When she was young and naïve and had foolishly believed that wishing on stars would be enough to grant her deepest desires, Trinity had spent years in a ‘non’ relationship as a ‘friend with benefits,’ believing that Christian would one day be ready to make things official. But reality reared its ugly head and instead, he broke her heart when he told her he wanted to move on with someone else.With … else.
With both his business and personal life out of control and disintegrating around him, Christian had been completely up front and honest about the fact he didn’t have the time or the resources to dedicate to a relationship, and Trinity had insisted she understood and accepted the situation – only to be blindsided when he revealed that he’d fallen in love with someone else.
Years later and eons wiser, they find each other again, but can things be any different the second time around?
Publisher’s Note: This steamy, contemporary second chance romance contains themes of power exchange.
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Poppy Flynn gives us the fifth book in her “Club Risqué” series and ‘Friends With Benefits’ is such a relatable story for me I couldn’t put it down. The pages just seemed to turn quicker than I realized and before my mind caught up with reality, I had finished the book! Taryn, aka Trinity, had met Christian when she was still in high school when he brought his mare to her parents’ stud ranch. That was the start of what would become a very lopsided friends with benefits relationship that lasted for years. To be fair, Christian never lied to Trinity about not having the physical or emotional capacity for a personal relationship but she didn’t care. By that point, Trinity loved Christian and wanted him any way she could have him with the thought he would one day realize what he had and want her just as badly. The day finally came when he wanted to talk to her about something important. Thinking Christian was going to confess his love or at least ask her to move in with him, he announces he’s fallen in love with someone he met at his BDSM club and, even though it happened so quickly, they were going to be married. In the same breath, he assured her above all else she was still his best friend and nothing would ever change that and he wanted her at his wedding. After all her sacrifices, it appeared none of Trinity’s dreams would come true and her world was shattered. This second chance romance takes us gives us the first encounter but then fate has brought them back together as adults. Will history repeat itself? Can there be enough trust there to even try to be friends again or is enough, enough? This is a great addition to the series and I know you won’t want to miss this one.
Poppy Flynn presents a fantasy club world that doesn’t exist in real life, but it would be lovely if it did. In her club system all subs and doms are thoroughly trained and have to pass meticulous phycological evaluations in order to become members. All of this project an idea of safety and oversight which you don’t really find in a real club—that doesn’t make it less enjoyable. On the contrary I’m very experienced in the scene and I still love these books, just don’t go looking for realism when you read them—though I do love that she’s obviously done her research and you’ll find plenty of good information mixed into the fantasy.
Some spoilers below:
This story focuses on Trinity, the assistant manager and a service sub at the club who has a ‘friends with benefits’ situation with Micah. They are close friends who occasionally scratch and itch with each other. There’s no romance between them and they are both happy with their private arrangement. On Trinity’s part it’s because of some past baggage from her first love.
A good part of the book is a flashback to her past where she fell in love with a slightly older man and agreed to be his escort and companion in a friends-only way. Eventually they do became lovers though and Trinity, then Taryn, fell in love with him and he was oblivious to it. While she thinks they are moving towards a serious relationship he instead falls in love with someone else and part of the reason is because he’s been into BDSM all along, and his new love is the submissive he was looking for.
Taryn’s life is flipped upside and she leaves to make a new start elsewhere when his love, now wife, decides she doesn’t want Taryn around at all and demands he cut off contact. But once she settles down in a new location she decides to investigate the BDSM scene and it sets her on the path to become Trinity and the person she is now. But sometimes fate can be tricky and she ends up getting a second chance at love.
There’s a lot to like about this book. I especially loved the touch of including a dwarf Master in a wheelchair. Too often people forget that there are plenty of scene members who are disabled and it’s not all about perfect bodies. The ending came rather suddenly and caught me by surprise though. I was expecting more and suddenly we were done with questions left unanswered. Especially in regard to the mysterious disappearances of Christian’s mother. I really wanted to see that resolved, but otherwise it was a great read!
Our heroine is a submissive and the assistant manager at the local BDSM club. What happens when she is paired with her former lover who broke her heart so many years ago?
This is book five in the series, but it works just fine on its own. I believe there are references to characters from previous stories, but none of it mattered as far as this story was concerned.
This is nominally a second chance romance with strong elements of BDSM and power exchange. I had a tough time with this one for two reasons. First, the hero is a jerk with no redeeming qualities in my opinion. I understand you can’t control who you fall in love with, but after being treated so poorly in the past, why give someone another chance to hurt you? Sorry, but hard pass. And second, a lot of the plot evolves around miscommunications and assumptions, which I really can’t stand. So that’s two major strikes for me.
The story itself is very well written and the characters are carefully crafted, even if not always likable. I did like the heroine, but I had problems with some of her decisions, par for the course at this point.
If you are a fan of the series and have more patience than I do with unlikable characters, this is a good book. It just wasn’t for me.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout for review purposes.
*3.5 stars*
A drama-filled second chance…
The BDSM life is at the forefront of Trinity and Christian’s second chance romance. I really liked Trinity’s search for knowledge and meaning in her life. If you had any questions about the submissive lifestyle then you have picked up the right book as every aspect of her learning becomes the reader’s as well. Christian, well, he was an interesting character, one I admit I wasn’t too fond of. Obviously, there were reasons why he did the things he did but, honestly, it was hard to get past them when he had so many options to choose from…
I did have a hard time getting into their story. I’m not sure why exactly. The writing style was good and I liked Trinity and loved Micah (a friend we all need and deserve!). Maybe it was Christian? Whatever hung me up at the beginning though faded as the story finally clicked and with a solid, drama-filled ending, it all came together…
*I happily reviewed this story
This is a very emotional story that has a lot of backstory to it. It’s predominantly about Taryn/Trinity and her relationship with Christian both in the past and the present. It’s very well written, in fact probably too well written as it took me on an emotional rollercoaster and then seemed to end with what I consider to not be a real ending, I didn’t feel as if there was real closure to the relationship between them. The ending left me in the air, and I feel as if I should have been warned. Maybe the answers I need shall be in the next book in the series.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.