Review- Soft Swap by Paisley Smith

Soft Swap

by Paisley Smith

Contemporary/ f/f/m/ Erotica

May 25, 2011

Novella-15-29K

Buy it Ellora’s Cave

Jess has always been curious about being with another woman. Soon after her husband Ben gives her the go-ahead to join a swingers’ website, Jess meets another couple interested in a little girl-on-girl swap.

Tina is drop-dead gorgeous and her husband Bradley is equally hot. With Ben’s blessing, Jess is soon experiencing wholly new pleasures at the hands of another woman; pleasures wrought by soft fingers, a feminine tongue…a sexy strap-on. But sex is rarely just physical. As Jess delves deeper into this taboo lifestyle, she wonders how newfound feelings for Tina will affect her relationship with her husband.

Jess quickly discovers she’s not as prepared as she thought for some aspects of her newly defined sexuality—including the fact her darkest, most secret fantasy might finally be fulfilled.

Anyone who’s read my reviews here knows that I’m a fan of Paisley Smith. She writes about bisexual characters, which are pretty rare in the romance world and I enjoy her writing style quite a lot. Fortunately, Soft Swap was another hit for me.

Let’s start with the characters. They are all easy going types who don’t angst too much about what’s going on with their partner’s needs or desires to experiment. This was a plus for me. Of course, since this story is told in 1st person by Jess, we get into her head for most of this story. And really, it’s anyway all about her in that the other characters are there to support her fantasy and desire.

Jess and Ben decide to get with another couple to amp up their sex life and to explore some of Jess’ fantasies. Jess has always dreamed about being with a woman and Ben finds this kind of hot. Before I go further here because I know many readers of f/f dislike the whole chick being with a chick to turn the guy on scenario, I can tell you, this isn’t it. While Ben does love the idea and finds it a turn on to watch Jess get it on with Tina, he never goes into that territory of it being about him. It was just a nice side effect of Jess’ fantasy for him and he stayed very respectful to her in that.

Tina and Bradley have been swapping with other couples for a while, and while Tina has been with and enjoys women, it seems to be more of a fun thing to do for her than a need.

They all readily jump in when it comes time to get it on, but there were ground rules. I liked this. This becomes important because certain boundaries get explored, including Jess’ desire to be with Tina without the men, and it kept the story more about Jess’ desire to explore with Tina, but with Ben’s and Bradley's blessings.

One of the downsides for me in this story was that Jess’ character sort of mind fucks about who or what she is, a common thing in first experience bisexual stories. Is she gay, is she bi, does she just want to have sex only with a woman sometimes, does she want a full on romantic/sexual relationship with a woman, does this mean that she doesn’t love her husband anymore, etc.

For me this sometimes goes too much into realistic territory, like I’m reading someone’s real diary or hearing about a real experience in which a person is working out very real issues that I imagine do come up for someone who wants to a.) explore sex with someone other than their partner and b.) explore with someone of their own sex for the first time.

On the one hand I respect that this aspect is brought into this kind of story, on the other, I tend to enjoy stories of this kind when the characters just enjoy their fantasies and go for it without too much angst-ing. Fortunately, there is enough fantasy around this whole thing that I didn’t get too wrapped up in her inner dialogue. And Jess does recognize that she's over-thinking things, which did mitigate some of me neg feeling around it.

For those who are wondering, while Jess has a really good time with Tina and finds that she has some feelings for her, she’s very clear that she loves Ben and there’s no way that this whole turn of events means that she has to choose Ben or Tina. She comes to love Ben even more that he allowed her to go with her fantasy and this solidifies their relationship even more.

The sex. Wow, yes, there’s lots of sex in this short story. And it’s hot sex. Spicy, hot, juicy sex. It’s why I will label it erotica. However, it’s not written as a bunch of bodies just getting it on. Paisley Smith managed to infuse a lot of warmth, some tenderness, and a dose of respectfulness into the sex scenes. This is what made this story a bit more than the usual erotica for me. There’s also a slight amount of D/s dynamic in those scenes which kept them from getting too sugary sweet or vanilla.

I highly recommend Soft Swap if you’re looking for an erotic story that feature f/f/m, with a good feeling. It’s well a written and fun fantasy.

Heat Level: 5 – F/f, f/f/m, anal play, strap-on, spanking.

Grade: B+

MA's Review of Soft Swap on Goodreads

And the book industry goes kablooie...or not

So Macmillan is moving from a "retail model"* (with a 50/50 revenue split) to an agency model (with a publisher-70/bookseller-30 split) in its relations with booksellers (and other publishers are quickly following suit), and the entire book-blogging community is flipping out. "This will mean higher ebook prices across the board," bemoans Jane of Dear Author. "But authors will earn less if their books are listed at $14 than if they're listed at $25.99 and discounted to a sawbuck by Amazon!" wail others. And dozens upon dozens of readers insist that "Macmillan just lost themselves a customer!"

