REVIEW: Bound by Sasha White

Dear Ms. White:

I started Bound last night and finished today during my lunch hour. I think the shortness of time in which it took to finish the book is telling. If I had to categorize Bound, I would say that it was erotica with an HEA and by that, I mean, that there is a satisfactory emotional ending. While not a romance, it has enough romantic elements to satisfy a hardcover romance lover like myself.

As I was contemplating this book and the categorization of it, I would say that these books are like chick lit or women’s lit in that it is an exploration of self. In these “erotica” books, however, the exploration of self is more physical than psychological. While there are emotional changes, the sex often serves as the vehicle for such changes and maybe even serves as a graphic metaphor for the psychological or metaphysical journey.

Katie Long lives in a small town in Canada. She longs to get out and move to Vancouver where she can be anonymous. She does not want to be the town’s Golden Girl. She is tired of her mother expecting Katie to act as chauffuer, butler and best friend. Katie’s nosy, but well meaning neighbor reports daily about Katie’s activites. Katie believes that she will find fulfillment or at least abatement of her growing dissatisfaction with her life being anonymous and free in the big city of Vancouver. Just a few months before she plans to move away from her home town, Joe Carson hires on a head of security for the small casino in which Katie works in the cash cage.

From the minute that Katie lays eyes on Joe Carson, she begins to have hot fantasies of him taking her, controlling her, filling her. One day she decides to take matters into her own hands so to speak and begins to masturbate, knowing that Joe is watching on the security cameras. Joe is perfectly willing to be drawn into Katie’s games and begins to play a few of them on his own. And while this story features two individuals, it is a story about Katie and her wants, desires, emotions, and hangups. (thus my chick lit comparison). Being brave enough to share some of her desires with Joe leads to greater emotional freedom for Katie in other areas and she begins to take chances where before she played it safe.

I loved that part of the storyline. I also enjoyed the fact that it was Katie who was conflicted over her feelings for Joe and her desire for more freedom and more adventure rather than vice versa. That’s a storyline which I can see selling well to the 18-35 female market. What I did not like and where I thought the book failed was in ultimately meeting Katie’s true desires. You built up these fantasies for Katie but to a large extent they were never realized. And her naughtiest fantasies alluded to by the cover and then expanded upon in the book were not fulfilled by Joe. To some extent, I thought that Katie was all talk and no show.

I wondered whether Katie would be satisfied by Joe because he wasn’t fulfilling her darkest fantasies. I think you have a good style and I wouldn’t hestitate to read another story by you or even recommend this one, but I would hope in future stories that you would take the story farther. B- for you.

Best regards,

Jane