Bound

Bound
$14.00
Wow. What to say about this book? I was expecting steam. Heck, just look at the cover, and you know there aren't going to be fade-to-black or closed-door sex scenes, and you can pretty much gather that said sex scenes won't be same-old, same-old either.

What you might not expect, particularly if, like me, you're new to this author, are realistic characters and emotional depth, but they're there.

Katie Long is a good girl with the soul of a bad girl. She's working in a casino in a small town, where everyone knows her, and she feels trapped. Her overriding goal in life is to save up enough money to escape to the city where she can finally be herself.

Meanwhile, she has her eye on the sexy new security guard at the casino: Joe Carson. In a fit of daring, she gives him a show on the security monitor, and starts an intense, exciting, D/s sexual relationship with him.

At least it starts out as just sex, until they both find themselves falling in love, and their emotional goals and their practical goals start to collide.

Bound does a lovely job of portraying Katie, and showing how a person can be sexually submissive without being weak or ineffectual outside the bedroom--or even inside it. It also does a lovely job of showing Katie's character change--the traditional but no less true plot of discovering what you really want.

The ending is very satisfying. No giving up of one's goals for a new sexual relationship, no inexplicable and convenient character changes. I was happy for Katie and the end, and confident that she'd be happy too.

I'll definitely be looking for more books by Sasha White.

Bound: A Novel
$13.99
This book moves quickly and kept my attention. I read the book in a very short time. However, I feel like I cheated myself by reading this before "The Widows War". The same Characters continue on in this book. "Bound" would have been a richer experience for me if I'd had the background story. That aside, it was still a good book and you didn't "have to" read "Widows War" to understand this book and enjoy it. I loaned mine from the library. :)

Bound
$14.98
Bound is one of my favorites. Thank you so much! The price was very affodable, it arrived quickly and in excellent condition! I would absolutely buy from you again. :)

Bound
$6.99
I freely admit my ignorance in Chinese history. What I do know is mostly gleened from Disney's Mulan, Katherine Patterson's novel (Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom) and that which my coworkers at my job taught me for the Chinese New Year. My knowledge of the Cinderella tale, and its incarnations, is vastly larger however, but I had never come upon the Chinese tales (which according to the Postscript are some of the oldest known).

I have mixed feelings for this book; on the one hand the story moves along at a good pace and you can see Xing Xing's life (how she is able to draw small comfort from just being called her name, how strongly she believes in the spirits of her father and mother, her stepmother's disdain) and you are given a very detailed accounting of what life would have been like back then. From Xing Xing's unwavering sense of duty to Wei Ping's selfishness and self-delusions and to Stepmother's (who is given no other name) obvious abuse of Xing Xing as a punishment for her husband caring for her more.

My main concern was the quick way that Xing Xing gains her confidence (in herself and trusting the future). The book isn't very long, but up until the last quarter of the book she accepts her fate, does her best to make the most of things and doesn't resent anyone. Indeed if her Stepmother hadn't done something so heinous, I doubt she would have spoken up for herself at all. Which is a crying shame because Xing Xing in the last five pages is very interesting!

The book however, like Napoli's other fairy tale retellings, offers a different look at what has been done to death. A fish as a 'fairy godmother', bibbity-boppity-boo indeed.