#2026FemdomBookReviewProject

“Lady Venom Takes A Mistress” by Kat Blackthorne [Femdom Review]

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Lady Venom Takes A Mistress

What in heaven’s name did I just read? This is a gothic lesbian sex farce. In the large part it is amusing, but brute force style, and full of awkward inconsistencies amidst the self indulgence. I would best describe  it as having class clown energy, cracking jokes at any cost to itself. When it is working, the vibes are a contemporary Ruddigore, when it isn’t it hits moments you aren’t sure it was trying to be humorous and may have just unintentionally fallen on its face. 

Thus while it gave me more than a few chuckles on purpose, you also get moments like the scene when the evil villian (Lord Harkness) pats his horse and announces after a few bearings and fuckings and the protagonist (Posey) will be just like his mare. And one is left pondering if this is intended to imply he has had sex with his horse? It’s very hard to tell. Tongue might be very firmly in cheek here, but then the book is chomping about so wildly it still manages to bite it off. 

Which is probably strike 1 of the book, but not a problem that’s entirely unredeeming. Accidental pratfalls can still be funny. Where it does drag the most is major problem 2. For a Lesbian romance, characters are inordinately preoccupied with men. In the titular Lady Venom’s case, murdering them and in Poesy’s case, describing in detail their immense ugliness. If I wanted to complain about awful men there’s perfectly good heterosexuality for that. I think they were trying for the fantasy of being able to reject the idea that only M/f could be happily ever after, instead it ended up delivering political lesbianism.

This is made more so bewildering by a cast of ghostly servants that include several jovial male phantoms who nod along with the endless dialogue about how nice killing men is. And that the 11th hour reveal that the domme character in the romance might be responsible for the misogyny the protagonist grew up with through some sort of series of whimsical misunderstandings. Which happens so fast and randomly that it’s almost incoherent.

Of course there’s certainly ways you can do a splatterpunk rejection of having anything to do with straightness, but the tone here is just so unstable that it gets in the way of the good pastoral cottagecore escape bits. 

Consistency is something the book struggles with in the sex parts, too, going from lots of gentle femdom/pleasure from scenes with nothing more dramatic to fingering to the lead suddenly being consensually fucked with a novelty dildo described as being as thick as her bicep and able to make her bleed enough to coat the dildo. Again tonally unclear if this was severe vaginal tearing as one might expect from a more or less unprepped large insertion, or ham handed cherry popping drama? Probably the latter given the book layers things with the literal presence of that fruit as a symbol for the thing Posey had that Lady Venom wanted, but not skillfully done enough to make that clear. Especially not since everything else in this book was tell, so an interlude trying to lean on show will just be awkward. 

Asides from that, my more essential problem is not a flaw. It’s a feature the author intended, that I am not the target audience. 

This is submissive wish fulfillment, the fantasy that a literal magic dominant will immediately treat you like the most beloved, sexy thing ever and indulgently orally service you to as many orgasms as possible (or guide you through masturbation for their enjoyment) while lavishing you with praise and gifts. All you need to do is tell the dominant you like them and presto! Suddenly you are the most special subbie that ever subbed and the dominant lavishes you with more praise for appreciating them. That’s just not going to be my thing. 

Of course self indulgent sub fantasies are perfectly valid, but in finding fiction for me instead of for a sub, this is a perennial problem. Dominants are, by and large, the fetish *object* when we are featured, not the audience. As a result Lady Venom (aka Alabaster Beaudelaire) is endlessly giving and inexplicably into a protagonist who offers nothing more compelling than wanting to stay in a palace where she is cosseted and every need is catered to. 

If I am to imagine myself in Lady Venom’s shoes, what is in it for me, here?

I mean, sure. The little hide-away palace with delicious food and infinite hobby dress making, training in ninja like combat skills and hot people who care about you in the most reassuring way possible would be nice. And who wouldn’t want magically intelligent animals who protect and serve you and ghosts that make you gourmet food, but also enjoy having you hobby bake in their kitchen? The ghosts even act like wise best friends when you are needing a pick me up but have no personal needs beyond housing! It’s a fantasy story and it’s good to daydream. No criticism if this is your dream.

