Special Needs

Title: Special Needs (part 1)
Author: K.A. Merikan
Cover Artist: Kkohaku
Publisher: self published
Buy Links:Amazon; Publisher
Genre: contemporary kink
Length: novel
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

A guest review by Larissa

Review Summary: a bad-ass story that is just slightly bananas with a wicked twist on special needs and a cast of characters like you’ve never seen before. Oh, and epic misuse of wheelchairs.

Blurb

— Caretaking. You’re doing it wrong. —

Liam slept with his boss. Again. And lost his job because of it. Again. Set on changing his ways and tired of sleeping in his car, he applies for a job as a live-in caretaker, even though he has no experience in it whatsoever. He has a lot of practice in lying his way out of any situation though. Only problem is, his new boss – wheelchair bound owner of a sex hotel – is gay, cute, funny and oh, so fuckable! There is only one logical solution to Liam’s dilemma – pretending he’s straight. Brilliant!

When Ryan inherited his aunt’s B&B, he thought he’d hit the jackpot by changing it into a fetish sex hotel. Things didn’t go as planned though, all of his marketing efforts seem to fail, and the debt is mounting up. Being a wheelchair user doesn’t help in actively promoting his hotel, but his luck starts to change when he hires a new caretaker. Liam is open-minded, helpful and caring. All that Ryan needs from a caretaker to kickstart his business, but things would all be a lot simpler if he didn’t start crushing on his new employee. And even if, in some other dimension, Liam did return his feelings, how long can Ryan keep his fetish a secret?

The web of lies they weave around each other is more bondage than any of them enjoy.

“Special Needs” is book one of a two part series.

Review

If you are that person who is tired of straight-laced, vanilla man on man sex, tired of the same old kinks and looking for characters that aren’t afraid of role-play or to use some kinky toys (some that come in a scary fluffy package) then read on.

Of course, you also have to like characters that aren’t quite what you normally see in romance. Nothing about Liam and Ryan or their friends is considered normal. In fact crazy runs away from them as fast as it can. If you want to try something entirely different, then Special Needs is most definitely for you.

I went through this book with wide eyes, raised eyebrow, shaking my head often and going; ‘really?’. You can say I’ve seen it all in romance (and that included vampire lizards with triple cocks) so it’s kinda hard to surprise me, but Special Needs did and with a tag: “caretaking, you’re doing it wrong” how can you resist?

The blurb is a pretty good introduction into the story and I can tell you that reading Special Needs is quite the journey. There are none of the typical traps you find in romance, though Ryan and Liam are not quite up to good communication. The story has characters that are deeply into the alternative lifestyle and not afraid to show it. They have an assortment of tattoo’s (not all of them pretty) and metal, and if the sex hotel hasn’t clued you in, a fetish for wheelchairs should.

The plot is extensive and thought-through and at parts, I felt, very well researched. The ‘romance’ is slow to develop. There is no walking off into the sunset and professing undying love after two chapters. There are several plot angles that make the story interesting and give it strong quality as the story is quite long. Trust me when I say you will never get bored reading this.

The story is a two-parter and there has quite the cliffhanger, but not to fear, the second part will be released in November.

The story is self published and considering that, it is quite well done. Plus, as I know that the authors are not native speakers of English, this story is quite an impressive feat. However, it does have some editing errors, including issues with spelling and grammar, and at times there are sudden changes in tense. Fortunately it wasn’t so bad that it took away from the story.

My guess is that Special Needs is not for everyone. You’d have to like guys who live an alternative lifestyle with very kinky fetishes (including medical roleplay) and have a not so glammed-up life. But trust me when I say if you are okay with that, Special Needs is definitely worth reading.