Review Tuesday: Ice Queen by Joey W. Hill -- #ReviewTuesday #BDSM #EroticRomance

Ice Queen by Joey W. Hill

Story Witch Press, 2015

During the two-plus decades that I’ve been writing BDSM erotica and erotic romance, I’ve had a number of readers recommend the work of Joey W. Hill. She’s hugely popular in the BDSM romance genre, and I knew I should at least sample her books to understand why. When I noticed that Ice Queen was available for free, I grabbed a copy.

It took me a while to get through this novel. I’d read for a while, then lose patience. However, I think I now “get” the reasons for her fame.

1. She does a wonderful job capturing the emotional and sensual nuances of dominance and submission, pulling the reader into the mind and body of her characters. D/s is subtle and complex. Ms. Hill does not oversimplify but shows us all variations, changing moment by moment like the light on a partially cloudy day: fear, hunger, anger, comfort, peace.

2. She fulfills readers’ expectations by incorporating every cliché and stereotype in the genre.

The first reason filled me with delight. The second made me want to throw my e-reader across the room.

Anyone who follows my blog will know how highly I value originality. I knew how Ice Queen would end after reading the first two pages. I literally groaned out loud (earning strange looks from the other people on the subway). Tyler Winterman, the Dom hero, is the perfect Alpha, right down to his phenomenal wealth and his history as a CIA agent. Marguerite Perruquet is the consummate Mistress, exquisitely beautiful, tragically wounded, and of course inescapably susceptible to Tyler. You knew she was going to submit to him despite her resistance, that they’d fall in love, that nothing would stand in the way of their passion. Now, all romance tends to be predictable, but this book had absolutely zero suspense.

Another serious problem, for me, was the constant head-hopping. Overall, Ms. Hill writes really well. As noted above, her prose beautifully evokes both sensation and emotion. Given this skill, I can’t really understand why she seems incapable of sticking in the perspective of one character for more than a page. It’s incredibly disruptive and confusing to be identifying with one character, then suddenly, without warning, to be yanked into the head of another.

I will say that this book includes one the most intense, edgy and arousing femdom scenes I’ve ever read. I have to believe that Ms. Hill has some personal experience with D/s given the insights in that interaction, and I applaud her courage in including such extreme (but realistic) material.

When she focused on Tyler and Marguerite, though, I mostly lost interest. Yes, Tyler’s gradual seduction of the mistress is beautifully described. However, it was such a foregone conclusion that I just didn’t care.

It may seem presumptuous of me to be panning a book that’s rated #138 in Amazon’s list of BDSM erotica. As I say, I can understand why she has such a dedicated following. I don’t think I am going to be among them.