Review: Whispering Your Name

Whispering Your Name by Kierney Scott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Revenge is a dish best served cold. Alex Jamison is in the middle of selling his business when he is blindsided by allegations of insider trading. Instead of going to the authorities, the buying company wants to purchase the company for 250 million less. This is extortion in my book. Alex is stunned when the evidence is coming from an investment manager who worked for his company over eight years ago. Kate Sindt interned for Alex and for some reason she is trying to screw him over. No one messes with him and he will make sure she pays.

The blurb of this story caught my attention. I thought this would be a delicious non-con BDSM story where Kate receives her just rewards. I was mistaken as this is an erotic romance with BDSM used to spice up the story. This book did not work well for me because of my own pet peeves.

From a character perspective, Ms. Scott creates a despicable character, Kate. Kate is obviously helping to steal money from Alex. As a side note, emails are company property and Kate keeping these are usually a confidentiality violation. Ms. Scott does a great job of making her the villain and then revealing the motivation so readers have a hard time hating her. Alex is a character whom the readers want to support because he is obviously being wronged. Over the course of the book, his attitude towards BDSM made me like him less.

The characters in this book are all over the place for me. Sometimes I loathe them; sometimes I pity them. Kate's back history is moving. Even though I feel so badly for her, I am not sure I agree to her method of freeing herself from the situation. Not sure I agree to why she got into BDSM either. Alex's triggers towards BDSM are totally understandable. What happens at the end between Alex and Kate leaves me ill at ease.

From a plot perspective, it works. The conflict is there. The resolutions are believable even if it stretches the imagination. Overall this would be an enjoyable book for me at a three star. What brought this story down is the BDSM. Since I read quite a bit of BDSM and I am in the lifestyle, my perspective will be different than those who only read BDSM.

There are many alpha men in the world who are not kinky and have no desire to be part of BDSM. To equate Alex as an alpha male who likes to give orders to being dominant is not right. Having a dominating personality does not mean he likes kinky sex. Dragging him into this lifestyle grated on me. This is non-consent. Now, if this was a non-con book, I'm all for it. It isn't. This is an erotic romance. Alex's view of BDSM is common. His mis-perceptions of impact play is prevalent and unfortunately, this book does very little to unravel his horrified perception. We go from him being totally against to somewhat against to being okay with kink. This is unrealistic and I am not sold. The BDSM play in this story is plausible but it is awkward and put me very ill at ease. The power exchange dynamic is not there. BDSM scenes usually turn me on. Sex scenes which are grudge fucks also turn me on. But in this one, the BDSM comes across as a grudge fuck with lasting emotional damage which puts me ill at ease. And this is why the book does not work for me.

My recommendation, remove the BDSM hostile element from this book and the story would be better. If Alex were already into kink and decided to take naughty Kate to task, this would kick up the heat and Kate would find herself in quite the pickle.