As Natural As Breathing by Thianna D.

• As Natural As Breathing (Book #1) – in this review
• Took My Breath Away (Book #2)

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As Natural As Breathing by Thianna D.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Blurb…

For Christian Darringer, life isn’t worth living. Just back from the Middle East; scarred and with permanent damage to one leg, he does not think anyone will want him for anything. Meeting a gorgeous man he finds himself thinking about constantly is not in his plans. Pulled toward the startling younger man with striking blue eyes, he begins to question a lot of things – especially his sexuality. Not one to hide from a challenge, he plunges ahead only to find himself more than just attracted to Logan who is full of life and joy, he finds himself head over heels in love.

Logan Mannette has almost everything he ever wanted: loving parents, happiness, friends and security. The only thing missing is finding the love of his life, a love that is just like his parents’. When he meets Christian at a party, everything changes. Instantly attracted, he does his best to help this sad man and quickly finds himself feeling more than he has ever felt before. Raised in a domestic discipline household, he holds that ideal as what he wants but his interest in spanking became a fetish and when Christian admits that he wants to be spanked, Logan believes he might have found the perfect man.

Just as everything begins for them, Christian’s past intercedes and one of his brothers makes waves about him dating a man. If it weren’t for Logan’s support, he might fold; but with the love of one amazing man, Christian finds that living his life rather than just existing is as natural as breathing.

So What did I Think?

I enjoyed this story of the wounded Christian returning to his family to heal, both mentally and physically, but finding his healing comes through the love he finds with Logan.

Christian had been wounded under exceptional (maybe unrealistic?) circumstances and is suffering from PTSD. His physical scars and pronounced limp are significant, his mental trauma is severe with nightmares and flashbacks, and through all this he is challenged by his confused sexual feelings. Add to this the torment provided by his brother and it is not an easy time for Christian!

There are many themes in this book –

• PTSDand returning from war
• gay-for-you: Christian comes to terms with the attraction he feels for Logan.
• domestic discipline: I really enjoyed the spanking scenes between Logan and Christian but some aspects just seemed to wonderfully coincidental i.e. Logan has a kink and it terms out that Christian has longed to be spanked forever. It seemed more pleasure spanking than discipline but was hot anyway! I also found it really strange that Logan’s dad is the one who has instructed him on DD relationships and shared so much of what he gets up to with his wife!
• intolerance – Obviously it starts with the attack on Christian but once he gets home it continues with Christian’s brother. Christian’s brother is a real asshole. Luckily the rest of the family are the total opposite.

One of the highlights of the story has to be the secondary characters – friends and family who are wonderful. I loved the style of the book and the dialogue and the pace. It was very engaging and an enjoyable story.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in return for my honest review.