I enjoyed this book. I'm giving it 4.5 stars which will round up to 5.The deduction is mainly because of the money angle. By making them so rich, the whole scenario lost a lot of its relevance/believability for me. Perhaps the whole scenario is unbelievable anyway, but, hey, it's a story, most m/m romances don't bear much semblance to real life.I thought that it was extremely well written, especially for a first book. Given the author's background as an editor, that probably explains the excellent craft.One of the main themes of the book is the concept of Domination and submission. Does one person have the ability or the right to impose their will on another person? The argument is that they do if the other person is in denial and running away from facing the truth.This seems to be one aspect that is creeping some reviewers out. But in a way any D/s relationship has this element in it. Maybe the sub may be more willing to start with, but they still have to be taken out of their comfort zone for the whole angle to work. “I’m serious. I’m talking about complete submission in any sort of sexually charged situation. Psychological, emotional, or physical. Agreeing to this bargain would mean doing whatever I ask of you, without question or hesitation. Even if it’s something that makes you feel uncomfortable or afraid. It would mean trusting that I will not ask you to do something that will hurt you, and giving yourself over to me.” Maybe I was in the mood to read it at the time. Perhaps plotwise the resolution came a little too pat through the actions of a third party and maybe I would have got there by a different route, but then it would have been my book, not the author's.Unlike some reviewers, I liked the explanation of the psychological aspects of the D/s relationship. I felt that matched the scenario. It wasn't just about the hot sex and the physical attraction, there had to be a degree of rationalisation and explanation accompanying it.It's interesting the way reviewers found the first part of the book, hard because Ethan creeped them out and he didn't care about David being outside in the rain.A lot of this stems from the fact it's totally told from David's POV, so we have only body language to go by and what we sense Ethan feels. I got the feeling from the start that Ethan would have been hurting just as much as David both physically and emotionally.The clues are there, but perhaps the current prevalence of dual POV has made some readers unable to use their imagination, read the clues to see inside the other character's head. Personally I prefer the single POV as that's life.....
