Review: Jordan's Kiss

Jordan's Kiss by Nanisi Barrett D'Arnuk
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Finished on August 28, 2021

Favorite Scene/Quote: The discussion about a BDSM relationshiop

1.5/5

I’m not sure what originally drew me to this book, but something made me want to read it. I’ve never read anything by this author, but I decided to give her a chance. I was luckily able to receive an eARC from Bold Strokes Books and Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
    
Jordan runs from her life when everything she knows goes up in flames. She loses her job, her lover, and her home in one fell swoop. She meets up with an old college friend and sings a song with her band. She meets their pianist, Morgan. Morgan has a well-hidden history that has left her holding out on relationships. There is an attraction between the two, but can they help each other heal?

I don’t really know what to say about this book. It just feels kind of “eh”. The characters weren’t too interesting to me. There wasn’t anything overly interesting to me and I just found that I didn’t really care about what was happening to all of them. Also, I don’t know why there were random parts (only a couple pages but still) focused on Robbie.

I found it hard to keep track of time in this book and that lead to confusion. At one point Jordan mentioned that it had been six months when I thought it had only been a couple of months at most.

I did like how Jordan explained a BDSM relationship to Morgan. Morgan was dealing with her own issues, but Jordan was able to explain it in a way that helped Morgan heal. It wasn’t an overly long section, but it gave enough information where people new to the BDSM community could get a glimpse at what a relationship would look like. Not overly in-depth, but not skipping over the important parts either.

There were a couple of small problems that really weren’t too bad. Sometimes the wording was a bit confusing, and it would take me out of the moment trying to figure out what was going on. Also, there were multiple times where the dialogue was missing an end quote and I learned that that’s a minor pet peeve for me. Neither of these were very bad and if it had been just that it would have been fine.

I have various other issues with this book, but I’m going to try to word them in the best way possible.

I feel like there was more that could have been done with the BDSM part of the book. Jordan is Leather, Morgan not really. It could have been an interesting dynamic between the two if it had been stretched through the entire book but instead it was touched on a couple of times and then nothing really.

I really did not like learning about Jordan’s first Mistress. That just made me feel off. (view spoiler)[ Jordan was 18, in high school, and entered into a relationship of sorts with her teacher adjunct. That’s just not something I’m okay with. (hide spoiler)]

My absolute biggest problem with this book was the pacing. Everything felt like it was moving very quickly. I mentioned before that I couldn’t keep track of time in this book, so I think that’s why everything felt fast. Also, a couple of plots felt like something that should have been explored more but instead had a chapter or two and then was mentioned in discussion between the characters.

I honestly think the best way I could describe how this book felt to me is this: a speedrun where everything and nothing happens. I just think that this book could have been amazing, but it just didn’t work for me.