If you’ve read any of my reviews of Tiffany Reisz’s work, you’ll know this is a NSFW book.
The Auction is a standalone novella in the Original Sinners series that occurs prior to the first book in the series, The Siren. Daniel, a wealthy widowed Dom, has struggled with his grief after his wife, Maggie, died a few years ago. To help him come back to the land of the living, Daniel is gifted a week with Eleanor (soon to be Nora Sutherlin, although this story occurs when she was still Eleanor, the submissive partner of Soren) prior to this story. Foolishly, Daniel fancies himself in love with Eleanor, and comes to Kingsley Edge’s townhouse looking for her. He’s greeted by Anya, a seamstress and sub in King’s house, who immediately dislikes Daniel. Anya is working in King’s club and household to raise money to take care of her younger siblings, and is slated to auction herself (and her virginity) to the highest bidder in King’s charity auction. And thus an erotic romance story begins.
With the cast of characters and complications involved here, you might think The Auction is too crowded as a novella to develop a good storyline or character development. I suppose if it were a main novel in the Sinners series that may be true, but as a peripheral episode in the same universe it’s wonderful. Daniel showed up a few times in the Sinners novels, so this story gives us his backstory and motivations as well as his history with Nora. Anya is fully her own person (not just a side character there to move Daniel’s story along) and ultimately controls her own destiny.
This is a BDSM story in a BDSM universe, so the rules of romance and sex may be uncomfortable or disconcerting if you’ve never read anything else in the genre. Also, it’s worth commenting here that because The Auction is a peripheral novella, some of the quips and character quirks will make more sense if you’ve read the rest of the Sinners series. With that caveat, this is definitely an Original Sinners story with plenty of audaciousness and more than one line that made me laugh out loud. Every time I’m in the OS universe I wish I could hang out with these characters, because they’re the best combination of hilariously raunchy, sexy, fun, honest, and compassionate human beings. The Auction is a fun, fast, wonderfully filthy read. I enjoyed every word.
No Pithy Phrase 