Hear Me by Skye Warren (Dark Erotica #3)
Erotic Novella
Released: September 15, 2012
Self Published

Reviewed by Mandi

Earlier this year I read Trust in Me (I can’t remember who rec’d it to me, but someone did and thank you!) self published by Skye Warren. I liked its really dark erotic content. When she offered me her latest, Hear Me for review, I grabbed it.

However, Hear Me is even more extreme in its dark content and I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it. First let me say Skye Warren has a very intriguing voice and gave me a story that I had to finish, even if I was uncomfortable. As the reader, you are left in the dark about a number of things. It starts with our heroine Melody escaping from some sort of sexual slave prison. Through the heroine’s memories, you realize she has been extremely abused, brainwashed, tortured and humiliated. The kind of torture where she can’t remember her own name or whether she has family or not. The kind of torture where she is starved, beaten, raped, and worse.

She escapes and when she wakes up she is in a man’s house. She doesn’t remember escaping, so she assumes she was sold to a new Master, and that she now must submit and obey his every command. The man’s house she is in is named Sam. He feeds her and clothes her and doesn’t know what to do with her. He actually doesn’t want her. Melody can’t figure out how to speak, so she communicates with him on a very basic level. While he treats her well, he realizes she needs to be dominated, and she needs pain to get off. Melody’s mental condition is extremely fragile and with her brainwashing, all she knows is how to submit and give pleasure. She does what she can to avoid a beating she assumes she is getting. It takes time for her to realize she won’t receive harm from him.

I was on board with this book at this point. And I hesitate to give too much away, but I feel like I have to a little bit, to explain what I didn’t like about this book. So there may be spoilers ahead.

Eventually Melody’s memory comes back and she realizes she had a job and friends in a big city. She leaves (reluctantly) and goes back to her ‘real life,’ where she speaks out the police about her ordeal and gets back to her normal routine, if that exists anymore. This is where things start to get murky. She starts to remember a lot of things, and people who were in her life previous to going to that sexual prison, People who may have also been involved with her disappearance. . The story has some twists and turns, and I could see where the author was giving us some unexpected things, but I personally needed a lot more explanation. I wanted more depth when Melody was away from Sam. I wanted to know exactly what she was doing prior to disappearing, who she was hanging out with, and the extent of those relationships. I wanted more explanation regarding a previous boyfriend and the extent of her BDSM in her life. I also wanted more about who worked at the prison she was in.

Maybe the point of the story was to be vague, since Melody never regained all of her memories. It added a mysterious air to the whole thing. But as a reader, I felt cheated out of the ‘whys’ Or maybe I just didn’t pick up on the clues and they were there just overlooked by me.

I expected this to be erotica, with not a solid HEA ending, but wow. The ending to me felt creepy. I didn’t expect rainbows and sunshine but I didn’t get a good vibe from the ending paragraphs at all. Again, I think it has more to do with the subject matter and how comfortable I was with it, which turned out to be not so much.

I’m rating this one a Grade of C because I really didn’t like the end and felt confused in the second half, yet I think the author takes chances with this story and I can appreciate that. If you want to try this author’s dark style, I recommend Trust In Me. You can read my review of that book here.

Recent Reviews:
Romantic Reading Escapes – 4/5
Maryse’s Book Blog – 4/5
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