This is...pretty dark. I don't usually (more like, never) read dark erotica and I tried to keep an open mind reading it. Luckily, I'm blessed that I can read just about anything. I guess, looking withing the genre, it was actually pretty good.
First of all, it was wonderfully written. I want to get this out of the way, I really really liked the way it was written. Kitty Thomas has a way with words and she paints a scene so real you can see it right before you. Oh, and if I'm being honest, I've read more explicit sex scenes. It wasn't that graphic at all.
Veronica, for all her protests, gave up too easily. There was another simpler way out of this, once she realized how things were, that there is no getting away from the ranch and Luke, and that he wasn't about to kill her. I guess she went with it because, in the end, these were all her fantasies being played out, even if she didn't consent originally.
And Luke, now, that was a curious character. You can tell he's a broken man. Obviously he takes what he wants and how he wants it, being the alpha male that he is, but in the beginning I didn't think it was his real nature, and in the end I think I wasn't that far off when he said that initially all the kinks were Trish's idea anyways.
Now, things that bothered me about this. I don't mind bdsm, and like I said - I read this with an open mind and I didn't think it was disgusting and horrible. I even get the dead wife lookalike thing, and didn't mind it that much.
But the hormone abuse to make her lactate was just dangerous and I mean that in the medical sense. I don't care if he was even a doctor (which he was not), you don't administer hormones to a woman without some sort of tests and stuff. You don't just play with hormones, it's irresponsible. What if she was allergic to something? What if she had a really bad reaction? What if it caused hormonal imbalance? Just, no.
The ending is bittersweet, but I didn't expect anything more than that.
So, for my first try at dark erotica, I have to say that I'm definitely not put off. I quite liked this.