RELEASE DAY REVIEW: 'Club' by Alec Stark and Parker Avrile
Title: Club
Author: Alec Stark and Parker Avrile
Published: June 20, 2017
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Erotic Romance; Contemporary Romance
Length: 180 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; New Adult; College; BDSM; Coming of Age; HEA; Kink: Bondage, Exhibitionism, Flogging, Masochism, Pony Play
About Club
A student in search of a gay fight club uncovers a hidden community of BDSM kink.
Nick isn't just another rich kid partying away his senior year of college. He's ready to prove he's tough enough for Brayden's twisted games, if only the mysterious professor will give him half a chance.
Brayden is well aware of the rumors that follow him all over campus and beyond-- rumors that are only a pale reflection of the kinky reality. Nick has no idea what he's asking for. When he learns the truth, will he decide Brayden's too hot to handle?
This steamy contemporary gay romance novel includes a smokin' hot professor with plenty of ink, a town's most shocking secret, and a student of BDSM who won't quit until he learns the truth about his own desires. Absolutely no cheating and always a happily ever after.
4 HEART READ
REVIEW: Alec Stark and Parker Avrile write Club as a compliment to the famous book/movie Fight Club, assessing Palahniuk’s themes from a gay perspective. Though Club hits and misses exactly as Fight Club did, Club made me think, and thus earned four hearts.
After putting little effort into his Senior Thesis, which examines the mythos of Fight Club, Nicholas, may fail college. The spoiled son of a mogul, Nicholas is too busy arbitrarily proving his “manhood” with extreme experiences like ice water baths, to test himself with something he considers boring - like learning from his thesis.
When his instructor gives Nicholas a second chance, he interviews Brayden, an adjunct professor who supposedly leads a secret fight club. Except, it’s a front for a BDSM club.
Nicholas becomes Brayden’s sub. Brayden teaches Nicky (as he nicknames his sub) about masochism, which Stark and Avrile imply is the basis of much machismo. In so doing, Nicky gains important life lessons.
Nicholas and Brayden’s lives are initially empty. They find value in their BDSM community’s rites of passage, as these rituals create trust, the basis for relationships.
The book is written smoothly, favoring verbs over adjectives, actions to emotions, imbuing the story with the language of masculinity, a la Hemingway another “manly” icon.
The plot has a good arc, and a poignant epilogue demonstrating its core values. Each value is experienced, not explained. It is up to Nicky/the reader to interpret the conclusions themselves.
Club shows readers how to accept and use both our power and powerlessness. And it does so with humor, sexiness, thoughtfulness, and a quirky tenderness.
There were too many excellent quotes to convey them all:
“The catch is, because I’m ordering you to do it, you’re going to tell yourself you don’t want to do it. That contrary instinct of yours is going to kick in, and you’re going to react by telling yourself you don’t want what you want.”
“My limits were of my own making.”
“What is trust? Is it a form of voluntary insanity? Is it a choice we make to turn off the head and open the heart?”
“All tests are artificial by their nature.”
And yet at the same time the book left me conflicted. I disagree with its premise - that much of life is banal, hypocritical ritual. The rites of passage which Brayden and Nicholas found empty, like the college thesis, added a great deal to my existence. And BDSM enlivens them, not me.
By accepting others’ behaviors and values which we may personally find tedious, people find compassion. And it is for exactly this reason that I ended up liking Club.
Because, to each his own, and this book makes me care about characters I considered narcissistic, even after their “growth.”
A copy of Club was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, by Alec Stark and Parker Avrile, at no cost and with no expectations in return. We offer our fair and honest opinion on behalf of our readers.
Don’t miss our additional Parker Avrile review recommendations, including her The Runaway Model series!
Amazon/KU
Meet the Author's
Parker Avrile
I write male/male contemporary romance, including the Runaway Model series. I love all kinds of stories, but I seem to return again and again to writing about up-and-coming gay celebrities who have to fight for their Happily Ever After in a reality TV world. I also like puppies. Of course, I don’t always write about famous people. But I like to write about successful guys who know what they want and have a plan for how to get it.
For more from Parker visit Avrile’s website.
Alec Stark travels the world in search of adventure. He's dived the wreck of the Atocha looking for Spanish treasure, and an undisclosed location in the Mediterranean where he occasionally recovers artifacts from ancient Rome. When he's not bungee jumping or mountain climbing, he enjoys writing about dark, intense relationships between two men.
