Reviewed by Vicki (Tori)
TITLE: Deviations: Bondage 
SERIES: Deviations #4
AUTHOR: Chris Owen and Jodi Payne
PUBLISHER: Pretty Muses Publishing
LENGTH: 408 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 6th, 2016
BLURB:
Noah and Tobias come back from Paris with a renewed contract and a deeper personal bond. Too bad things don’t go as smoothly at home. When they get back, they face a crisis that might just threaten their contract, and their personal intimacy. The crisis has a ripple effect, but Tobias and Noah finally learn that they can evolve with it, instead of collapsing. They experiment with scene after scene, making them longer, deeper, which allows them to explore more than they’ve ever dared. They even explore moving in together. When Noah is forced to face the danger of his job, he starts to question why he became a cop. Tobias is also questioning his job. Soon enough, their external life is changing enough that they’re forced to lean on each other to sustain them. Can they achieve a comfortable balance between their outside life, their scenes, and their love? Noah and Tobias, along with their friends, appear in Deviations: Submissions, Deviations: Domination, and Deviations: Discipline.
REVIEW:
If you have been following my reviews of this series, you have seen me talk about these men three times now. As we know, this is the story of Tobias and Noah, in a committed D/s relationship. Tobias’ ex-sub/lover Phantom has been floating around, and a big part of the drama in the last two books. As predicted, and this is a spoiler but I can’t figure out how to talk about this book without mentioning it, Tobias and Noah end up bringing Phan in as a sub for Tobias. So this book is mostly about integrating Phan in to an existing relationship with Tobias and Noah. Lots of sex, some role-playing, a bit of BDSM, and lots of fluff. Also lots of pizza, cuddling, movies, bubble baths, and sex.
Some things do happen, Noah has a major issue at work, and that added a nice bit of action to this book. Honestly that’s what kept the story interesting to me. Phan has some drama at the beginning too, that started this one out in an exciting way. There are some really nice sex scenes, and I enjoyed the role-playing scenes, but I so wish there had been more BDSM. Tobias gets pretty focused on their new house, and getting Phan to fit in, and spends way less time addressing the individual issues of his two subs. Noah’s problem with the cage from previous books isn’t mentioned in this one. His fear of deprivation is touched on in a scene, which worked very well, but not then nothing more comes of it. Phan is just a mess, and spends lots of time crying, but Tobias doesn’t really deal with any of it. There is a couple of spankings/floggings and such, but it just lacked something for me. I wanted Tobias to deal with all of their shit! Take a firm hand and face it.
I hate to say it, but this book lacked some focus for me personally. Apparently I’m a big fan of Tobias and Noah, and not so much Tobias/Noah/Phan. And I do actually like Phan as a character, I liked him with Noah as friends and cuddle buddies, but I didn’t love the three of them. I kinda wish Phan had gotten his own Dom that would focus just on him. Poor Tobias has to split his energy between the two, and I’m not sure he was able to do that well. This is not to say that I didn’t like this book. I did like it as part of the overall series, and some really good things happen in it. Noah and Tobias both make life changing decisions that I approved of. Their housing situation changed for the better. This is really the ending of the series, there is another book but it came out later and was meant as an epilogue. So this is the last book, and I did like where things ended. Tobias, Noah, and Phan are in good places. They are ready to move forward in a life together, and I appreciate that. We also see more of Bradford and Nicki, whom I really love. As well as several of the other pairs mentioned in previous books.
This one was hard for me to rate, there are some really good things in it, but it’s just so long, and the heart of the story for me, which is Tobias and Noah, was diluted. I had to go a little lower in my rating on this one than the last books, I just didn’t enjoy this one quite as much. Still a good book, and part of a great series!
I’m off to read the last book!
RATING: 
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