Story got a little boring after awhile ( )

Reviewed for queuemyreview.com; book release Feb09
Four stars for the story, three for the violence
Whoa. “The First Sin” by Cheyenne McCray was a very hard book for me to read. Those who regularly read my reviews know I enjoy just about anything that’s written, including erotica. My ‘line’ so to speak, is drawn at the point where events and sexual acts veer from mutually consensual. When one or more persons performs sexual acts (not just penetration) against another person’s will…that’s rape—and that’s NEVER sexy. If harsh scenes of strong BDSM (at the least) and sadomasochism and torture bother you…stop reading now.

Alexi Steele is as hard as her name and it’s the life she’s lived that made her that way. She’s proficient at fighting, whether hand-to-hand or with weapons. She’s also a crack shot at just about anything that can be fired. All these talents make her a good weapon and she’s grateful that these days she works for an NSA clandestine organization called RED that stands for Recovery Enforcement Division. RED is super secret and pretty much operates outside the rules. That’s necessary because they go after the baddest of the bad and Lexi’s department in particular deals with Human Trafficking and Sex Crimes. Her latest mission involves infiltrating a BDSM-cover ring that drugs, kidnaps, and auctions women as sex slaves. But just as Lexi is ready to go undercover, she gets a new ‘partner’ Nick. Now, instead of Lexi as dominatrix, it will be Lexi as submissive…too bad Lexi really doesn’t have a submissive bone in her body.

Nick’s sister is one of the women sold as a sex slave by this ring. There’s absolutely NOTHING he won’t do to find his sister and shut down the operation. When he sees Lexi, he quickly realizes just how attracted he is to her. But of course, that should come in handy seeing as how they’ll have to be together in every sense of the word in order to make their cover real. Nick just didn’t realize how much he would enjoy ‘having’ Lexi.

This story was hot enough to singe my eyebrows. But, I just couldn’t ever get past the pain and violence involved. Lexi is a woman who has undergone torture at the hands of not one, but two groups during her military stint in the past. Now in this story, she’s humiliated, whipped, stripped, caned, carved and tattooed, beaten several times, drugged, starved, and ‘clamped’ with needle sharp-toothed rings through her nipples and clit as part of one torture scene. And the story of Nick’s sister Kirsten as a sex slave was just as hard to read about. It was all I could do to force myself to keep reading without skipping pages to escape these painful scenes. Maybe I’m too sensitive to this subject or maybe I’m too much of a prude, but this book zoomed right past my comfort zone before I’d read one third of it!

The story is suspenseful and tight. The action kicks off at the first page and doesn’t let up until the last one. Short chapters with date stamps and insight into different character’s thoughts only ramp up the tension. Even time swaps and voice changes didn’t interrupt the smooth flow of the overall story. If it hadn’t been for the continuing torture scenes, I’d have loved the whole book. ( )