First of all, even if dealing with a D/s relationship gone wrong, Dillon’s Prayer is not a BDSM erotic book. Actually it’s not even an erotic romance. There are sex scene, but they are pretty tamed in comparison to other books I have read, and it’s more about the healing process of Dillon than about the sex. Now don’t get me wrong, Dillon and other men in the novel talk about bad sexual experience, there are memories about past rape they suffered, but it’s in their memory and it’s not part of the plot.
If I was expecting for the novel and the characters to be less emotional since they were penned by a man, again I was wrong; actually in some points they were even too emotional, but it was not a “too much” to border the unrealistic, it was more that these men were able to express their emotions without being feminine… actually I think the author wanted to avoid it highlighting the gay men in the novel are all very masculine outside, but they have a sweet core.
There is a character I found, for my own experience, to be a dream if he was real: the catholic priest who is more than welcoming of his gay parishioners. I’m not writing off he is not possible in real world, only that I would make him a saint if he was.
Said that, the novel had a lot of points where it could have lapsed into drama: the brother who is deployed in a war zone, the underage kid, the traumatic past, even an accident to a beloved pet… but all in all the author managed to write them all without making it a dive into angst. As first experience with a novel by this author, I would say it’s a positive one.
Amazon: Dillon's Prayer
Amazon Kindle: Dillon's Prayer
Paperback: 158 pages
Publisher: Red Rose Publishing (September 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1604358327
ISBN-13: 978-1604358322
Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
