Review: Exposed by Bey Deckard

Title: Exposed

Author: Bey Deckard

Publisher: Self-Published

Length: 264 Pages

Category: Contemporary, May/December, BDSM

At a Glance: Bey Deckard: writing addictive dysfunction and heart-tugging erotica, one plot bunny at a time.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: With middle-age looming, Greg offsets his boring day job with what truly feeds his soul: photography. The camera is an extension of himself where he exposes his passion for the intersect of pleasure and pain. However, the lens also acts as a barrier, protecting his subjects from the shameful mistakes of his past, and Greg is left isolated and lonely.

Emyr stands on the cusp of fame, but adulation and abuse are both eroding his confidence, and one night, at the river’s edge, he seeks solace in the rain, hoping to hide his tears.
The photographer and the virgin rock star share an accidental connection on that dark, drizzly night. When Greg invites Emyr back to his hotel room, no strings attached, the young man should have bolted. Instead, an odd sense of trust allows him to follow Greg’s lead.

When the camera comes out, Emyr learns the stage isn’t the only place he loves to perform as Greg touches something inside him that rarely awakens. Faced with a beautiful, talented boy whose soul is as lonely as his own, will Greg be able to face his past and come to terms with it, or will he run from the connection he so desperately desires?

Review: I’m not sure I could count on any other author in this genre to write a May/December romance with a Daddy Kink twist; then, added to that is a character who’s a little bit broken; and then, that character is dropped into a relationship that’s a little bit smutty; but then, that relationship evolves in a sweet and romantic way on top of everything else. Bey Deckard: writing addictive dysfunction and heart-tugging erotica, one plot bunny at a time.

Greg Faraday has had a rough five years. A bad breakup—one whose details only grow worse as the story continues and more is revealed about Travis, his ex—has caused Greg, now in his 40s, to close himself off to the idea of intimacy, both the physical and the emotional kind. Feeling a deep sense of sympathy for Greg isn’t difficult as the opening pages of this book progress into a deeper study of how lonely and alone Greg is, and how the only connection he feels with anyone these days happens behind the lens of a camera. The odds of him running across Emyr Hughes sitting on a bench in the London rain were slim. The odds of Greg not being affected by the visual of the young man looking as if he wore the weight of the world on his shoulders were worse than even.

Twenty-two-year-old Emyr is thisclose to becoming a household name but is having a difficult time processing the reality and the high emotional price of living in the public eye. The sweet of all the adoration is tempered by the bitter that is a media and a public that thrives on the attack, and he’s at a low point when Greg finds him on that bench, low and not far from breaking, which leaves him open and vulnerable not only to the lifeline of companionship and normalcy Greg throws him, but to the submission Emyr craves and the dominance Greg can provide—if only Greg could trust himself enough to give it.

At this initial meeting there begins an erotic push and pull between the two of them, which is something Deckard writes with a deft hand—there is no doubt a deep attraction which Greg attempts to repel out of the fear of his own sadistic streak as well as the twenty-year age difference between himself and Emyr. But Emyr’s inexperience is as much of a red flag for Greg as the boy’s innocence is a massive turn-on, which provides the basis for the building of their relationship. Greg’s resistance to the young rock star is not without merit, but Emyr’s perseverance is fueled by lust and the awakening of his desire to be dominated. What Deckard sets out to prove to his readers, then, is that these two men, who should inherently be incompatible if for nothing more than the difference in their ages, fill a complementary need in them both. Not to mention the fact that Emyr often proves he can be a stabilizing force for Greg, which throws a nice switch into the their age gap.

One of the great things about reading in the erotic romance genre is that it often allows me to explore my own boundaries. Sometimes it allows me to push them further than they went before, and this author is often my fictional Sherpa—regardless of which of his books I’m reading, there’s always something that causes me to pause and ask myself how it makes me feel. Do I personally have a Daddy Kink? Not in the slightest. But I do see how that dynamic could, and does, work in certain relationships. For Emyr, Greg was a lodestar and a touchstone. For Greg, Emyr provided a safe place for his dominant side to reemerge, and it all coalesced into an intensely sexy love story for two men who supported each other in precisely the ways they needed.

There’s a political bent to the story as well, which adds to the external conflict Greg and Emyr face when the nature of their relationship is exposed in the tabloids—if you hate what’s going on in the US right now, this will resonate on a deep level. And while the resolution of Travis’s storyline and its impact on Greg is resolved quickly (or, unresolved as the case may be), it’s also effective. If you’ve never read this author before because he doesn’t write traditional genre romance, I’m guessing Exposed is as close as we may ever get. I loved getting to know these guys and bought into their relationship because Deckard made it easy to do.

You can buy Exposed here:
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