i read all three books and they were torturous to get through. One individual i know who is and has been for many years in a Master/slave relationship said that reading the books are so awful that being forced to read them could be a BDSM punishment scene. It really is that bad. Many people in the lifestyle are reading it for the express purpose of being able to do damage control when people stumble their way into our parties, meetings, munches, and other events with no background or knowledge except the gross misrepresentation in these books! i picked it up to find out what the hype was about, i continued reading to understand the damage they could do, and the implications are terrifying. People could really get hurt, besides the fact that these books put us as practitioners of BDSM living in that lifestyle in such an awful light. It intimates that we are freaks, damaged, possible child molesters, incapable of real love or affection or loving relationships, and/or simply need a loving, vanilla relationship with the right parter to rescue us from our "darkness". Well, thank you so much, but i'll keep my darkness and enjoy it. The only reason we hide in the shadows is because of images, myths and stereotypes like these, propagated by books like these, that make vanilla people so unwilling to accept BDSM/leather/kink as a valid, healthy, sane lifestyle choice. It aggravates me and angers me to no end. These books are, all at once, an affront to feminism, BDSM, D/s relationships, anti-domestic violence and anti-abuse causes, literature, erotica and the list goes on. Oooooooh, i could rant for pages i'm so mad!