Sins of Omission

Title: Sins of Omission
Author: India Harper
Publisher: Amber Allure
Genre: Contemporary D/s
Length: Novel (43k words/142 paperback pages)
Rating: 3 stars out of 5

A Guest Review by Aunt Lynn

THE BLURB

Carver Eliot has settled into his life as a private citizen and investigator, enjoying being his own boss and sharing David Logan’s bed. Then the case of one missing girl throws Carver and David’s comfortable situation into chaos.

David knew that one day one of Carver’s cases would fall under the jurisdiction of Pittsburgh’s police department. He was hoping it would be later rather than sooner. As Carver’s investigation unfolds, however, conflict of interest becomes the least of David’s worries.

The search for the missing girl leads both men into the shadows of Pittsburgh’s sex club scene. As jaded as he thinks he is, Carver’s eyes are blown wide open to a culture of pleasure and perversity he had only imagined. David, however, finds himself face to face with a way of life he thought he’d buried along with his lover and mentor three years ago. While Carver struggles to learn a new set of rules, David fights not to lose himself in the role he once knew so well.

Finding the girl is easy. Surviving the secrets their investigation reveals about each other and their burgeoning relationship is the true challenge…

THE REVIEW

Sins of Omission is the second book in the A Creature of Sin series by India Harper. Although it could be read as a standalone from book one, Sins of Arrogance (reviewed here), I do not recommend that at all as actions and feelings in this second story are built upon from that first book and the read will not be as satisfactory; in fact, there could be confusion without it.

The story opens to a nineteen-year-old David waking up with a much older man, Robin, who picked him up at a club. Robin makes David an offer to be his full-time sub, which David agrees to. Skip forward to the present time, set a few months after the end of Sins of Arrogance. Carver and David continue in their nontraditional D/s relationship where instead of being the sub as he had been trained, David is the Dom of the couple and Carver is the reluctant sub. Carver, after leaving the Pittsburgh Police Department, is a now PI and on a case involving a missing girl, and it looks like he and David, his former Lieutenant on the job, are to have their first conflict of interest case, as the cops are actively working on this one as well. When the case brings them undercover to a local sex club and their D/s relationship must reverse for the operation, both men find themselves at odds, especially David, who left the sub world behind when lover Robin died. Finding himself in a crisis of identity, they need to both solve the case and figure out a way to make their relationship work — if it can.

There are two separate stories in this novel and follows an alternating present day/flashback style: Carver and David’s relationship (the majority of the book) and the back story of David and Robin. The inclusion of this second story, the lack of which was one of my chief complaints in my review of Sins of Arrogance, answered many of the questions I had there. Unfortunately, I had several problems with this book that had little to do with those answers.

What worked for me:

I thought the back story of David and Robin to be well-done and interesting. The general development and description of their relationship was in line with what I understand about the D/s lifestyle and it made sense to me. In fact, I could see an entire novella devoted to that relationship, but had to be satisfied by getting a few chapters here.

What didn’t:

Quite a few things.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t dislike the protags — I simply don’t understand them. David and Carver’s relationship continued to remain undefined through the entire book, thus leaving me to find the whole D/s dynamic between them odd. Carver is alternately and inconsistently very willful, defiant and challenging at times and submissive and pliant at others, and, for the most part, David just lets him get away with it. In fact, Carver doesn’t believe in what he is doing and considers his involuntary reactions to David’s commands “pathetic” (He had halfway obeyed before he even realized it. God, he was pathetic.), often wondering to himself why he puts up with it. He doesn’t have any answers other than he wants to be with David. David gives him an ultimatum, and Carver tries, imo, to half-heartedly reflect on it a few times, but it all goes nowhere.

Sure, they fought. Carver thrived on conflict, after all. He couldn’t not push people. He couldn’t not push David. He liked trying to crack that iron-clad control.

This is not the mindset of a sub who, well, wants to be one.  The only thing that made it somewhat better for me is that both men admit that they have never really talked about what they were doing. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that they really did work things out before the end and it wasn’t enough to save my overall issue with it.  As such, Carver’s offer at the end came with little sense to me, as did David’s counteroffer.

I also felt that Carver’s reaction to learning about Robin and the meaning behind David’s collar over-the-top, since he knew there was some training on David’s part — there were hints and side comments from David here and there in both books — plus the collar itself was a giant clue that, while it was something David refused to answer questions about, Carver didn’t press.  Yes, David kept Robin a secret, but the reaction still felt unjustified and exaggerated.

As with Sins of Arrogance, the ending felt rushed and unresolved to me. I will await the next story to see where this ending leaves us. The secondary characters that I liked so well in the first book make very few appearances here, so enjoyment of watching them in action was minimal. The “mystery” (missing girl) aspect was simply a vehicle to get Carver into the club where the major conflict of the story could happen.

My biggest problem, however, and without including spoilers — and even acknowledging that is was somewhat in line with David’s unconventional “training” methods that carried over from book one — was a scene in the book that left me both cold and uncomfortable, and felt the authors did both Carver and David a great disservice. It goes beyond D/s/BDSM into the realm of irresponsibility on David’s part and danger for Carver, and it turned me off completely.

OVERALL

Sins of Omission would be of interest to those who read and enjoyed book one of this series. I understand that the next installment, Sins of Affection, as well as a spin-off novella featuring David’s boss, Commander Montgomery, are in the works.