Review- Angel's Wish- by Kissa Starling

Angel’s Wish
by Kissa Starling
2009
Lesbian/ erotica/ time travel/ bondage/ M/s BDSM
24.5K words
Ebook- Renaissance eBooks Inc.

Buy at Fictionwise, Renaissance Books

Angel is nothing more than a two-bit mechanic. She dreams of vintage pin-up girls and old cars. Nothing else excites her. She takes a cat nap one day at work and wakes up in the 1950’s. Old cars are now new and classy women are abundant and sweet. Can she find hers before she’s yanked back to her own time? Lust, love, or luck- she’s bound to find one of the three when she wishes upon the star on a tree!

I love it when I read a book that normally I’d never choose and totally enjoy it. I got this book when there was a sale because I’ve seen the author around blog land and decided to try one of her books even though I’m not so hot on the master/slave or bondage thing. I’m glad I did though. This story is such a bizarre mix of all kinds of interesting elements but it totally worked for me.

Angel is running on empty. She’s broke, just been evicted, using a car on its last legs and has no where to turn. Her parents have disowned her due to an unsavory (to her parents) incident with a teacher while she was in high school and has no other family ties. She still shows up for work and to the only person who does support her, her boss Mel. She’s a mechanic and loves cars, especially classic cars. While taking a break, she focuses on an old pin-up calendar, daydreaming about how beautiful the women were in the 50’s—it’s now 2056, and she’s suddenly transported back to the 1955.

Back in the 50’s she ends up with a life she could only dream about. By a series of events, a wealthy family takes her in and really accepts her, comes to love her, and she meets her soul mate, the house maid Mary. Unfortunately, she knows that this can’t last so she makes the best of it.

What I enjoyed most about this story was the heart in it. Angel is a person that is totally into the master/ slave dynamics as a lesbian but she does so in a deeply loving way. She oozes a warm vulnerability and sensitivity with a cocky independent strength that people are attracted to. In her own time, she’s a broken person who’s just scraping by. But being in the 50’s, in an atmosphere of simpler times where life was more like a Rockwell painting, she’s shown love and respect and blossoms in that.

Particularly what was interesting for me in this book was the juxtaposition of Angel’s dominance and crudity in seducing women and her big, warm heart. One minute she’s thinking about how she’d love to melt hot wax on Mary’s private bits and the next she’s trying to make sure an elderly women in a nursing home is loved and cared for by just going to hang out with her. For me it made Angel an interesting complex character that I could relate too and totally worked for me on accepting the master/slave hard core BDSM in this story.

And there is some really hard core BDSM in this story. Angel does some heavy duty things to Mary, some things that shocked even me in the area of pain and she talks to Mary in a very sexually blunt way. But at her core, Angel is soft, loving woman and she treats Mary with deep respect and love.

Mary was also written in such a way that I never once felt that she is a slave in any other way except that she’s really loves it. She enjoys being a sub and serving Angel and I felt how Mary feels she’s found her love in Angel. Mary is also a witch and I liked this aspect of it because it intertwined a hint of a timeless love along with a time travel story.

About the time travel and soul mate for eternity aspect of this story, I thought everything was integrated in a natural and fun way. The way it reads, I could actually almost believe that this is possible. I will admit though, that I love the concept of eternal soul mates and that we can meet up with people we love again in alternate or future lifetimes, so yeah, I enjoyed this part of it.

I don’t think there is really anything negative that came up for me about the story. The writing was kind of funky in bits, although nothing that threw me out of the story. And there was an odd bit when Angel first meets Mary and Mary calls her “mum” all the time, while Angel orders Mary around calling her “wench”. I think there were few other British words in there and that kind of confused me because I thought they were in Missouri. This kind of thing though is part of what turned me on. Contrasting elements thrown together.

I’m sure if you like BDSM on any level this story will definitely hit the spot. But I think if you’re not into BDSM at all, this story could work for you because it’s not just about the sex or lifestyle it’s more universal in its appeal as a love story. It did for me anyway.

Heat level: 5- hard core BDSM, M/s relationship. Graphically and bluntly written sexual scenarios, some minor anal, bondage.

Grade: B+