Title: Trusting Thomas
Author: K.C Wells
Cover Artist: Terry J Cyr
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Amazon Buy Link: Publisher Buy Link
Genre: Contemporary. BDSM.
Length: 282 pages
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Review by Zac D
Review Summary: A sweet, emotional take on BDSM and recovery. Touching, and mostly well written, Trusting Thomas is a heart warming read.
Blurb: Christmas is a time for goodwill to all, but Collars and Cuffs co-owner Thomas Williams receives an unexpected gift that chills him to the bone. A Dom from another Manchester club asks Thomas for his help rescuing an abused submissive, Peter Nicholson. Thomas takes in the young man as a favor to a friend, offering space and time to heal, but he makes it clear he’s never had a sub and doesn’t want one.
Peter finds Thomas’s home calm and peaceful, but his past has left him unwilling to trust another Dom. When Thomas doesn’t behave as Peter expects, Peter’s nightmares begin to fade, and he decides he’d like to learn more about D/s life. A well-known trainer of submissives, Thomas begins to teach Peter, but as the new submissive opens up to him, Thomas finds he cares more for Peter than he should. Just as he decides it’s time to find a permanent Dom for Peter, they discover Peter’s tormentor is still very much a threat. With their lives in danger, Thomas can’t deny his feelings for Peter any longer. The question now becomes, can Peter make it out of the lions’ den alive, so that Thomas can tell his boy that he loves him?
Review: Trusting Thomas is the third imperfectly perfect book I’ve read in as many weeks. The grammar is a nightmare, and some of the sentence construction appalling, but I didn’t care. Didn’t give two hoots, and the reason for this was simple: the characterization, and the depth of feeling between the two MCs.
Let me start with Peter. A vulnerable, abused young man is always going to push my buttons, but Peter is managed particularly well. Beaten and bruised by his previous Dom, he is rescued by an earnest bystander and passed to Master Thomas, the Dom of all Dom’s to look after.
Now, what I liked about this first plot arc, was that it didn’t follow the much used trope of the rescuer becoming the lover. Thomas came into play further down the line, and I liked that. He didn’t save Peter from his terrible situation, but instead became the key to his recovery. A recovery that resonated through Peter’s inner monologue.
In fact, I liked most of Peter’s depiction in the book. The description of his mental state was done well, and I enjoyed his friendship with Alex. The only complaint I had was the dialogue. It didn’t fit their intended age range. To me, they sounded like middle aged women, and not young men.
Keeping on the subject of age, I found the age gap between the MC’s a little much. Though frequently reminded how ‘hot’ Master Thomas was, I couldn’t get over the fact that he was fifty-six, and Peter just twenty-six. It sucked some of the hotness out of it for me, but then again, the BDSM element of this book was actually used as far more than simple titillation, so perhaps that’s just as well.
BDSM. I’ve admitted before, I’m no expert, but I really enjoyed how it was written in Trusting Thomas. It felt…right. The club, the other participants, everything. I’ve read other books recently where the author didn’t seem to understand the subject either, but with this book, it’s obvious some serious research was done, and applied with earnest. The ‘scenes’ weren’t as racy as the previous book in the series, but they were spot on for the context and tone of the book. Great work.
Thomas was my favorite character in the book. His struggle and ultimate failure to dismiss his feelings for Peter were warmly written, emotive and painful, and I enjoyed that element of the plot very much. Though I cringed a little at his age (ironic, as I’m even older than him) I appreciated his strong sense of self. I also enjoyed his relationship with Leo. I didn’t find Leo particularly convincing in the first book, but his slightly overbearing nature worked for me here.
Sometimes a guy really needs a kick up the rear, and Leo was just the man for the job.
Most of my niggles with this book are slight: the latter half of the plot was a little chaotic and unbelievable. The staggering overuse of adverbs. The clumsy narrative. But I have a major one that really bugged me, and that was the use of American terminology in what was supposed to be a British book. I can forgive colour becoming color and the like, because really, who cares? But when it comes to an accurate portrayal of a book’s location, you can’t mess about. Chopping and changing undermines every word, and I’d find it equally distasteful the other way around.
I’m a Yank living in London, and trust me: no one wears sneakers over here. I could pull out more examples, but I won’t. I pulled out this one because it appeared more than once, leading me to believe it was ignorance more than oversight.
Okay. I’ve bitched and rambled, and still given the book five stars. How does such a thing happen?
Well. Here goes…
Basically, despite all my moaning, I really loved this book. It was a pleasure to read and the characters gave me that warm, fuzzy glow that leaves me able to forgive just about anything. Grammar errors be damned when you want to climb inside a book, kidnap the characters and put them to bed in your own front room. Trusting Thomas was the third book to evoke such a response in me recently, and while I’m starting to wonder if I’m simply going soft in the head, I can highly recommend this book.
Yeah, sometimes you have to overlook the stuff that doesn’t really matter and go with your heart.
Light, instinctive BDSM, subtle hurt and comfort, and lots of cuddles.
Five stars.