Pleasure and pain once again intertwine in the second installment of Sparrow Beckett’s Masters Unleashed series, following Finding Master Right. Known as a brat in the kink community, Everly can intimidate even the most experienced Dom. Then she meets Ambrose, a dominant who finds her ways amusing. Not only does he charm the pants off her, he makes her crave his mastery. After being abandoned … mastery.
After being abandoned by his submissive, Ambrose has avoided any serious connections—until he meets Everly, who refuses to be ignored. But just when he thinks he’s found the perfect sub, he finds out she’s an anti-poverty activist with harsh opinions about the rich. Telling her he’s wealthy will ruin everything, but he can’t collar her with a huge lie hanging over them.
Will the best thing that’s ever happened to him walk away when she finds out the truth?
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Everly Weston is clever, compassionate and a crusader but more than that she’s a sassy, bratty sub. Challenging a Dom is built in her make up and she excels at it. Ambrose Langley has always love playing with brats. They just get his motor running. However, playing is one thing. Getting involved is a different issue and one that he does not do, that is until he met Everly. For all their kinkiness, Ambose has a fatal flaw as far as Everly’s concerned. She doesn’t know it though because he’s been lying to her from almost the get go. His day of reckoning is barreling down upon him and he feels powerless to stop it because he can’t seem to find a way to tell her the truth.
A Sizzling but Disappointing Second Installment…
After reading the powerhouse first installment of Sparrow Beckett’s, Masters Unleashed series, I had high hopes for this second installment. What especially excited me was the fact that this book, “Playing Hard to Master”, focused on Ambrose, the amusingly unique and intriguing Dom who brilliantly brought Banner to his senses in “Finding Master Right”. And while, here again Beckett writes a D/s romance the right way. Creating something that is not only factually accurate and believably realistic, but also containing multifaceted, emotionally intelligent characters. It doesn’t have the same intimate aura as the first book did. Instead feeling far more distant, almost detached.
“Playing Hard to Master”, is the story of Ambrose, a huge, brutish, Viking-esque shipping industry magnate, who was emotionally gutted by his former sub and fiance abandoning him years earlier, and is now hesitant to pursue anything long-term. A Dom who, unlike his best friends, is looking for a woman who can give him her complete submission and sooth his sexually aggressive side, but also challenge him, and maintain an independent fire. Someone who can embrace sadomasochistic play while also keeping a big amount of sassy fun and humor within their lives, instead of the strict, always serious, M/s dynamic his best friends Banner and Konstantin maintain. And Everly, a sassy hairdresser, a woman who, in her spare time sticks it to as many rich people as possible by protesting, challenging the system, and making changes wherever she can to help those who need it most and make a difference in the world. By night, she is a bratty masochist who has scared away some Doms, and been deemed too much to handle by others. She is a woman in search of someone who can completely master her without suffocating her wildling spirit. What follows is a humor filled, sexy exploration of two people’s struggle to move past preconceived notions, doubt, and fear and accept the bond growing between them as truth.
It is a story that should have been a heartfelt examination of how hard it can be for people from two different places in life to let go and embrace what their hearts and souls are desperately working to hold onto. However, where the first book in this series was a raging storm of tumultuous, angst filled scenarios, this one, despite containing an almost sizzling sexual chemistry between the two protagonists, is dry, and almost completely devoid of the deeper, soul cracking emotions of the first.
Additionally, the complaint I had about book one, that it contained choppy, at times confusing transitions from chapter to chapter, is sadly worse in this installment. Issues that again, throw off the overall flow of the book, and make you feel as if you’re missing plot details.
And finally, and worst of all, are the continuity issues where Ambrose is concerned! In book one Ambrose is framed as a masterful Dom in his own right, yet one not interested in owning a slave. He is painted as being far more fun-loving and not nearly as strict as Banner. This more relaxed, witty nature is the reason Banner erroneously pushes Kate to be his sub, as he viewed Ambrose as the best choice for her. Yet here in this installment, Beckett paints a much different picture of what we were initially led to believe Ambrose wants, as well as, the very fabric of who he is. It is a continuity issue that is bothersome and honestly had me putting the book down part way through in order to go back to book one and reread the sections he was in just to ensure I wasn’t misremembering or losing my damn mind…
As a result, my review for this book has been difficult to articulate because while this installment, just as the first, brilliantly showcases the BDSM subject matter as it actually is, giving it the teeth it deserves. And while here too, the authors create real people, with real struggles, who navigate their D/s needs within the realms of their worlds as best they can. And here again, create a story landscape in which they include another round of gorgeously written erotic scenes that fully showcase the explosive chemistry between Ambrose and Everly. Their story is stunted, isn’t given its proper due, and doesn’t even come close to being at the same level as Banner and Kate’s.
This one is grossly lacking the attention to detail and soul cracking emotionality of the first, and sadly, almost dangerously teeters toward caricature in how Everly is portrayed, with her rich person hating ways. A hugely disappointing return to the Master’s realm and one I truly hope isn’t repeated with Konstantin’s story.