So many things happen in real life where we get just one chance to get things right. We only have one childhood. We only have one first anything. Ultimately, we only have one clean slate, and then, forever after what we write on the slate of our lives is colored by what lies beneath and what came before. Then there's that rare case when we get a do-over. I'm not talking about a second marriage to another partner where that marriage erases or tempers the damage of the first one. I'm talking about an actual do-over with the original partner.

A second chance.

A second chance is what Into His Keeping is all about.

It's not a second marriage though, but soul mates who lost each other once through no fault of their own, and then have the chance to find each other again: Jill at eighteen and submissive, in thrall to Holden, his. Then not. Then fifteen years later, they meet again. The world has turned in many ways; there's competition and some interesting development, and I'm not going to give you a peek behind that veil, because it is worth reading the way Faulkner tells it.

When you read fiction, so many times the exposition will stop you in your tracks. As a reader, you want to fall into the scene and just walk through, just as you walk through a life. Exposition always causes a problem. Every little bit of information that we must learn changes our perception just a little bit. If you think of it in terms of a camera view, each new expository detail changes the angle of the pan, or the focus, or how the scene is cropped. Exposition--backstory--the setup...there are many ways to describe it, and in general, when you are forced to read exposition, it comes across as speed bumps. It is a fairly rare thing when the crucial and essential backstory comes across gently, not shouted in your ear or spoon-fed, but naturally within the context. And I have to say that in this book, Gail Faulkner has done a great job with the exposition. This is a key factor, since the set-up in this book is so crucial. How can you have a book about the second time around if the first time around is not handled effectively?

Another thing I'd like to add. Into His Keeping is like two completely different stories in one. On one hand, it is a sweet contemporary; then you do a double-take and there's a frankly sexual BDSM story. The two parts are as distinct as many BDSM relationships are, with the sexual part completely removed from otherwise entirely typical lives. I could read either one; together, with the sexual flashbacks, it is a little disconcerting, almost like peeking behind the bedroom door of June and Ward Cleaver and finding Mick Jagger domming Joan Jett.

Nevertheless, Faulkner gives us a masterful brush stroke of yesterday, and then jumps in right into the deep water with a today peopled with sympathetic characters dealing with mitigating circumstance and a plot twist or two. If I say more it will take away your pleasure in the story and I'm not going to do you that disservice. You'll care about these characters. I'll just say that if you like a gripping, touching romance with round characters (and not very hidden volatile D/s sex lives) who deserve happy endings, this is the book for you.

Reviewed by Maîtresse
© March 2007