Claire Thompson

So, this is a sort of different post. I usually talk about books or series, but today I’m going to talk about an author. As you may have guessed, it’s Claire Thompson.

Claire writes romances flavored with BDSM. She also writes Mf and Mm. I’ve read several of her books, both Mf and Mm. I really like reading her books, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about her.

Like most authors, she has a range of BDSM involvements. You get books like The Master and the Secretary, which is pretty light. Then there are other books like The Compound or The Contract, which involve 24/7 full-time D/s situations and relationships, with total power exchanges. These books have lots of physical things happening, but that isn’t necessarily the focus on what Claire writes when she writes these books. I mean, yeah, you’re going to get great descriptions of floggings, canings, Shibari, and breath play, and lots of great sex, but there’s something more to her books, and that’s part of what draws me into her books.

What Claire does so well in her books is talk about submission. Yes, all authors who write BDSM books talk about submission, but Claire writes about it in a different way. I don’t think that I can even describe what’s different about how she does it, versus how another author does it, but it’s different. It’s a very intimate way to write about it. It doesn’t matter if the scene or act is happening in private or in public, it’s all about the intimacy between the Dom and the sub, and how they connect. It’s like we’re peeping in through their windows and watching it. One scene in The Contract really made me feel this. The Domly hero loves Shibari, and he ties his subbie boy in a beautiful tie, in a pool. Then, they do some breath play. It was an incredibly powerful and intimate scene. Yeah, there are a lot of people around and everyone is watching, but none of them are important. It’s just that very intimate connection between the heroes and the trust they have built and the gift of submission that the sub gives to his Dom.

We see what’s going on in the subs’ heads a lot, and it’s less about the Dom saying suffer for me, although that happens, and more about the sub saying, I will suffer for you, and that is my gift to you. You see the sub’s struggle to submit to something that they don’t want to do or something that is difficult, but then you see the grace and beauty when they do, and that it’s a conscious decision to submit.

I don’t know that I’m explaining it as well as I could or even as well as is possible. I just know that it’s different from what I read in other books. Not that other authors are writing about it in a crappy way, it’s just a different way.

OK, that’s all I have to say today. Go check out Claire’s books. She has a lot of them, and at least a good chunk of them are in KU. Tell me what you think about them. Happy reading!