Decadent by Suzanne Forster

Ally Danner’s sister has run away and she fears that she’s inside Club Casablanca, a private men’s club catering to only the extremely powerful. She knows from personal experience that inside the club the women are treated as property and men can use, trade or even include a girl in a poker bet as they see fit. While staking out the club, Ally finds someone else trying to get inside. Sam Sinclair has been working his way into the club for days, but now he finally has his gold key, which gives him complete access to the club. But when Ally turns up in his bed, his plans go to hell as she convinces him to sneak her inside. Now that she’s inside, just how far is Ally willing to go to rescue her sister?

Suzanne also wrote the first Spice novel, and this story has a lot of the same flavor, but is far less explicit that you might expect. Instead she pushes the tension between the characters right to the limit. I really enjoyed the book, though I would have enjoyed seeing more inside the club, along with watching Sam play a game of poker with Ally as the stake. But then again, this is Blaze – not Spice. Guess I’ve got to track down some of her other books. If you’re interested in a story that pushes the limits of what you can do in a Blaze, you definitely have to read this book.

Details: Blaze #288, November 2006

Bottom line: A great book

Tease by Suzanne Forster

Tess Wakefield just moved to New York from California to become the Creative Director at a high profile advertising firm. She’s in complete control of her life, including her decision to trade an active sex life for successful career. But that’s a small price to pay for Tess, who experimented a lot in college and found sex highly overrated. That is until she met Danny Gabriel.

Danny is the Co-Creative Director at the New York, and part of Tess’s new job is to bring Danny under control. His outrageous ad campaigns such were starting to cost the company clients. Rather than bringing Danny under control; Danny surprises Tess by talking a client into using an S&M club as a backdrop for their ad campaign. Then he uses the S&M club to convince her to give up control of her sexuality. And even more surprising is that Tess likes it.

This novel focuses on a particular type of sex - S&M, which will immediately trigger strong reactions in most readers. I suspect many readers will pass up Tease simply because of this. That would be a shame. While this story undoubtedly pushes the limits of sexuality more than any other novel published by Harlequin in the past, it doesn’t push it as far as some of the stories that where recommended reading for Spice authors. In fact, I believe that many of the scenes in Tease could have been included in a Blaze in the right context. Rather than focus on the leather, chains and other devices, this story focuses on what’s happening inside the heroine’s mind as she learns about how to release control in order to gain satisfaction.

You only see the heroine’s point of view in this story, which I believe is a shame. I really wanted to see what was happening inside the hero’s mind, though it probably would have forced the story to go in a different direction. The story itself was somewhat predictable and the ending left me feeling unfulfilled. However, Suzanne’s description of the heroine’s time in the S&M club was very impressive and extremely well done. I really enjoyed the emotional rollercoaster she created.

The only real downside to this book is its format. Trade paperbacks generally command a premium price and this one is no exception. At $13.95, it’s roughly three times the price of a Blaze, which is $4.75. So given the choice between buying one Spice or three Blazes, I’d probably choose the three Blazes, unless there was something very compelling about the Spice’s storyline. Hopefully Harlequin will eventually release these novels in a paperback format as they do for HQN novels that are published in trade or hardback. Until then, I guess I’ll have to read the back covers carefully.

Details: Spice, May 2006

Bottom line: A very good book