GABRIELLE'S AWAKENING by Alexandra Adams
Published by Alexandra Adams Publications
ISBN: 0-9706987-0-4
reveiwed by oceania

GABRIELLE'S AWAKENING is the creation of Alexandra Adams imagination. It is heavy BDSM, stressing mind control, power, and pain for pleasure story.

I asked Ms. Adams via email about her book.

MS. Adams: "Let me say this: I fully realize that Gabrielle's Awakening is not to everyone's taste. To many readers, both male and female, BDSM is both incomprehensible and troubling. But for those who possess either overt or latent yearnings to experience that sort of sensual pleasure, if only vicariously, or who merely wish to expand their understanding of people who do achieve intense fulfillment while embracing that alternative lifestyle, a carefully crafted book that unapologetically celebrates that type of relationship comes as welcome."

Oceania: This story is heavy BDSM are you [living] the life?

MS. Adams: Not as it is lived by people who belong to SM clubs, and do "scenes" in public, no. The BDSM scenes in the book arose out of a vivid imagination. Writing the book turned me on. Reading it turned on the man to whom I've been happily married for many years. At times, we incorporate certain D/s techniques into our private sensual life, which is intense, varied, and always brimful of love.

Oceania: What stories or authors influenced you - did you study before writing this?

Ms. Adams: I've read a considerable number of works of classical erotica, including "Story of O", which I disliked, owing to Sir Stephen's having coldly and callously exploited and then discarded O. Love never entered into that story.

However, I did not model Gabrielle's Awakening on any work I read. I created the sort of book I myself enjoy, because I've not found many works of erotica featuring a BDSM theme that I do enjoy.

Oceania: The male lead, our DOM HERO, Michael, is into electronic devices... how much research was involved and do any of these instruments actually exist?

Ms. Adams: While I believe the devices to be technologically possible, to my knowledge none like them exist. I imagined them. Unfortunately, the infliction of intense pain almost invariably causes serious injury. Injury to me is an insupportable drawback to both partners' pleasure: the dominant partner's and the submissive partner's.

I was writing fiction: a story that feeds the fantasy life of readers who turn to works of erotica for mental stimulation. By dreaming up those devices, I was able to minimize the aspect of injury attending the infliction of pain, and the sensation of pain as a component of sensual pleasure. To me, pain is a more intense sensation even than pleasure, and can deepen and enhance sexual pleasure, but I abhor cruelty and brutality. I wanted a way to celebrate the one aspect while mitigating the other.

Oceania: I noticed in the first 2 chapters when Gabrielle is wearing clothing that she chooses to wear pantsuits. Why have you chosen this attire? How does it reflect Gabrielle's character and her soon to made life style change?

Ms. Adams: Gabrielle is an intellectual: a writer/scholar. To me, pantsuits represent comfortable, yet smart attire. I felt that she would have chosen them over clinging dresses. Her nascent desire to be dominated and sexually fulfilled would never have sufficed to make her wear something clinging simply to enhance her feminine appeal. She habitually concealed, even suppressed, her latent yearnings until Michael fulfilled them.

Oceania: Can you tell us more about Michael?

Ms. Adams: Michael employs a species of mind control as he trains his slave. He deliberately creates frustration, and uses it to drive home to her that she must think not of her own pleasure, but of his. His methods work diabolically well on his ingenuous lover. Why have "I" chosen to do this? I was creating what I hope proved a rather complex character, and felt strongly that he would have done so.

Oceania: how long did it take for you to write this story?

Ms. Adams: Finishing Gabrielle's Awakening took me several years. I wrote the first draft in a fever of creativity, and then spent many more bursts of sustained effort in editing, revising, and polishing the narrative. I made endless revisions and corrections before I considered the book finished.

Gabrielle's awakening is like reading a romance novel where James Bond plays out a BDSM scenario. Our hero is dashing, intelligent, commanding. He is master of the conversational arts and the sciences. He is wealthy and uses his wealth to build a fortress and all manners of pain and pleasure electrical devices.

It was very entertaining read, if only read for the next device used. But I agree with the author "It is not for everyone"