Truth By His Hand by Casey Cameron

Posted on May 01, 2024
Word Count: 818

Comments 0

I stumbled onto an old reddit thread where everyone was posting bdsm books they liked. I checked out Truth By His Hand by Casey Cameron.

I poked through the first couple chapters and so far I’m liking it. It’s gotten me to actually laugh out loud twice which is always a good sign. And so far for a BDSM novel it’s been … realistic. Maybe “believable” is a better word IDK. At least for a couple chapters; who knows where it goes. But reading I was like “oh yeah I completely get that” 😂

—

Partway through reading the book.
It’s very well written and I’m consuming it hungrily. It’s witty and has made me laugh several times.
The main character is named “River” which was really jarring at first since that’s the name of my dog, but is less jarring as the book goes on.

It’s a really good bdsm novel so far and I’m about halfway through. I’d been considering waiting a couple days and rereading the first couple chapters to get it to count for the readathon thing but I couldn’t bring myself to wait.
It uses the right terminology, the right situations, the right feelings even. The author definitely knows their stuff.

The main character (written entirely from his perspective as a first-person narrative) is a complete bdsm newb and is slowly joining the world as submissive. His thoughts remind me of my own sometimes. It conjures up a lot of my early bdsm exploits when I was young and inexperienced and didn’t know how to act with a dom. And some of the feelings and thoughts mirror my own even now.

The main love interest is a little too perfect but not entirely perfect at least. But that also feels right, at least for this point. It seems like doms are superhuman at first, and sometimes it takes a while for the humanity to crack through. Halfway through the book and there’s been a small mistake – the first crack of humanity. I’m hoping to see more by the end.

Seeing the dom entirely from the sub’s perspective in this, while he’s very different from anyone I’ve been with he’s also very much the same. I’m seeing a lot of moments thinking “Tim’s like that” or “That reminds me of X-person”

I also had one moment that made me want to throw the book (which would not have been good since I use an ereader and I really don’t want to buy a new one). It feels like an author blunder but who knows. Maybe the author did it deliberately and it was a character blunder and it’ll come back as drama later but I don’t get that feeling.

I don’t think this is much of a spoiler but SPOILER alert: The couple made an unethical choice in closing their relationship, disregarding the feelings entirely of a third party. Like okay the dom “thought about it” for several long minutes before confirming- yeah sure let’s be exclusive. Like. What about your other sub, dude. No thoughts to how she feels? Just toss her aside? Polyamory done wrong. Which is very human and does happen… a lot. I just wish I had the confidence that there will be consequences to that action.

It’s not the first piece of bdsm fiction I’ve consumed that I felt got it right but the pieces are few and far between and it’s the first novel. I’m moving forward to poking more through that Reddit list I found if there are others that are this good.

—

This is a small example of some of wit in this book. I fucking love it.

—

I finished the book this morning. Was happy to see the dom more humanized by the end and the sub making personal growth that you’d expect in any novel.
I only had the one instance of wanting to throw the book so that’s not too bad. Humor throughout.

It’s definitely smut. If you took away the kinky sex scenes the book would be half to two-thirds shorter. But it’s also a great story of a very flawed new sub diving in head-first, getting caught up in sub frenzy and making a lot of mistakes along the way.

An interesting scene that may or may not be a spoiler but it was mentioned in the reddit thread I pulled the recommendation from and the reason I picked this book to start with: The dom actually safewords in this book. You don’t hear about that happening very often and it was a really good thing to include since so many people think that’s not something that should or can happen. And it was a really impactful scene. I almost cried when it happened.

—

I purchased this book after reading, along with purchasing the audiobook. Happy to support the author for such an excellent novel.