Audrey Simone is a thirty-something divorced mom looking for adventure when she accompanies her new friend, Kate, to a local dungeon.What she doesn’t expect to find is Gavin…His arms are the size of her thighs.His eyes the color of Van Gogh’s sky.And his tolerance for BS is minimal.Playing becomes an addiction. Her desire to submit an innate need. And it doesn’t take long for Audrey to realize … doesn’t take long for Audrey to realize this world has surpassed her wildest imaginations.
But she lives in two worlds, straddling day and night, reality and kink — one foot has found its way into Gavin’s heart while the other rests on the outside.
And her Master — the man who chains her, ties her, binds her, frees her — doesn’t just want her submission … Gavin has decided he needs both feet.
Bodhi is a 63,000 word standalone novel.
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Didn’t care for this one very much. Gavin (Hero/Dom) was interesting & I liked him but I didn’t like the Audrey (heroine/sub) much at all. She is a divorcee & single mom, her 2 children are still in school all day 5 days a week, she has a full time job & supposedly loves her boys (12 & 9) yet once she discovers/acquires a Dom after visiting the club ‘Bodhi’ she dumps them on her father or her ex-husband *every single weekend*.
Now, I do realize a mother *more* then deserves, earns & needs her own time, but every single weekend? Where’s the bonding? Where’s her interest in them when she actually has time to be with them? Ah well, I suppose part of this is how ‘addicted’ she becomes to finally realizing & allowing her deep seated masochistic needs & desires release by being humiliated, denigrated, used, flogged; indulging in wax play, fire play & breath play by her intense but emotionally frigid Dom.
However, except for a couple of intensely erotic scenes in the book, everything else sexual was ‘offstage’. And this is one of the two big things that confused me & therefore severely reduced my interest: it is one of the least sexual BDSM books I’ve come across. The second thing is this is one of THE MOST CONFUSING books I’ve read. It can’t decide if it’s taking a religious stance of combining religion & sexuality, of finding yourself, of, I don’t know what.
Audrey comes across as an intensely sexual masochist who essentially divorced her husband because he couldn’t give her the pain & humiliation she wanted & craved. And yet, despite her internal & verbal non-stop drive to require these things from Gavin, & his warnings he’d give them to her & more, later in the book she cuts & runs & just leaves—- for years.
So, to me she’s a completely selfish, self-focused pain princess who takes & takes & gives nothing back.
But mainly the book is almost completely Audrey’s internal chaotic & selfish musings justifying to herself how she deserves to get & take everything SHE wants, from whoever she decides she may get it from.
So, like I said earlier: I didn’t care for this one, I didn’t feel the writing was clear or cogent & the main character Audrey seriously ticked me off. But maybe someone else will love it. Just not me.
NOTE: If you’d like a book that does an excellent job (IMO) of mixing BDSM/religion, I’d suggest Lucian Bane’s ‘Preacher Dom’ & ‘Preacher Dom 2’.
A dark romance that did not go down the expected path. I thought that at times Gavin was a bit arrogant and took advantage of Audrey’s vulnerability. This story did weave an unexpected journey and is not your typical romance. Though it took me a while to get into, I did enjoy it!!
This book was steamy HOT!! Audrey wanted a new adventure but got more then she bargained for.. She wanted more sexually and got it. She found herself and what she liked and disliked. Gavin opens her up to a world she never experienced before and found she enjoyed more then she thought. She found a love that took her to a new space. Gavin has his own things that he needs to work on as well. He needs control but he also needs pain. Things were good until Audrey opens his eyes and makes him see what’s really important. I didn’t expect things to certain things to happen but they did. This book was good and the sex scenes are incredibly hot. I liked Gavin and Audrey together.
Very emotional and intense book which I love because it is always interesting to get lost in a story and feel as if you are experiencing what the character is going through. Because of the way this book was written I was able to get lost in it and really get into this book. It was well written and a great book to read.
Wow!! Just WOW!! A.R. Hadley is a New Author for me and She Had at the Very Beginning of the this Book! I’ve read BDSM before but Holy Hotness this was Out of the Box and left me Breathless!!
A divorced single mom trying to find herself in the world of BDMS is So Different Unique in itself that this book is Beautifully written. You find yourself lost in the pages that you do not want to put down.