But when I am going to self indulge, I want to be the fussed over one. My silliest, most selfish fantasies where everyone either loves me or falls in a hole and I am so comfy and secure and rewarded do not require my submission as the price of admission. And so many books about BDSM do focus on that theme: Surrender yourself and then get everything handed to you by the dominant. 

Which is counter to the core of this project’s purpose, finding writing that constructively gives dominants what they want. Whether guide books for practical exploration in the real world or romance for comfort, titillation or inspiration it’s a difficult needle to thread that needs more than just that a dominant happens to be female in this particular context or story. Lady Venom Takes A Mistress isn’t pretending to be anything but a goofy, campy frolic, but in recommendations the only endorsement I could give would it might be a good birthday gift for the sapphic sub in your life.

Where to Buy (for a deserving sub :P)

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“Kiss of Seduction” by Rawnie Sabor [Femdom Book Review]

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Kiss of Seduction Rawnie Sabor A steamy Sapphic Succubus Romance A Court of Chains Story

After deciding that my original pick for this week was so terribly bad that reviewing it would be a simple unkindness to myself as much as the author, my plea for some more sapphic or queer suggestions turned up a much better replacement, Kiss of Seduction, as well as a few other books I can add to my review backlog. 

This one’s a contemporary paranormal romance, a succubus and a half angel, set in the author’s version of the kinky decadent court of BDSM obsessed supernaturals trope. Demons, vampires, werewolves, fae and whatnot live in harmony with the humans they have claimed, but must fight off enemy courts at their borders. Sabor is hardly the first writer to dream up that kind of zoo, but having a not particularly unique premise doesn’t mean something can’t be executed well.  Sure, the setting is somewhat of a conceit to justify the aesthetics of the various relationships (and an elaborate magic collating rite), but it’s the quality of writing that can make it break a book more than the degree of novelty it tries to have. 

Of course that’s particularly true in Romance. You already expect a HEA, and usually a pretty tight formula following the kind of Romance it is, Historical, Inspirational, Amish, Cowboy, etc… Being sapphic doesn’t change any of the other expected, familiar beats either: the initially helpless character in the pair coming to recognize her power; the brooding dominant softened by true love and finally confident they can let go and be their full selves with the beloved; and of course that any side characters either become insta-family obsessed with helping the main pair come together or obstacles to be vanquished. 

Predictable or not, I was still interested enough to see precisely how this horny haunted commune would resolve their challenges to be entertained by it. 

I was also happy Sabor avoids some of the bad habits authors can fall into when they write linked-but-stand-alone books.  Past and future series characters were very present, but neither intrusive enough to hog the spotlight, nor pointless if you hadn’t read previous books. While it was true that if the characters had already gotten their own happily ever after there would be some time to show this couple still living their best life, the Court of Chains series seems to have aimed for enough variation there’s none of the more obnoxious hive mind of happiness that late in series books can fall into. 

Furthermore, as inherently silly as the concept of a friendly vampire is (and in these books every supernatural but the werewolf characters are some variation of an erotic lifeforce drainer), I also find there’s a lot more honesty in starting with the concept that your (fantasy) dominants are inherently predators and figuring out how they try to mitigate that. All too often an otherwise contemporary or more grounded in the real world setting can backfire and leave the intentionally flagged BDSM elements an awkward effort to wallpaper over actual consent issues. 

This can be a particular problem in any romance series, more so when a major power imbalance is an important part of each story. One dominant billionaire/Duke/BDSM club owner is a person with a fetish, four or five, all buddies with nobody else unlike them and start feeling like a conspiracy. Sabor’s Court of Chains setting has made its characters self aware, a group of monsters agreeing that their biology makes having a thrall unavoidable and trying to figure about how to put some sort of brakes on. 

