Worth the Risk by Kate Hawthorne

Worth the Risk by Kate Hawthorne

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Buy Links: Amazon

Blurb:

Review

At eighteen, Landon Miller was sure about two things–he was a submissive and he was going to be with Gregory Douglas for the rest of his life. That was until parents and school got in the way, and he found himself in New York, thousands of miles from the man who had learned how to take him in hand. Feeling abandoned by the personhe’d come to rely on, Landon has no choice but to set his sights on a new and lonely future. 

Years later, behind the bar at Rapture, the BDSM club he’s built on a foundation of disillusioned dreams and broken bricks, Landon finds himself face to face with his favorite memory and greatest regret—Gregory.

Seeing his first love again is the only inspiration Gregory needs to commit himself to forging his way toward the future he always envisioned…one with Landon yielding and bending to his command. Determined to recapture the magic of their first love, Gregory works to right the wrongs of their past so they can move on together. 

Battling through the resentment from their youth, Landon is unexpectedly called back to New York, and Gregory can’t help but fear the past is repeating itself. Fighting familiar feelings of helplessness, he makes the decision to give Landon what he needs, even if that means not chasing after the man he adores…again. Gregory can only hope when Landon returns, he won’t throw away the love they’ve fought and risked everything for.

Worth the Risk is the first book in the Giving Consent Series. It is 78,000 words of kinky, steamy, second-chance BDSM romance.

Full disclosure: I am not involved with the BDSM lifestyle in any way, shape, or form. I’ve known a few people who were over the years, which I’d like to think has taught me to view the lifestyle without judgement and has taught me to know what is “normal” (safe, sane and consensual) versus what crosses lines. There’s a lot I still don’t know, and I’m okay with that.

Anyway, I have to be in the right kind of mindset to read a BDSM story. I’m not morally opposed, not at all. It’s just not my “thing,” so if the scenes in the book are just there for titillation it’s going to fall pretty flat with me. I like to read the genre to get at the emotions of the different characters involved, and Hawthorne did a fantastic job of showcasing both characters’ feelings and needs here.

At first, it was easy to be sympathetic to both sides. Their initial separation happened because they were kids, there were factors outside of their control, and these things happen. My biggest complaint about the book is that we find out Landon did something back during their initial separation that was very wrong, and he did it deliberately, and he’s spent the next decade and change blaming Greg for it.

(I’m being deliberately vague about it, because I don’t want to go spreading spoilers like manure, but what he did was pretty bad.) 

Anyway, like I said, I’m not involved with the lifestyle. Most of the Doms I know wouldn’t be quite so forgiving as Greg under the circumstances. Now, when these guys initially separated they were young, and it’s surprising they didn’t cross any other lines as they were learning about their needs and their tendencies. It’s not like there were a lot of great resources around when they were kids.

My issue is that they’re not kids now, and up until very late in the book Landon has a bad case of victim mentality without ever taking responsibility for the part he played.

That’s honestly the main complaint I had with the book. While I was reading it, this felt like a minor issue. It was only after I’d put the book down and sat with it for a few days that it really started to eat at me. Hawthorne did a great job with these guys and the world around them, to include adding a major supporting nonbinary character who I’m a little in love with.

At the end of the day, this is a fantastic book and you should absolutely pick it up.