[Book Review] Diamonds and Toads : a modern fairy tale

Diamonds and Toads : a modern fairy tale / K. E. Saxon (author website, Powell's Books)
Together, sweet Delilah and wicked Isadora make the perfect woman. But the Perrault family fairy is a troublemaker and imbues diamonds upon one sister and toads upon the other. Now up is down and down is up in a world where no good deed goes unpunished. Leather, blindfolds, and handcuffs purge sweet of all reserve. A few misspoken words of lust gives wicked a whole new meaning.

Once upon a time, there were two sisters, one cursed and one blessed by fairy magic...

Bibbidee-bobbidi-boo, They're naughty. How about you?
This week I decided that my reading pile wasn't big enough (yes, I am an idiot) and went looking on NetGalley for titles to review.  Diamonds and Toads is one of the five I acquired because it sounded cute and I'm a sucker for fairy tale adaptations.

I guess 'cute' could still apply to the story.  I do think the description is misleading, as while diamonds do occasional (twice) come out of Delilah's mouth, Isadora's curse has nothing to do with toads.  And since this is a novel with some kink can I safe word out of excessive run on sentences?  The punctuation may have improved by the end of the novel, or I may have just stopped noticing as my mind automatically divided the run on sentences into shorter sentences.

Of the two stories, Delilah's had more depth and characterization, but in both stories only the main characters have anything resembling character depth.  The sex is an odd mix of clinical descriptions (such as 'clenching vaginal walls') and fantastical over the top sex.  I suppose it is refereshing to read sex scenes not filled with descriptions of "throbbing manroots" or sensations "down there," but I guess I wanted more of a happy medium.  I do give kudos to the author for actually including discussion of a safe-word, even if I'm wondering if Delilah actually bothered to call in that she wasn't going to show for her sessions (and if not, why was she given a second one?).

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