Fine or Punishment by Mira Margrave

Fine or Punishment by Mira Margrave

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The book (or potentially just the sample) has two major flaws that might, unfortunately, keep people from trying the book. What with a billion and one options out there that are either free or on Kindle Unlimited, and what with this being a new author. I can easily see someone seeing those flaws and skipping this book. I know, I did. I mocked it, put it out of my thoughts for hours, but it kept popping back in there and I eventually got the book and read it. That’s where the ‘unfortunately’ comes in, as the writing is quite compelling otherwise.

The flaws?

1) It may or may not be considered a minor thing, but when, as noted, there are a ton of options out there, and nothing to keep people interested otherwise (already established author; a ‘name’ dipping their toes into writing, etc), then even minor flaws in samples can push people away. Right, I should have just mentioned without this big lead-in. Now I feel stupid. Heh. The flaw? Heck, it might not even be a flaw ‘somewhere’ (wherever it is that has ass spelled like arse 90% of the time), if that somewhere also interchanges the words ‘library’ and ‘bookstore’ for each other. Since that’s the flaw. One of the main characters, Violet Weston, is a librarian. Who either works at a library or a bookstore. Considering that bookstore only actually came up once (and, again unfortunately, blaringly in the sample section), and considering other aspects, yes she’s actually a librarian who works in a library not a bookstore. As noted, potentially a minor flaw. But one that could be spotted and expected to reveal that there will be many more flaws throughout.

2) The situation/set-up is absurd. Librarian Violet Weston is in some way repressed, shy, and deeply desirous of keeping herself out of the spotlight of her small town. Naturally, then, if she has certain itches she wished to scratch, she’d have to break out of herself a little to do so. So she hired a ‘prostitute’. Meh, fine. But . . . she has the prostitute turn up at her work? Seriously? She’s the head librarian in a small town. A town filled with gossips. And the sacred cat librarian had a prostitute turn up at her front door of her work? And then use code words so . . . common the situation that actually unfolded was almost guaranteed to happen? (‘I have some overdue library books’ – not exact phrase used, and yes she was listening for a phrase but it was a common variation on that. Of course no ‘real’ library patron would turn up just as the library was closing and say something to the librarian like ‘I’m sorry, but my books might be a little bit overdue’). Mmphs.

Right, so. Reasons why I initially turned away from the book. For a really short time. Looking at my comments and updates, I made a ‘mocking’ comment about an hour before I made a ‘read 37% of this story’ comment. So probably an hour between tossing the book and getting and reading 37%.

Because it was, in its way, an intriguing set-up. And, actually, both main characters seemed interesting enough to overcome any and all flaws (and, oddly, most of the flaws of the book are contained within the sample (there’s the part wherein she didn’t lock the library door after closing hours, but that might be in the sample, and like all the other not-mentioned flaws, are ‘reasonable’ in isolation, though build up, all together with each other, to a certain level of incompetence – unexpected)).

A librarian sets up a ‘date’ at her work. Her ‘phrase to make sure is ‘her date’’ is used by the attractive woman who turned up (that’s another of those odd little bits of flaw – why would the librarian just assume that the ‘not dressed like an escort’ who happened to turn up roughly at the same time the prostitute was supposed to turn up, was the prostitute, because it’s a small town and she didn’t recognize her? But then this leads back to ‘why turn up at the library’ instead of setting up the event somewhere outside of town – as should be expected one of biggest town gossips was right there when the other woman turned up. Sooo. Right, got confused and incoherent there.

Librarian sets up date at library. An not especially young woman turns up and uses a few words here or there that leads the librarian to suspect they are the prostitute (though mostly the fact that she did turn up, and isn’t someone she knows is the real ‘triggering’ event to lead to ‘must be prostitute’). The young woman mentions that she might have failed to turn in her books before they became overdue. By this point, by the way, the ‘old gossip woman’ had been forced out the door. So the librarian is then able to start making some vaguely odd comments, flirty comments. About taking punishment seriously, and there will be more than just monetary penalties.

Librarian then leads the woman back to her office. Whereupon the book turns to a new chapter and we are now in the library patron’s point of view. And we learn why this non-prostitute is going along with this odd situation. Namely – the librarian is super-hot, and she hasn’t exactly been hit on in a longish while. That and she really just expects, if the librarian isn’t really flirting with her, a stern lecture.

Not really sure how much further the sample reveals as by this point I’d switched over to the full book (which, for all I know, removed the bookstore flaw, but I didn’t reread to see).

This is one of those books that I occasionally stumble across and if but for a bit of luck here or there, probably would never read. I mean, one of the main themes is ‘spanking’. I do not normally go out of my way to find and read spanking stories. And, to be fair to the story itself, this is a lot more than a spanking story (and a lot less than a full book, since this is just a little over a 100 pages in length).

I oddly rather liked the story. And while it did end ‘mid-scene’, by that point I was happy with what I had read. Or, more accurately, I was on the train and there’s only so many mentions of orgasmic sexual activities before I get uncomfortable reading such on the train (it’s actually something of a statement of how compelling the story was to me that I actually started to continue to read it on the train, and then read the sex stuff; something I’d normally not do, at least on the train).

Right, never did mention: there are other characters, the side ones have a little more ‘meat on their bones’ than might be expected, though still being somewhat bone-thin characterizations (Shelia the other librarian, Mrs. Burke the noisy old woman, Jade the best friend from high school, etc.). And both of the mains seemed, while not fleshed out, full of interesting tid-bits. That other main character, by the way, is one Candace Kane, freelance computer . . . person (programmer? Maybe programmer). Both of the women, though I might be wrong about this, are in their 30s. I think. And yes, Candace . . . Candy . . . ‘Candy Kane’ was one of the reasons the librarian thought she was dealing with an obvious prostitute (she’d already determined that the woman was her prostitute, though, before she asked the patrons name and got ‘Candace Kane’; to be fair to Candace, it is her name).

Rating: 4.17

July 17 2017



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