Definitely will be looking out for A.R Hadley in the future of the Reading World!
If you’re looking for something Different that you can’t put down, then this is IT!! Holy Hotness was this book streamy! Audrey and Gavin are on fire together!
I love the book.. I can be intense but you can also feel lots of emotion.i love all characters in this book I hope we get 5o read more.
Love Aubrey and Gavin together . It a must read .get this book you won’t regret
This book is about a divorced mom Audrey who inst happy with her life and needs change so she goes and what she finds is something she never thought she would ever do. She finds out with Gavin that this Kinky world is something she is really getting into to and letting go is something she really needed in her life. BDSM really isn’t top of my reading but the author really opens your eyes to someone who is new to this all and what would be going through her mind while she is trying to figure out if this is really for her.
If you are in anyway prude-ish, don’t read. If you love sex, erotica, BDSM, definitely read!
That being said, this book is so much more than some sexy BDSM story. As in the usual A.R. Hadley fashion, this book is deeply emotional, poetic and thought provoking.
There were times I had to stop reading for a moment, set it aside and just process what I was reading. It is truly one of my favorite things about A.R. Hadley’s books. The fact that I’m not just reading some hot kinky erotica where two people hook up and fall in love, then HEA. There are a vast array of emotions to process. There are parts that are uncomfortable. There are times when you’re are annoyed with one character or another and think, wth.. where’s my HEA, how can there be one after this? But when you push through to the end you realize the lessons, the struggles, and love are all worth it.
I have experienced and can see myself as the newly single mother that Audrey is in this story, with a decent battle of the awful ‘mom guilt’ that so many of us suffer. She’s trying to balance the real life stuff of work and kids with her own wants, needs, and desires.
Audrey is a mom and a masochist. She is looking for her happiness, her place in the world, a place she doesn’t feel like a freak. Gavin is the sadist to Audrey’s masochist. He wants to give pain and humiliation as much as she craves to receive it. He lives this life almost full-time. He wants her complete submission, not straddling two worlds, just all in.. Can she give him what he wants? Could he switch things up and give into what she wants? Can the love they develop for each other sustain them?
Despite the cover I was not expecting for there to be a religious aspect in this book. The cover means so much more after reading. Religion, society, family and cultural expectations rule so much of our lives. Juggling the rules can be feel impossible, but f*** it! Rules are meant to be broken, just live your happiest and best life. Well.. that’s what I learned from this story. I recommend reading the journey of Audrey and Gavin, and see what things you feel and learn.
This book was a little more explicit than my average read, but it was addictive. I wanted to see what would happen next, how much limits could be pushed. If he could be who she needed him to be. There was more story line than expected.
I’m rather torn over this one and found it somewhat confusing in places. On the one hand you get a fascinating look into the world of BDSM and a divorced women, Audrey looking for something she knows was missing in her life. Then you get a dominant, Gavin who reads the bible whilst he is beating his slave and he’s also a switch. As Audrey flips between what most would call a normal life, work & kids and going to a local dungeon where she becomes Gavin’s slave, she embarks on a journey into a world where submission, pain and play are considered normal. Gavin takes her to a place her ex husband never could or would take her. Gavin, however has skeletons in his closet that he has never really come to terms with. As Audrey and Gavin’s relationship develops, Gavin demands more from Audrey that she can’t give him and Audrey wants more from Gavin than she knows he is prepared to give. It was difficult to envisage how this book would end and I’m not about to give the game away suffice to say that I found the hop from now, to 2/3 months to 2 years a bit difficult to follow.
Bodhi is full of raw kink, sexy emotion, and the explorations of a thirty-something divorced mom and a broken man who claims her. The dichotomy of her sexuality and her real life and his struggle to stay in a dungeon when others are calling him out.
Really, I think this is all of us. I have a day job, two kids, and a farm. And yet I write scenes to make you want to orgasm. Amber does too. While this might not be things you talk about in polite society, there is something very real about it. Something true.
Bodhi is beautiful and shocking, sensitive and angry, raw and passionate, thoughtful and overall, just gorgeous.
While it won’t be for everyone, if you’re into BDSM stories, it’s a must read.
Here are some quotes:
“He managed to look both innocent and dangerous—a beautiful combination.”