Nonetheless, the ensemble setting still requires certain tolerances from the reader. While this is strictly speaking sapphic, the peril of the story, told as much for titillation (though perhaps not in as much detail), is the constant threat of enslavement by bad guys. Our sub character, Evie, is a former vampire thrall, and our dom, Natalya, is stuck on earth after killing her cruel master, and has to fear being returned to service again. It seems like all the other major female characters are capable of finding Evie attractive, but they are all in straight, male dominated relationships or headed for one.  

If that’s a deal breaker, it would be understandable. Lots of people looking for femdom don’t want to be bothered with male dominance, and if you are looking for sapphic *only*, a series that is majority hetero M/f and uses those couples as the side characters is not going to fill that need. 

I think it’s most accurate to say the book is bisexual, so much so that the character being set up as the male lead of the next book is causally described as doing BDSM play with a man. Evie, the literally angelic sub, is exclusively attracted to women, but her brutalization is largely in the hands of men. Natalya’s past partners were chosen in a gender blind fashion, but largely due to a choice in writing she also lives in a world where she has to fear being possessed and used by men more so than women.

There are Vampire Queens, of course, to rival the settings Vampire Kings, and nothing mechanically than makes magic women weaker than magic men, but overall the tone also gives women a bit of a sympathetic buff, that you can be shitty exes or minions of the bad guys, but your heart will ultimately be in the right place.  Likewise, male characters can end up enslaved in the story, but I do think there’s a bit of tilt to treating M/f like the overall setting default.

For me, I also found myself in an interesting position because I responded more to the book’s steady stream of whump than I did to the gooey, happy consenting kink parts between the leads. People are forever being shot, stabbed or otherwise maimed and in need of rescue and concern by other characters. I think that’s hot. 

As a reader this is perhaps another finer point not properly talked about in the search for good femdom stories. As a dominant I am not personally attracted to dominants. I am somewhat omnisexually attracted to certain kinds of suffering and submission, but as much as I care about books with dommes, I want characters I can self insert into as a dominant that do not insult, annoy or disappoint me. 

The actual on page consensual kink between our leads is mostly mild and cozy, using clear stated confirmations of consent at the bulk of its dirty talk, and showing Evie slowly warming up across the many sex scenes between the leads as a sort of mental health progress marker in her trauma recovery. Natalya is (by and large) acting as a wish fulfillment top, that creature of typically submissive fantasy that uses kink to heal and do exactly what the sub secretly wants, but behaves with a combination of shame and gratitude that she lets things go too far with the filthy things she is “making” the sub do. It’s not Sabor’s fault, I can find that romantic or interesting, but I am probably only going to find the more non-diagetic parts of the book erotic.

Likewise, Natalya’s day to day role is to run a BDSM club that provides all the heightened emotions that Fae and Fiend seem to require to eat. There, she plays a stereotypical house dominatrix-as-mentor role, coaching monsters to regulate themselves in a motherly fashion. This often gives me some reservations on the wish fulfillment front that I expect from romance, as a dominant reader.

What redeems things for me are twofold, the classic domme pedestal is framed not as the “proper” way dominants should be, but a disassociation from strong emotional connections Natalya uses because she is wary of love, and that her big pathos is around a world that tends to treat opening up and revealing your true self as submission and undermines those who do. That’s focused on a literal unwillingness to be naked before others, which is given plot reasons, but stands with its symbolism too. 

As far as the power fantasy I know many readers say they want, Natalya is second in command in the collective, but perceives that more as a function of overlapping magical biology than real deference to their official leader. The blood sucking variation of Vampire functions on an ability to pool power and it is more pragmatic to leave another character with the fancy hat. Another character might be King, but the decisions are clearly determined collectively, through a fairly consensus tilted alliance. 

And as much as the character is fixated on protecting and repairing Evie, the character is given lots of moments to be badass that don’t feel forced. All characters get injured a lot, but even when Natalya is most vulnerable she’s either doing the lion with a thorn in its paw thing or successfully undermining her captors. 

