Veena’s review of Hot Ticket (Sinners on Tour, Book 4) by Olivia Cunning
Erotic Romance published by Source Books Casablanca 05 Feb 13
This is my very first book by this author and I had heard a lot of praise for her before I started this book, so I had very high expectations going in. While the book has the ingredients to make it great: Jace who is a tortured soul with a very painful past and Aggie, a strong female protagonist, a dominatrix with all the right tools to release Jace’s pain, it just never made the right emotional connection for me and, therefore, instead of finding romance I just felt like I was reading porn.
Jace encounters Aggie at a club where she does lap dances and pole dancing using a whip routine. He is looking for release and is ecstatic to find that she is a professional dominatrix who offers pain sessions on the side for a fee. And so starts a professional arrangement that quickly transitions into a relationship.
Aggie finds out that this unassuming, almost shabby, young man is the bass player for the Sinners, a rock band that is playing in Las Vegas and moving on to tour. As Aggie’s relationship with Jace grows, she finds that he is a seething mass of emotional pain, such that he does not see the love and affection that the other band members hold for him. Slowly but surely she is committed to helping Jace release his pain and find himself.
The book lives up to my imagination of touring with a rock band with a bunch of guys sharing a bus and all the groupies who throw themselves at them. Aggie, in her dominatrix personality, is well done and when she engages with Jace or with the other guys at that level, she is quite believable. But when Jace takes a commanding role, she seems so virginal and innocent that it doesn’t fit. Jace also does not fit in as a typical submissive pain slut. Yes, he craves pain and yes, he had an absolutely horrific childhood that no child should be subjected to that leads him to need pain to release his emotions. I feel like the author needed to write a BDSM book and tried to make the story fit that theme, but there are so many inconsistencies that I could not engage and enjoy the book.
I know I picked up the book in the middle of the series, not having read the earlier books, but, frankly, I don’t feel that starting in the middle in any way contributed to my feel of disassociation. I know the author has a great fan following and great reviews, but this book just did not do it for me.
Grade: C
Summary:
He needs her to mask his pain…
When Jace walked through the doors of Aggie’s dungeon, the last thing he expected was to find self-forgiveness and the love of a remarkable woman. But when a terrible accident sidelines Jace during the band’s tour, the burdensome chains of his past wrap ferociously around his heart.
She needs him to forgive himself…
Determined to crack through Jace’s armored shell, Aggie must go beyond her usual methods to mend his heart to love again.
Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
