I received An Officer’s Submission from the Goodreads Don’t Buy My Love program. It’s the third book in the ‘Cuffs, Collars and Love’ series. The story is told in third person through the MC’s eyes, Clay and Logan.

2.5 Stars



I have to mention that I didn’t read the other books in the series before reading this one. I was told this could be read as a stand-alone but I’d miss out on how the MCs met. I’ll have to disagree and say this isn’t a stand-alone. It felt like I was dropped into the middle of an ongoing story and was confused at the beginning and really didn’t feel drawn to the couple. It could’ve been because there’s a lot of telling going on, especially at the beginning. I had to restrain myself from skimming because all the telling was boring. It wasn’t as prevalent in the story after the attack, which is when the action picked up, because of more dialogue. But when it shifted back to monologue, the author reverted to telling again.

As I mentioned, there’s a lot of telling and because of that, I wasn’t drawn into the story or the characters as much as I wanted. Part of the issue for me, was that Clay came across more like a woman. I don’t mean feminine, but like a female character and I’m not sure why. It started from the very beginning of the story as soon as he started to think/speak. My mind immediately pictured a woman and I had difficulty imagining Clay as a male for the rest of the story. I’ve read stories where men are submissives or abused or effeminate, and they didn’t come across like a woman, so I don’t know why Clay did. I didn’t get that impression with Logan. Anyway, Clay coming across as a woman also blunted my enjoyment of this story since I read MM for a reason.

My interest in this story didn’t pick up until the attack on Clay happened and ended at its resolution. I understand the additional chapters at the end tied up the loose ends, but they dragged along. There is also one chapter where the font size was huge, about three times the size of the rest of the book. I think it was chapter twenty-two or thereabouts. The BDSM in this story is on the mild side, infrequent and also included a lot of telling.

The topics the author spoke about in this story were important topics, but because of the telling instead of showing and Clay who sounded like a woman, made it difficult for me to identify with the characters or pull me into the story. The ending chapters dragged. I want to give An Officer’s Submission, 2.5 Stars, but since Goodreads doesn’t allow half stars I will give it 3 Stars.
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