Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Review: Sensory Limits Anthology

Sensory Limits
Authors: Ashe Barker, Elizabeth Coldwell, Wendi Zwaduk, Tori Carson, Zoë Mullins, and Fara Allegro
Publisher: Totally Bound
Published: September 19, 2017
Source: Publisher

Buy Links: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Totally Bound
Add to Goodreads

‘Yes or No?’ by Ashe Barker
Be careful what you wish for…

‘Cruise Control’ by Elizabeth Coldwell
If she does everything he demands, this will be a vacation to remember.

‘Just You and Me’ by Wendi Zwaduk
What’s a girl to do when she’s not ready to leave the single life, but the right man has come along with a collar?

‘His Lucky Day’ by Tori Carson
KT thought a quick romp in the forest with Stephen would vanquish him from her dreams, instead, their untamed passion ignites a fire neither can control.

‘Bound to Happen’ by Zoë Mullins
Jaymie knows better than to date her best friend’s brother, but there is no way she can keep the sexy Dom in the ‘friend-zone’.

‘Black Ice’ by Fara Allegro
Jaye Ripley gets more than free tickets on daretospankme.com. Jack Blackhurst banters hard and talks dirty. Is she ready for harsh treatment?


I love Totally Bound's anthologies. It's an excellent was to test the level of sexy you are comfortable with while finding some fabulous authors. I previously reviewed two of the novellas. The rest were newer reads that I've been holding off on reviewing until I finished the anthology. I enjoyed reading them. Definitely found a couple new authors that I want to read more and enjoyed catching up on some that I've read in the past.

Below you'll find full synopsis for each novella, as well as purchase links, Goodreads links, and my short reviews.


Be careful what you wish for… 

There’s no harm in just filling in the form, is there? It’s only a bit of harmless escapism, a sexy fantasy. The advert is tempting, though.

A strictly vicarious lover of the BDSM lifestyle, Martha never really means to hit Send. A couple of forays into spanking and a spot of lackluster bondage haven’t quite managed to ignite her curiosity about the dark art of submission, but they haven’t entirely extinguished it, either. It’s there, gnawing away at the back of her mind—a dream of what could be, if only…

Martha craves sensation. She yearns for intensity, for a touch to make her skin tingle and her nerve-endings sizzle, a caress to make her scream and demand her surrender. And that’s the problem. She’s a cautious soul and no pain slut. She’s not about to hand herself over to some ham-fisted Dom and trust to luck again.

So when she learns she is one of the winners who is to be offered the chance to play out the scene from her kinky imaginings to the letter, she can’t believe it. The only condition? The organizers reserve the right to select the Dom, one skilled in the specifics of Martha’s personal fantasy, and the scene must be played out in public.

Yes or No?

Buy Links: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Totally Bound
Add to Goodreads

My Thoughts

I feel like Yes or No? would have been a fantastic prologue for a full length book. It's got everything going for it. I enjoyed the characters. I love heroines that are open with their sexuality and explore their desires. Gotta love the hero that shows her the ultimate pleasure. I just wanted to keep reading and watch their romance unfold. 


If she does everything he demands, this will be a vacation to remember.

Lily Jameson has always hated the idea of going on a cruise. As far as she’s concerned, they’re something you do when you’ve retired. So when her husband Daniel surprises her with tickets for a cruise down the River Seine, she isn’t impressed. What she doesn’t realize is that he’s planned the trip as an opportunity for them to act out their Dom/sub relationship in a semi-public setting, and he’s going to control every aspect of the cruise, from the clothes she packs to their activities on board.

As the three-day holiday progresses, Daniel’s BDSM sessions grow ever more inventive. With the help of improvised toys, he engages her in sensation play and introduces her to sex in the open air. What he has in mind for the final night of the holiday will test her to her limits, but can he open her eyes to the hidden pleasures of cruising?

Buy Links: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Totally Bound
Add to Goodreads

My Thoughts

Elizabeth Coldwell's Cruise Control was a fun novella. I enjoyed the author's writing style. Her sex scenes are fantastic. Of course it is a novella, so you don't get to spend a lot of time with the characters. I liked Daniel. I loved the idea of him taking the reigns of their vacation. That was kinda hot. I had a more difficult time getting to know Lily. It wasn't until she finally loosened up that I started liking her character. It took a bit, but we get there. Plus the scenery was amazing. I would love a cruise like that. All in all, I enjoyed Cruise Control for what it was - a short and sexy novella.


What’s a girl to do when she’s not ready to leave the single life, but the right man has come along with a collar?