“His body looked so certain, so squared, so full of confidence, but inside she knew there were trails, miles of heartbreak.”
“She would hide the colors of freedom from the innocents while playing with fire alongside the trailblazers.”
Like Audrey, you may not know how much you need the sir until it passes your lips.
“Lust would be her penchant.”
Audrey had “taken strips of supposed judgment and woven together a quilt of conformity.”
But at the end, “They were grounded in love and kink. They made their own f*cking rule book.”
This was one of those “What the heck did I just read” books. Not particularly satisfying, Kinda disjointed, neither the H or h was very sympathetic, the whole book just left me scratching my head. Gavin and Audrey were not very likable, she was a hot mess and he just liked to mess with her….alot. The religious stuff just made Gavin seem like a pompous a**, and I already didn’t like him. Audrey’s obsession with Gavin was icky to me. The book jumped all over in time and just left me cold. I rarely give 1 star reviews, but finding much redeeming about this book just isn’t possible for me.
This book was really good. Definitely different from other BDSM books. Audrey’s personal struggle was heartbreaking. Gavin is sexy hot. This is the first book of A.R. Hadley that I’ve read, and I can’t wait to read more!
Audrey is newly divorced from a man that still loves her, even though he has no understanding and worse doesn’t try to understand just what Audrey needs. Her kinky friend, Kate, introduces her to the world that she always wanted to be a part of, BDSM. Audrey finally has found what she has always needed, but is the person she wants to experience this world with too broken?
I love the BDSM genre. The excitement of reading about a new sub and seeing it through his or her eyes is part of the thrill of reading them. The right/wrong aspect, the fighting the craving for the taboo, are all high points of reading about a new sub. There were things I liked and others that I really didn’t in this story. The biblical stand point was a real sour point for me, just IMO not needed. At one point I felt that Audrey and Kate had more of a romantic connection than Audrey and Gavin and for a second wondered if I had read this wrong. It felt like this was more around the scene, which is not a bad thing, but I do want a story to go along with it. The scenes themselves were really hot and would leave a nun sweating. I give this 3.5 stars.
Review:
The cover of the book is sooo good!
Bodhi is about Audrey, who has recently gone through a divorce. All through her marriage, Audrey has been forced to hide her true wants from her husband. Audrey is interested in BDSM, but her partner was not the kind of person who she could share her feelings with. Repressed, and held down by someone else’s standards, she has struggled to finally break free of her shell.
Audrey visits a club one of her friends frequents, and right off the bat she catches the eye of a hulking beast of a man. His name is Gavin, and he will not take no for an answer. Thus begins Audreys introduction to the world of kinky.
Bodhi was very well written, and was sensual and hot. There were certain things I would have liked more, for example more back story, character building, and the ending was a bit abrupt, but all in all this was a very enjoyable read that held my interest from start to finish. I don’t read alot of BDSM fiction, and if I do it has to be done right (think Cherise Sinclair), but I feel like A.R. Hadley held her own for this book.
A.R. Hadley has truly outdone herself but really exposing the BDSM but also showing the side of a religious couple in a unique way. Gavin and Audrey have a special connection and they have to find out more about themselves along the way. I was surprised how Hadley ended the book. Don’t Miss it!
This book was ok but not really my cup of tea. I didn’t like the mixing of scripture to justify or explain what they were doing but to each their own.
I really didnt enjoy this book. I felt it to be very disjointed and seemed to jump about. It seemed her journey into BDSM overtook her life rather than enhancing it. It came across as even her time with her kids was a drag to her as she would rather be back with her master. I have read many BDSM books but this was not a hit with me.
What the heck did I just read? I initially thought that this book had potential, but the jumps from one time and place to another and back and forth again made it difficult to stay in the mindset to read Audrey and Gavin’s story. The book was focused almost exclusively on humiliation and BDSM scenes with little to no explanation of where we were going or why. We know that Audrey has an ex who is supposedly still in love with her, and she is confused about how to integrate her desires with her life, but that’s about all we get until it’s “how do we go to the next BDSM scene since we’ve wasted a few paragraphs on the mundane stuff” again.
Honestly, if you want a book that’s light on the plot and heavy on the biblical symbolism and BDSM, this is for you. If you’d like a little more substance, I’d skip it.