Dee's Book Blog

One Dom to Love
Authors: Shayla Black, Jenna Jacob, Isabella LaPearl
Series: #1 in The Doms of her Life
Rating: ☆ ½

Narrator: Christian Fox
Run Time: 7 hrs 46 mins
Narration Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆

Description:
Raine Kendall has been in love with her boss, Macen Hammerman, for years. Determined to make the man notice that she’s a grown woman with desires and needs, she pours out her heart and offers her body to him—only to be crushingly rejected. But when his friend, very single, very sexy Liam O’Neill watches the other Dom refuse to act on his obvious feelings for Raine, he resolves to step in and do whatever it takes to help Hammer find happiness again, even rousing his friend’s possessive instincts by making the girl a proposition too tempting to refuse. But he never imagines that he’ll end up falling for her himself.

Hammer has buried his lust for Raine for years. After rescuing the budding runaway from an alley behind his exclusive BDSM Dungeon, he has come to covet the pretty submissive. But tragedy has taught him that he can never be what she needs. So he watches over her while struggling to keep his distance. Liam’s crafty plan blindsides Hammer, especially when he sees how determined his friend is to possess Raine for his own. Hammer isn’t ready to give the lovely submissive over to any other Dom, but can he heal from his past and fight for her? Or will he lose Raine if she truly gives herself—heart, body, and soul—to Liam?

Review:
You know, sometimes I look at books on Goodreads after I finish listening and rating and wonder what the heck did I miss, that everyone I know/follow seems to give something 4/5 stars (the rating of this was 4.6 among my 20 friends that had read/reviewed it). And it isn’t the first time that this has happened – but on to the guts of the review. To say that this book was horrible, it probably the understatement of the century. Don’t get me wrong, I read/listen to erotic romance and erotica on a fairly regularly basis and I spent probably about 85% of the book just cringing. It was like watching that train wreak that you know is going to happen, but you just can’t look away. I guess, since the title (and series) was modeled after a soap opera I shouldn’t have been surprised though.

I’ll be brutally honest though, writing a review for this book is nearly impossible without massive amounts of spoilers. There is just really nothing I can say without wanting to add a potential spoiler in to illustrate just how bad it was. And it all started with the diminutive name that Hammer (I mean seriously, really) called Raine – Precious – I honestly had visions of Smegal from Lord of the Rings while hearing that – which probably isn’t a visual you want when listening to an erotic romance/erotica audiobook…

I found the sexual interactions between the three characters uncomfortable and honestly they were hard to listen to because the situations were beyond implausible, Raine was a total brat and was topping from the bottom (when the Sub tries to control the situation from their submissive position) – it irked the ever loving shit out of me. There are particular names I would like to call Raine, but they are completely inappropriate, even if its how I feel. And to add insult to injury (well, mental injury), it wasn’t even a complete book – it was a serial (meaning that the story was divided into three separate books and sold that way) – so if I actually had an inclination to read/listen to the other two (which I don’t), I’d have to spend even more money. I’ve never been a fan of the idea of serials and this just confirms it. But back to One Dom to Love.

Unfortunately, even the narration by Christian Fox, which was actually not bad, couldn’t save my listening experience. I’d previously heard about how enjoyable his narration was from a friend in a romance audiobooks group. In fact, she was quite effusive about her enjoyment of his narration and I hope that should I try another book narrated by him I’ll have a better experience.

I will say that he does have a good range of male and female voices (there were 3 main male characters, 1 main female, with a minor secondary female) and each one was distinctive. I particularly liked the Irish brogue that he gave Liam. In fact he pegged Raine’s bratty tone of voice (or what I would call bratty based on her behavior) so perfectly, that I pretty much wanted to reach into my ipod and slap her silly.

I know for sure that I won’t be continuing with the serial, and gave it a generous 1.5 stars. but in the narration aspect, I gave Christian Fox 3 stars for his narration, but I am curious to see what he can do with a better written book.