Ryder Lucas didn’t come to Exposed looking for a sub. He joined his best friend’s club to demonstrate fetishes and enjoy the single life. Then he sees Cat and uses her for a scene. She’s everything he’s ever wanted in a sub and a woman. He won’t rest until the blonde bombshell is his.

Catharina ‘Cat’ McLean doesn’t want a permanent Master. She’s happy taking part in the occasional scene but won’t be collared. She’d rather be in control of her life. When Ryder asks her to be a part of a scene with him, she sees no reason to refuse. He’s tall, dark, handsome, and she can’t resist him. He knows how to play with her fetishes—wax, ice and bondage—but is she willing to submit to him on a full-time basis?

Who knew finding a heart’s desire would be this all-consuming?

Buy Links: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Totally Bound
Add to Goodreads

My Thoughts

Gotta say... I wished Just You and Me was a full length book. Or at least a longer novella. We're not with the characters for a long time, but I still felt a connection with them. In fact, I wanted to spend more time with Ryder and Cat. I wanted to watch Ryder slowly gain Cat's trust as they fall in love.

Wendi Zwaduk is an erotic romance author that I'm still discovering. I've read one other of her novellas and I'm thoroughly enjoying them. Her writing style is fun and sexy. I'd love to pick up one of her longer books, but until then I'll keep myself busy reading her sexy short stories. They're a fun way to read between books.


KT thought a quick romp in the forest with Stephen would vanquish him from her dreams, instead, their untamed passion ignites a fire neither can control.

Stephen was instantly attracted to the exotic KT Riley. Though she makes her desire for him clear, Stephen considers her forbidden fruit. His sexual passions aren’t for the faint of heart so he refuses to mix business with pleasure. When they become stranded together in the forest, the chemistry between them is more than he can resist.

KT is a woman on a mission. Seduce the handsome game warden who has been destroying her concentration and get him out of her system once and for all. Her plan was foolproof except for two small miscalculations. The man isn’t the forgettable type and the sex goes beyond physical gratification. It’s all-consuming—a craving from which she’ll never break free.

Buy Links: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Totally Bound
Add to Goodreads

My Thoughts

His Lucky Day wasn't my favorite novella in the anthology. However, it definitely had the most creative setting. I enjoy BDSM romances with unconventional locations. 


Jaymie knows better than to date her best friend’s brother, but there is no way she can keep the sexy Dom in the ‘friend-zone’.

You don’t date your best friend’s brother. At least not without prior permission from said friend.

Jaymie left Port Ellis for the big city, but she remained a townie at heart. After pinching pennies and clipping coupons, she and her best friend Melissa have enough cash to move home and open The Mudhouse Café. But where there is Mel, there is her sexy older brother Maxwell, who Jaymie has been crushing on since high school.

When Jaymie discovers Maxwell is Master M, the online Dom she’s been chatting with for months, her first thought is ‘yippee’. Then reality hits. She can’t risk her friendship with Mel just to date Maxwell. She should keep him in the friend-zone but she is destined to be in his bed and under his kinky control.

Maxwell’s divorce offers him a new beginning in his hometown and the freedom to explore what it means to be a Dom. He never guessed his online submissive, Jay, was his little sister’s best friend. She is almost like family and she should be off limits. But he’s done denying what he wants, and what he wants right now is Jaymie in his bed, preferably tied to each corner.

It may have taken them years to get to this point, but it was always bound to happen.

Buy Links: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Totally Bound
Add to Goodreads

My Thoughts

Bound to Happen was my favorite novella in the anthology. Best friend's brother is one of my favorite troupes. Add sexual tension to the max and I'm a happy reader. While I would have loved this one as a full length book, I felt like the short length didn't take anything away from the romance. It was perfect the way it is.


Jaye Ripley gets more than free tickets on daretospankme.com. Jack Blackhurst banters hard and talks dirty. Is she ready for harsh treatment?

Jaye Ripley has lurked on daretospankme.com for longer than she’s ready to admit. With a straight-laced upbringing and an ex-partner disaster in her past, this principled college tutor has hidden yearnings for domination.

When she encounters the offer of free concert tickets online from BlackRunSkiFreakDom, she clicks Reply on impulse. That night, their intense banter holds Jaye captive. Dark, handsome Jack Blackhurst inspires new, exhilarating urges in her and not just because of his smoldering looks. She agrees to go to his place, even though she’s crossing boundary lines, but his magnetism is more debilitating than super-strength absinthe.

Jack is not the boring back doctor most would imagine from his Harley Street chiropractic profession. He’s a high-flying consultant to an elite VIP clientele, yet his kink preferences are as confidentially guarded as his client list—as is the secret, naughty nook in his renovated attic.

