Reluctant Submission: Educating Meredith by R.R. Greaves

Reluctant Submission: Educating Meredith by R.R. Greaves

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Reluctant Submission: Educating Meredith was a well-written book that proved to be a rather interesting reading experience for me. While I enjoyed it quite a bit, I had to take breaks while reading it because of the main characters. I suppose you could say that they felt just a bit too real for my comfort level and I could only bear to spend time with them for a few chapters at a time. It’s unusual for me to read more than one book at a time, but I had two books of completely different genres whose storylines were such that I had no problem going back and forth between them. But that’s just how realistic and impressive Meredith and Damien were – I could jump right back into their tale with ease.

What is odd about Reluctant Submission: Educating Meredith is that I rarely enjoy a book if I dislike both main characters on some level. Yet Ms. Greaves kept me coming back for more after each dose of Meredith – and to be fair, Meredith was the one I disliked the most. Meredith is a vile woman. As the CEO, she is under the impression that to be successful at her job that she must rule by fear. Add to that, that she seems to hate men and takes great pleasure in humiliating her male subordinates – well you can probably understand why I could only take her in small doses. Accustomed to intimidating the men she deals with on a daily basis, Meredith was unprepared when faced with a man who would not cow down to her. What she did not and could not know was that the contractor hired to remodel her executive bathroom was not only not going to be intimidated by her, he was also a dom who excelled at bringing out a woman’s hidden submissive nature. When faced with Damien’s failure to fall in line and his obvious move to turn the tables on her, she actually flew into a rage and attempted to slap him. As amusing as that sounds, it was just one of the reasons I had to take breaks from the book. The woman is a horrific person. Needless to say, when Damien tires of her attitude and behavior, flips her over his knee and proceeds to spank her, I was quite happy to see her get her comeuppance. Unfortunately for Meredith (but not so much for me), the lesson doesn’t stick and what follows are more spankings as Meredith embarks on a journey of self-discovery as she learns more about herself in the weeks that Damien is on the job than she has in all of her past relationships combined.

My issue with Damien is due to a personal preference in my book doms. In almost all of the BDSM scenes in which Damien is involved, he provides little to no aftercare to his subs or Meredith and I don’t like that. There is a rather lengthy scene in the book in which Damien and a domme play with a sub at the club. When I initially read the scene, I really didn’t understand why the author included it as it seemed to have nothing to do with Meredith other than offering him an opportunity to work off the tension her behavior had created. However, as his interactions with Meredith play out in the book, I realized that it served as a baseline of sorts for his behavior. Because of how Meredith is, there are times when Damien comes off as overly harsh and heavy-handed. By providing the earlier scene in the book, it kept me from seeing Damien as the abusive lout Meredith constantly accused him of being. Thankfully Ms. Greaves balanced out the main characters with a scary sadistic domme and Penelope. Oh my Penelope, you are such a delightful and naughty girl. The BDSM scenes are intense and they, along with Meredith’s fantasies, prove to be quite erotic. Interestingly, Reluctant Submission: Educating Meredith ends in such a way that leads me to believe that we may be seeing more of Meredith and Damien. One can only hope.

I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Reviewed by Angela at Crystal's Many Reviewers!

Check out the #Spank of the Day: Reluctant Submission blog post on Crystal's Many Reviewers.


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