*For those of you wondering, I employed quotation marks because since the 1930s, bookselling has been a gruesome marriage of retail and consignment. In a true retail model, retailers own the merchandise they buy from manufacturers and set the sale price at whatever they think the market will bear. If the merchandise doesn't sell, the retailer is stuck with it, and either shifts it to a liquidator or puts it on clearance--often for less than wholesale--because recovering some of their investment is better than nothing. In a consignment model, the providor of goods sets the consumer sale price, and if the item doesn't sell it either sits there unsold forever, or the consignment broker simply returns it to the owner, no harm no foul.

In bookselling, retailers are not stuck with unsold books. Those books are either returned to the publisher for full credit (in which case the publisher can remainder them to recover some of their losses), or stripped and pulped and the covers returned to the publisher for full credit (in which case, the publisher swallows a total loss on them). So for the retailer, bookselling embodies all the benefits of retail and none of the risks, and for the publisher, all the risks of consignment--and more, in the case of mass market paperbacks--and none of the benefits. Sweet deal for bookstores, no?

Like income tax--which was brought in to help compensate for economic stressors that were temporary--this hybrid consignment/retail model was created as an interim measure to help bookstores stay afloat in the Great Depression. And like income tax, we're still stuck with it, long after the initial conditions demanding its creation have passed. Frankly, this is not a situation that could have continued indefinitely. If publishers were to survive in an increasingly tight market, something had to give.

Like most industries undergoing a paradigm shift, there are some who will claim the sky is falling. And maybe it is.

But me? I'm not that worried. Certainly this news would dismay me more if I were a Macmillan author, but as an ebook reader and an ebook author, I'm pretty sanguine about the whole debacle. Here's why.

None of this is going to affect the way I purchase books, or negatively impact the publishers to whom I'm willing to submit my work.

With one glaring exception, I've never paid more than $8 for an ebook, and have never, ever bought an ebook that was priced higher than it's lowest-priced print version, so this move isn't going to affect my options as a reader one bit. To my knowledge, I have never bought a Macmillan ebook--if I have, it was priced under $7. The $9.99 ebook has never been an option for me, nor will it ever be one. So I couldn't care less if Macmillan books sell for $9.99 or $109.99, they weren't getting my money before, and they ain't getting it now unless the price comes down.

The publishers who got my money before will still get my money (a bigger share of it, in fact, if they also embrace the agency model with a 70/30 split), and the publishers who didn't won't unless they lower prices. And despite my strict personal policies on ebook purchases, there are plenty of ebooks available to me (and about 35 of them are sitting on my Sony right now, waiting for me to get to them). This is because no matter how bugfuck, baffled and blind most traditional publishers are about ebooks, there are a few out there (like Baen and HQN) who mostly know what they're doing and are cashing in on that knowledge.

As an ebook author published with a house that understands the market and the consumers who drive it, this shift in the marketplace is a net gain for me. The traditional publishers (like Baen and HQN) who understand their readers, will thrive. Those who don't and continue to refuse to learn, will falter. If, as Jane insists, ebooks from trad-pubs will only go up in price, well, the more $15 ebooks there are out there, the more attractive my own publisher's books will be to readers. I certainly can't see publishers like Samhain suddenly raising cover prices to $15. Just because Macmillan jumps off a bridge doesn't mean publishers with brains will join them.

Amazon's insane discounting of insanely priced ebooks from insanely clueless publishers has only subsidized their insanity and cluelessness and allowed it to perpetuate. It helped publishers like Macmillan with their ludicrous $25.99 ebooks to compete effectively in a market filled to brimming with smaller, smarter publishers who actually know what the fuck they're doing. Those smaller, smarter publishers have suffered because Amazon's deep discounting was making the biggies' products more attractive to consumers than they should have been. By discounting those Macmillan ebooks, Amazon was both subsidizing their stupidity, and making it harder for the good guys to get the attention they deserve.

Without Amazon absorbing losses that should have been borne by publishers and their dumb-assed pricing strategies, the products of publishers like Baen, HQN, Loose Id, Samhain, and others will have a better chance to shine, and idiots like Macmillan will either wise up or their ebooks will fail.

This system will benefit the publishers who get it right, and penalize those who willfully continue to get it all wrong.

And me, I'm just sitting back and smiling at the thought of walnut-brained, traditional publishing dinosaurs either evolving or going extinct, while the small, agile mammals of the epublishing age flourish. And I'm thanking my lucky stars I'm with a publisher who has eyes to see and a brain to think with when it comes to the digital market.

I don't have to boycott Macmillan. No one does. Just keep on keeping on, insisting on value before you hand over your money, and it will all come out in the wash.