This Doctor Dom has Jaye in raptures. There are sensations from feathers to ice and candle-play. In his kink-furbed playroom, Jaye feels like she’s finally reached her fantasy pleasure peak. Who knew a Doctor Dom could be this freeing?

But in the morning, Jaye receives the cold-shoulder treatment. She’s shoved into a cab like a seedy secret with threats of repercussions for kissing and telling. She’s irritated as hell when her mind returns to that stellar night. But a run-in with black ice might mean Jaye hasn’t seen the back of Jack quite yet!

Buy Links: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Totally Bound
Add to Goodreads

My Thoughts

Black Ice was my least favorite novella in the anthology. The potential was definitely there, but it felt like there were pieces missing. It was as if it didn't have enough pages to fully develop. I would have loved the hell out of it if it was a full length book or even a longer novella.


Zoë Mullins

A prolific writer, even in elementary school, she was jotting down poems and stories whenever she had the chance - usually during math class.

After many years of working in corporate communications, Zoë decided in 2015 it was time to focus her energy on the kind of writing she loved – hot romances with strong, alpha heroes and quirky, independent heroines.

Zoë’s husband of nearly 20 years threw his full support behind that dream and loves to tell people his wife is a romance author. They live in Atlantic Canada with their two crazy collies. When not at her computer, you will find Zoë chasing after her muddy dogs, working in the garden or helping to renovate their money-pit of a house.



Fara Allegro

Fara Allegro likes her men dark, witty and edgy with a generous side order of strict rules and domination. Oh, and they have to be fun, definitely that, even if they have sharp edges. 

Fara hails from Derbyshire where she adores long walks, cottage living, Merlot and decadent desserts with one spoon. Black coffee, too. She loves to read hot romance and the writing keeps her sane and happy. Fara also loves to hear from fans, so drop her a line.



Wendi Zwaduk

Wendi Zwaduk is a multi-published, award-winning author of more than one-hundred short stories and novels. She’s been writing since 2008 and published since 2009. Her stories range from the contemporary and paranormal to BDSM and LGBTQ themes. No matter what the length, her works are always hot, but with a lot of heart. She enjoys giving her characters a second chance at love, no matter what the form. She’s been the runner up in the Kink Category at Love Romances Café as well as nominated at the LRC for best contemporary, best ménage and best anthology. Her books have made it to the bestseller lists on Amazon.com and the former AllRomance Ebooks. She also writes under the name of Megan Slayer.

When she’s not writing, she spends time with her husband and son as well as three dogs and three cats. She enjoys art, music and racing, but football is her sport of choice. 



Elizabeth Coldwell

Elizabeth Coldwell is a multi-published author and editor whose stories have appeared in a number of best-selling anthologies. She has written novels in a variety of different genres, from paranormal to BDSM and contemporary romance. She is the former editor of the UK edition of Forum magazine and the proud winner of an International Leather Award. When she is not busy writing, she is an avid supporter of Rotherham United Football Club and can be regularly found on the terraces at weekends, cheering her boys to victory (hopefully!).



Ashe Barker

Until 2010, Ashe was a director of a regeneration company before deciding there had to be more to life and leaving to pursue a lifetime goal of self-employment.

Ashe has been an avid reader of women's fiction for many years—erotic, historical, contemporary, fantasy, romance—you name it, as long as it's written by women, for women. Now, at last in control of her own time and working from her home in rural West Yorkshire, she has been able to realise her dream of writing erotic romance herself.

She draws on settings and anecdotes from her previous and current experience to lend colour, detail and realism to her plots and characters, but her stories of love, challenge, resilience and compassion are the conjurings of her own imagination. She loves to craft strong, enigmatic men and bright, sassy women to give them a hard time—in every sense of the word.

When she's not writing, Ashe's time is divided between her role as resident taxi driver for her teenage daughter, and caring for a menagerie of dogs, cats, rabbits, tortoises and a hamster.



Tori Carson

Tori lives in the beautiful Sonoran Desert with her loving husband of almost thirty years. She wakes up each morning to the howls of coyotes and the barking of her family dogs wanting to join the fray.

When Tori isn't writing, she's either spending time with her two, wonderful adult children, or creating stained glass art.

She likes her love stories scorching hot. She tries to infuse a fire and passion between her characters that rivals the blazing summer sun that Arizona is known for. Tori encourages you to bask in the heat between the covers of a Dominant/submissive, happily-ever-after, bondage romance.


No comments:

Post a Comment