Review: The Deeper He Hurts by Lynda Aicher

07 September of 2016 by ButtonsMom2003

Reviewer Rating: 5

5.0Overall score

Wow, this was kind of hard to read but I loved it.

The Deeper He Hurts By Lynda Aicher

Genre: GLBTQ, MM, Contemporary Romance, BDSM

Released: September 6, 2016

Publisher: Loveswept

Series: Kick, Book 2

Synopsis

Asher Ruggiero, a partner at Adrenaline Kick Adventures, is living a lie. As a control freak whose big Italian family thinks he’s straight, Asher likes his encounters concise, dirty, and discreet—until his company’s new rafting guide walks into work, dripping with brooding, intense sexuality. Sawyer Stevens is a mystery man with secrets and rough edges, and he makes Asher want to get to know him inside and out.

Ever since the tragic death of his parents, Sawyer has dedicated himself to the rush of adrenaline that comes from pleasure and pain. Moving from one guy to another, hiding when life gets too complicated—that’s all he can handle. So why does Asher make him long for something lasting and honest, when the gorgeous geek can’t even be true to himself? Sawyer wants to give Asher his heart, but he just doesn’t know how. After all, a life without integrity is a life without passion—and that’s the one thing Sawyer craves.

Review

Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003

Wow, this was kind of hard to read but I loved it.

The Deeper He Hurts is book 2 in the Kick series but can be read as a standalone with no problem. This book was a bit difficult for me to read at first. I feel like I’ve read more than a few BDSM themed stories but I hadn’t read any before with hardcore sadism. This element of the story was not really mentioned in the blurb and I kind of think it should have been, in spite of that I ended up loving the story.Asher is the techie control freak partner in Kick, an extreme adventure company. He is the only one who is not former military which sometimes makes him feel like an outsider. All of the partners in Kick participate in various forms of BDSM, including Asher but Asher is a true sadist and not a Dom. He doesn’t exactly get a sexual kick out of inflicting pain, he is more excited by how it affects the one he is giving pain to.

Sawyer has signed on to be a guide for Kick for the summer. He’s heard rumors about Asher and he wants to find out if they are true. Sawyer needs pain. He needs it to help him forget the tragedy in his past. When he gets lost in the pain he is able to forget for a while and that lets him function.

Sawyer and Asher are perfect for each other but neither one of them is looking for anything long term. Sawyer has plans to return to his home after the summer season with Kick. Asher isn’t out to his family and they have no idea that he likes inflicting pain and this often times makes him feel very conflicted.

The Deeper He Hurts pushed reading boundaries I didn’t even know I’d set. It took me a while to really digest how I felt about this book. The writing was just as good as I expected from Ms. Aicher after reading The Harder He Falls, book 1 in the Kick series. But I wasn’t prepared to read about hardcore sadism and it took me a little bit to wrap my head around it. It was hard for me to reconcile that characters I liked would be into something that I personally find so abhorrent. I just can’t imagine how anyone can like being beaten to a pulp or how such an otherwise “normal” person, like Asher, can want to inflict pain on anyone; especially someone he comes to love.

But the thing is, reading allows me to participate in things that I would never want to do in real life and Ms. Aicher’s writing carried me away to the point that I was pretty much able to forget how repulsed I was at first by what these two men liked to do with each other. I was eventually able to instead focus on the things that they struggled with and what they needed from each other to make their relationship work.

This is kind of a rare book for me in that I loved it but didn’t shed a tear until it was nearly finished and yet it twisted my emotions up many times while reading it. I had to process what I’d read and wait for a bit before I could even start to write my review. I’m not at all sorry that I read this story and I will be reading the next one in this series. If I have to be real honest though, I don’t think I really care to read another one real soon that pushes my boundaries as much as this one did.

Here is an excellent article by Ms. Aicher about why she reads and writes the kinds of stories she does. I think it’s worth the time it takes to read it.

♥♥♥♥♥

O Factor: Scorcher

Kick Series

The Harder He Falls, Book 1

♥ Amazon US ♥ Amazon AU ♥ Amazon CA ♥ Amazon DE ♥ Amazon ES ♥ Amazon FR ♥ Amazon IT ♥ Amazon UK ♥ Barnes & Noble ♥ Google Play ♥ iBooks ♥ Kobo US ♥ Kobo CA ♥ Kobo UK ♥

About Author

Lynda Aicher

About Me

I love to read. It’s a simple fact about me that has been true since I discovered the worlds of Judy Blume at the age of ten. This love of reading transferred to young romance (the early version of Young Adult when the stories weren’t plagued by vampires, werewolves, and death) which hooked me on the romance genre and the fulfillment that comes with a happy-ever-after ending.

Twenty-five years later, I’m still an avid reader of all types of romance. The diversity of writing in the market ensures that there is always something new to read. I’m still a sucker for the happy-ever-after because there are more than enough not-so-happy endings in the real world that I don’t need to read about them. I read a book for enjoyment and I want to feel good when the story ends.

I have the luxury of being a full-time writer, that is, a full-time writer around my duties as mom, wife, cleaner, cook, chauffeur, master scheduler, banker, cheerleader, volunteer, and tutor. Writing has to be a priority, or it would never happen.

I live in the Pacific Northwest which provides many months of rain-filled incentive to stay indoors and write. However, I’m a Midwesterner at heart. A perfect day has the snow falling outside, a fire warming the room, a football game on the television, a roast cooking in the oven, my family hanging out around me and a good book to read.
Author Links