, and a nest of snakes who call themselves businessmen.

They’re on a collision course with the worst of humanity, and more than Myah’s life is caught in the vortex. Can they find her, and if they do, will there be anything left to save?

Warning: contains scenes of rape and graphic violence and may not be suitable for sensitive readers. Discretion advised.

My Review: I will keep this short and simple: Author Rose, you have disappointed me. Chapter 25 was unnecessary and prurient, but my disappointment stems from the cheap and shoddy trick it represents on your delighted and dedicated readers. I am most definitely one of them.

I intend this as a compliment: There is no way I would ever have known from the way you wrote Gavin and Ben's relationship what gender you are IRL. On balance I would've expected you to be male, given the startling depth of your characters's physiological responses and the psychology before and behind them. But truly the way you've written the men's characters is simply good writing, something either gender can create if a given level of talent is present.

That makes the sting of being let down so forcefully by the torture porn in chapter 25 so much worse. It made the unpleasant shock of that unnecessary death much less effective as a surprise, a gut-punch, as it was meant to be. And Myah's later torture after the failed escape attempt was also rendered less effective as the horrifying gut-punch it truly was.

Had I edited this book, I would've made the following observation: This number of words would be better spent throughout the book humanizing Ben, Cole, and the elder DeGrassis via phone calls or something.

I will, of course, rush right out to read the fourth entry in this series because the deep and velvety pleasure of seeing myself (idealized, of course) in Ben is too satisfying to deny myself.

"But I’m not through with you, Gavin DeGrassi. I have plans to redden that ass and mark your skin. There are many more orgasms to deny you, and butt plugs to make you wear in public. D-rings I want to add to your corsets, since it’s clear you need restraining again. I haven’t bought our cabin in Colorado for our retirement. We haven’t been to the beach together. I want to go abroad with you. I haven’t picked out the porch swing we’re going to sit on when we’re eighty and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off our lawn. I want a collar around your throat, and a ring on your left hand. I have plans for us, and I’m going to do everything in my power to see those plans through.”

He's the Dom that many subs crave, and seldom find: The one who loves you and needs to show you that you're his and no one else's. Ben needs Gavin as much as Gavin needs Ben: “I've seen the way you are together. He's your protector, and you're his purpose. He's your glue and you're his art.” That's the best of the D/s world. I need to go back there, and these books do that for me. But I will pick the book up with a heretofore absent wariness.

That hurts like fuck to say.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

RESTRAINT
A.J. ROSE (Power Exchange #4)
The Grim Writer Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Who brings a Glock on a honeymoon?

Not retired detective Gavin DeGrassi. When his husband Ben asks who he plans to shoot, Gavin has no answer. They’re spending three weeks in Ben’s family cabin near Seattle, not chasing down bad guys. Or are they?

Ben finds evidence the car accident that claimed his parents’ lives more than fifteen years ago was not so accidental. To avenge the Haversons, Gavin dusts off his detective skills and unknowingly paints a target on their backs. Suddenly, Ben is the prime suspect in a crime and the message couldn’t be clearer: drop the investigation or suffer untold consequences.

Gavin will stop at nothing to ensure Ben’s safety and bring the Haversons’ killers to justice, but without help, they’re sitting ducks. Gavin must make unlikely allies in his quest to clear Ben’s name and stop a ruthless crime syndicate. But with his loyalties divided, how far is too far in his quest for justice?

My Review: One entire star off for twelve (12) instances of the w-verb. Seriously. Using any out-of-the-ordinary word twelve times in your book should be a red flag for an author. What am I shorthanding here? Why does this particular word need to be in my book this many times? Y'all'd agree with me if it was "coddiwomple" or "absquatulate" you know you would. "Wink" *shudder* is just as uncommon a word in every other branch of fiction writing beyond MM romance.

Anyway.

The story here is what happens when Ben, our Dom, goes back to his childhood summer home with Gavin, his sub, to celebrate their honeymoon. It's a delightful idea, the men going to gorgeous Seattle for some smexytimes; but this isn't to be. The smexytimes are really not the point. And that's a wonderful thing.

Seriously! It is!

The relationship between partners in a D/s situation matures with the parties involved as it does in all long-term relationships. With that maturity comes the change of sex life. Not lessening. Not death. Just change. In Ben and Gavin's relationship, their routinizing of D/s doesn't require them to compulsively repeat the same acts. They move deeper into each others' cores and negotiate the introduction of far more intimate and demanding behaviors. It is very much one of my pleasures in reading this series to enjoy this evolution of the characters' interactions.

Feelings of disquiet, anger, or aggressiveness, he considered big weaknesses in a Dom and particularly in himself. Funny opinion for a psychologist to have, but we’d been through this in therapy.
–and–
I leaned into his warmth, my heart fluttering against my ribcage like a murder of crows taking flight.

Being a series novel, there are cameos by characters we've met before; the fact that the entire DeGrassi clan is having Thanksgiving back in St. Louis without the men is played off well. And Gavin's call to a St. Louis source for some crucial help is answered, despite the risk to his helper.

“Why are you letting Gavin fight your battles for you? Can’t bring yourself to do it alone? It’s clear he has a brain, but he’s so blinded by devotion to you that he, a retired detective, is turning criminal to do your bidding, to set your mind at ease about Mommy and Daddy’s deaths. They’re dead. This revenge, or whatever you’re trying to accomplish, won’t bring them back. But you have a living, breathing, committed man by your side, and you’re apparently fine if he goes to prison for you. That’s fucked up.”

I like the honesty I see about D/s relationships in the series. It's hard for Ben to give up control; it's hard for him to feel helpless or actually useless in any situation where his earthly treasure, Gavin, is threatened. Every good Dom knows that horrible reality and, if we're at all honest, the creeping fear that our treasured sub will realize "hey! I don't need him after all!" and walk away. Ah, the joys of anxiety! All humans suffer from it. And so very few of us do the simple, smart thing and open up to our most trusted, most beloved partners. How very much pain would be mitigated or even disappeared by this simple, monumental, impossible act!

But such are the musings of one with no dog in this fight anymore. In common with all readers, I use books to teach me the truths I refused to accept from reality. Reading all four books in this series makes me long for a second chance to be young...as do all the other books I read. A joyous ache, a happy poignance, a learnèd innocence. How I pity those who aren't fellow addicts.