King by Daya Daniels

Not What I Hoped It Would Be

I despise book blurbs that give you no idea what the book is about. The blurb of this book has to be one of the most generic that I’ve read. Yet, I do enjoy historical fiction, so I thought I would give it a try. I find myself disappointed on two counts. I find that the writing style is more like that of a contemporary romance than of historical fiction, with lots of short-phrase paragraphs and sentence fragments. While historical fiction doesn’t need to sound like Shakespeare, I do think it needs to be elevated beyond fragments and have fully formed paragraphs. 

The other main issue I have with the book is that while the author did state at the bottom of the book blurb that it does have “strong sexual content,” she wasn’t explicit. As the book involves violent spanking and other forms of power and control during sex, she should have used terms that readers know–like “power exchange” or “marital discipline”–to tip off those who don’t want to read that kind of book. While I don’t mind “strong sexual scenes” or general erotica (which is how this book was categorized at the book review site where I downloaded it)–whether they’re told explicitly or in more vague terms–I do not like books with any form of sadism. If I had known that was a part of this book, I never would have chosen it. If authors are proud that their books have BDSM, name it and claim it in the description; if they wish to hide the gory details, they should use the euphemisms as I described above. Authors should not expect readers to infer anything that isn’t explicitly stated (and I don’t equate erotica with BDSM; erotica may contain elements of it or may not), or they leave themselves open to bad reviews by readers who do not appreciate that kind of writing.