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Folly

Folly by Jassy Mackenzie(Umuzi)

I began reading Folly purely because of this extract.

Not because of the sex itself (though I will admit it was part of the attraction), but because it was well-written and enticing.

The book reads very well and is very, er, hard to put down.

Emma Caine is one of the most honest and real female characters I have come across in a long time. She’s down on her luck - retrenched, her house is about to be repossessed, her husband is in a special care facility that she can’t afford to pay for on her own, and the job opportunities are not exactly forth-coming.

When I started reading this book, and learnt about the extent of Emma’s problems, I thought to myself “I would never have been able to handle any of this. I would have given up and crawled into a hole somewhere.”

But not Emma.

She knows that the future looks bleak, and that she needs something short of a miracle, but she decides to take her future into her own leather gloved hands, and becomes a dominatrix operating from the cottage on her property.

She places an ad in the local paper and waits, very impatiently, for her first customer to call.

Soon, she’s whipping and torturing wealthy, powerful men who want to be treated as slaves. She tells herself that there will be no actual physical contact between herself and her clients.

She thinks they’re all perverts and she’s only doing this to pay the rent. She will not have any kind of relationship with these people besides as mistress and slave.

Enter Simon Nel.

Simon is a handsome and likeable client with gorgeous dark blue eyes, and a great sense of humour. Enough to charm the pants off any woman, and Emma is no exception.

Now, she needs to figure out what she feels, how to interpret it, and what it all means while going on a journey of rediscovery concerning everything she ever knew about love and sexuality.

Folly is certainly a spanking good read, and, even though Jassy Mackenzie is normally a crime author, she managed to pull off a great book about S&M, of all things, without a hitch.

This book was funny – one of my favourite bits is where Emma tells her gardener and friend, Goodness, about her new business, and his involvement in it: “Goodness stood at the entrance with his feet planted on the doormat and peered inside.

Round-eyed, he took in the red-painted horse, the silvery chains and leather straps hanging from the walls, the whips on the shelf and the candles on the bookcase. ‘Hau!’ he exclaimed, shaking his head. ‘Hau!’”.

I collapsed in a fit of giggles just trying to imagine the man’s face when he saw the dungeon.

Many book with a female protagonist seem to make them hard and unlovable, while others make them seem naive and foolish.

I think Jassy got a pretty good mix in Emma. She’s brave and fights for her home. She becomes a dominatrix, but she is still naive about many things, including ‘pegging’ a man with a strap on.

I enjoyed this novel very much. Not just because of the funny looks I got on the bus when the lady next to me read a few lines and discovered I was reading about sex, but because of the great writing, the witty relationship between Simon and Emma, and that you feel as if you are living Emma’s story and are not just witnessing it.

The only thing I could find wrong with this book was the ending. I won’t spoil it for you, except to say that it was a bit too Mills and Boon for my liking.

If Jassy Mackenzie’s other books are anything like this one, consider me an official member of the fan club.

Keen on reading this book? Buy your copy now.

Read this book yet? Tell us what you thought of the book in the comment box below.


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