So, Kiss of Seduction was fun. I delivers an entertaining ride, I found the characters cute, and it suggests that you can make a working book by writing a female character into a typically male role without having to change much about the characters. Now if only writers would have that kind of courage in the other direction, when they write male sub characters. Still, until there’s more options I think it’s safe to say that sapphic femdom romances do a good job of showing what’s possible.

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“Bad Alpha” by Kathryn Moon [Femdom Book Review]

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Bad Alpha by Kathryn Moon A Sweetverse Novel

This is a generally good role reversal noir action story with a disappointing last quarter when the author seems to remember that she’s writing Omegaverse and it’s somehow obligatory to drop a pile of additional love interests so the main couple can be part of a pack. Thus, what was about an aggressive badass who takes pity on a pretty man in distress, very much in the spirit of the noir part, sort of sputters out just as you were expecting the usual HEA that romance delivers. 

Adam and Eve, our protagonists, both don’t want the complication and risk of having a mate, but when they have to go on the run together, they come to see that they are each other’s exception. The story itself isn’t that unusual, as a gruff assassin turned bodyguard with plucky, but damaged dame/former target being hunted has been a trope for centuries. The unique spin was the way that the Omegaverse aspect of the setting simplifies the role reversal. Both could still be their respective genders, but leave off whatever parts you don’t want. She can be taciturn and standoffish, and he can be vulnerable and alluring without requiring this to be too exceptional. But, just when they start to crack and come together as a couple, voila, random other dudes in a perfectly-functional-without-the-protagonists group. It’s is trying for reverse harem, yet ends like it doesn’t trust that an Alpha Woman can be perfectly satisfied to end in a dominant role.

Making things worse on the romance front, there is no chemistry with these extra people and they appear virtually out of left field, speed running into bed. I think the intent was to show how safe the protagonists were going to be with more people to rely on, but the extras feel more like one of those alt communes with compulsory swinging than an instant family. This is a terrible pity, as the pack is supposed to serve as a sort of narrative chorus to try to emphasize that the protagonist, Eve should stop being a such a self reliant lone wolf. Specifically, she mistakes them for a better place to leave Adam while she returns to her solo and possibly fatal ways. But she didn’t need to fuck these people to get that point across, and neither did they do much to compliment resolving the male lead’s own distrust of occupying his fraught role as an Omega.

The discordance of the rest of the pack being added is made all the more awkward by the male lead, Adam, being named in such a paired fashion with Eve. Nothing about this book is built to be an actual reverse harem romance, and I honestly think Moon is probably a victim of the series formula here. This is book six, four of which are female omega/plural male alpha heavy (with a few male betas for spice) and the fifth was male omega/female omega with the conflict being about the former accepting her compulsory harem if he wanted to be with her. As with the usual problems of putting the femdom at the ass end of the series, Bad Alpha is a monogamous romance shoehorned into a poly, reverse mostly male dominant setting.

And really, it didn’t have to be that way. The Omegaverse, a byproduct of slash fanfic, started as an m/m way to still explore things like pregnancy, it has its own tropes and rules, but nothing is hard and fast. And not all Omegaverse stories are harems or poly packs, and it’s not hard to find F/f, M/f or M/m where it’s just about that couple. Of course poly romances can and do work, but this one clearly wasn’t and tried to do that anyway to its own detriment.

Plus, it undoes something else. While most of the books Moon wrote in this setting are about a group of dudes who love each other and their magic girl, the remaining high m/m and M/m quotient make male omegas normalized. Eve’s place in the setting also suffers from the general implication that being a female alpha is exceptional. When you try to toss her into the alpha/alpha fuck pile and you completely muff the chemistry and point for the other guys to be there, what was largely a female gaze fantasy of watching two dudes fuck just ends up further undermining her. Dominance and grudgingly accepting vanilla/primal sex might be good for you just aren’t that compatible.

That’s not to say there wasn’t parts of this that weren’t good, it’s just that the parts that were bad were so awkward that they leave you wanting to pretend they didn’t happen. You can skim them, and miss nothing important to the main story, but nevertheless they are still there.

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