It goes without saying, but I'm going to say it again. More people should read. Reading is educational. Unlike parents who tell their precautionary tales to deaf-eared, hard headed children, books somehow get around that youthful "ten feet tall and bullet-proof" delusion. There are so many things that are better learned in books--self-destructive issues that are better read about in fiction than on a newspaper's front page. Maybe that's why I so vehemently support fiction, and oppose censorship. If there's some malevolence to be faced, better that we sentient beings should face it on a fictional page than test it out in real life. Better that we learn to survive through the eyes of a strong fictional victim, than to become victims ourselves.

Though, there are some victims who do not at first glance look like victims. Like Marguerite. When we last saw Marguerite, the ice queen of Joey Hill's Ice Queen, she and Tyler Winterman had each made it through their personal hells just to find each other. Anticipating reading this sequel Mirror of My Soul, which is the continuation of their story, I conjectured that their continued path would not be an easy one. For a writer who weaves words to construct a fabric of BDSM, I knew Joey Hill would have to confront hard truths and stretch boundaries. Marguerite and Tyler are the warp and weft of this fabric, and the pattern of their intertwining is not a simple one. These are two complicated people who have dark wells of secrets and universes worth of angst to be purged before they can even start to think of a viable relationship.

Here is the background: Tyler and Marguerite are both Dominants at the club where the independently wealthy Tyler holds part interest. As part of the training that qualifies her as Zone staff, at the close of the last book, Tyler publicly submits to Marguerite in a display that goes far beyond the bounds of training or play and into the realm of life-threatening abuse. As a consequence, Marguerite's ice begins to crack, leaving her adrift, and unable to deal with the damage she has done to Tyler, and furthermore, burdening her with the very type of shattering intimate feelings, the kind of which she wrapped herself in ice to avoid.

This book barely touches Tyler's saga of coming with his own darkness, but focuses on Marguerite as he seeks out and explores Marguerite's past, and his efforts to help her come to terms with a terrible and violent childhood of abuse. Here is a question of trust: will Marguerite ever be capable of allowing herself the luxury of love, or of submission to the one man who commands her wounded heart? Here also is also a question of what Marguerite might be able to do if--or when-- the demon from her past finds his way into her present.

Personally, I feel that the essential conflict in this story was driven by character and plot and not sexual tension. In fact--and I do not mean this as an insult--if the sex were edited out of the book, if it were edited to about 2/3 of its current length, it would qualify as literature. Like many ebooks, Mirror of My Soul is cross genre erotica, but not a standard read designed for someone looking for a quick light yarn; it is a highly explicit read that is not erotica alone, but also suspense with even a bit of thriller thrown in. Furthermore, there is not only the BDSM, but also a dark center of child abuse that is confronted here, a coming to terms with self-destructive issues that I am happier to read about in fiction than in a case history or on a newspaper's front page. Again, Mirror of My Soul is not a light read, but it is a passionate one that once you read it will haunt you in days to come.

Maîtresse
Copyright 2006