Reaching the Edge by L.M. Somerton

#1 Tales from the Edge

112 pages

Buy links:      Amazon         Amazon UK

The blurb

When you reach the edge, you can’t avoid taking a leap of faith.

Joe Dexter leads a complicated life. In one world he is a consultant criminal psychologist—in another he runs The Edge, a successful corporate training company. He’s also an active Dom in the London BDSM scene.

A social call to The Underground, a club owned by an old friend, turns into much more when Joe is introduced to a prospective sub. Falling hard for the boy’s tumbling blonde curls, huge blue eyes and desperate need for protection, Joe carefully coaxes him out of his shell. By the end of an intense weekend, unbreakable bonds have been forged and Joe is well on the way to becoming Olly’s Master.

Joe knows that there is trauma in Olly’s past, but it is not until his professional and private lives collide that Joe discovers the truth. He knows he shouldn’t have let Olly out of his sight but it’s too late—Olly’s old Master is back on the scene and he’s not in the mood to forgive and forget.

With Olly’s life on the line, Joe risks everything to save him. Has Joe found his perfect submissive only to lose him in a horrible twist of fate, or will love win the day? They’ve reached the edge and there’s no avoiding a leap of faith.

My thoughts

This book and the series it starts off came highly recommended from sources I trust, so the decision to buy the ‘Reaching the Edge’ was an easy one to make. Now that I’ve finished the book I have to admit it was also a good decision. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and couldn’t help but fall, hard and fast, for Joe and Olly.

If there is such a thing as a perfect (fictional) Dom, Joe fits the bill to a T. He’s caring, protective, loving and not without a delicious sadistic streak to keep things heated and his sub guessing.

Olly on the other hand is a wonderful combination of bratty and submissive. He longs to give himself over to a Master who will give him what he needs and love him. Even the terrifying events in his recent past haven’t killed that desire or made him fight it. When he meets Joe he finds everything he’s always wished for and the fact that he isn’t afraid to show his bratty side only goes to prove how much he trusts Joe.

The relationship between these two men develops at high speed. Joe is a goner from the moment he sets eyes on the sub with his golden locks, while Olly can’t believe his luck that a Dom as powerful and handsome as Joe would even take an interest in him. In fact, if I do have on reservation when it comes to this book it is exactly the speed with which trust and a loving bond were established. While I adore love-at-first-sight stories and always enjoy stories in which relationship angst is not a major theme, I would have expected Olly to struggle a bit more before submitting so completely to Joe. Given everything he’s gone through, his lack of doubt almost from the start felt a bit too good to be true. Surely he would have been traumatised after all his bad experiences.

Not that his minor issue interfered with my reading enjoyment. This story is well written, gripping from the start and off the charts hot, not to mention that it features two intriguing and highly entertaining protagonists. The balance between suspense and erotic love story was exactly right for me and the BDSM dynamic between Joe and Olly was as beautiful as it felt authentic. In fact, I enjoyed this journey to ‘The Edge’ so much I went and bought the second book as soon as I finished the first one. I’m not usually a fan of reading several books in a series in quick succession but I may just have to do just that with these ‘Tales from the Edge’.