Ashes of Sin and Stardust (AnchorX) by Lindsay Murray – Review by Dr. Anya Schultz

Ashes of Sin and StardustAshes of Sin and Stardust by Lindsay Murray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reuben is a sadist dom who has been having visions of his one true submissive for almost 25 years. Even from a young age, Reuben was completely elated by causing others pain. However, over the last handful of years, Reuben had taken a step back from “playing” with submissives or slaves after losing his last partner. That was until the girl from his visions finally showed up in his life, however, he hates “brats” and that is exactly what Alice is. So you can only imagine their first couple of meetings were completely crazy because he couldn’t believe this was the girl he had been dreaming about. Alice, however, has also been in the kink community for many years as a masochist submissive. Alice is also diagnosed with many mental health disorders, her most challenging being borderline personality disorder. However, she also had a terrible upbringing, and abusive “doms”. Due to her history she has sworn off doms and only wants a dynamic but no relationships. The two of them try their hand at a dynamic and quickly realize this is more than both of them bargained for, but when feelings get involved it is hard to walk away. This story is about this dynamic and the push and pull that both of their messed up ways bring to the table. Can they find the balance in each one of them to accept each other for who they are, and learn to embrace the scary?

There is a lot to say about his book. One, it is long as hell so be prepared. I normally can read a book in a couple of days, but this took me over a week. Two, READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS – there is a ton of abuse and sadistic/masochistic BDSM play – mental health struggles, etc. Three, be prepared for your emotions to feel exhausted. I am sure most can read this for what it is so I may be exaggerating, but as a former counselor, those with borderline disorders can be very challenging. I tend to be pulled in many directions emotionally which may have just been a PTSD thing for me. Either way, you will probably feel exhausted as you read the mood swings that Alice encountered multiple times a day. With all that being said, however, it was a crazy, exhausting, beautiful story. The author captures this part of the BDSM community very well (makes me think she ventures down that avenue) and is very educated in the information. I also believe that the author gives amazing descriptions about Alice and how she is feeling and hits borderline personality right on the head. While each character had many flaws, on purpose, there was a part of me that just couldn’t help but love them. As I mentioned before I was mentally drained by these characters, but I didn’t consider it necessarily a bad thing. I think that if people are dealing with borderline and don’t know how to comprehend it, this may give them words to express their emotions. I think this is going to be a book that people either love or don’t. While I do not take full part in the kink community, I do enjoy different kinks so reading this was not that big of a problem for me – but I did learn that pain is not a way to my orgasm – lol.

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