I personally have not read these books but hope to. As some of the others have mentioned, they may not be the best books written, and are probably for most of us here a little on the Vanilla side. However, these books are not meant to be for us. They are in a sense according to the owner of the publishing company that published them Ellora's Cave, "Mommy porn". They are meant for the people in the world who want what we have already found. Don't you get it. The folks that get turned on by these books have no clue what BDSM is. Up until now they all thought we bloody ourselves with whips and chains, hang by hooks, spend our nights in dog cages, or bind our boobs, cocks and balls with ropes.
These books are a fantastic item because they allow people who have not discovered what we are, do or have to see a bit of who we really are. These people, some up until recent have only been presented with the heavy side of BDSM and so in their vanilla minds we are all sick, demented, or perverse. Little do they know that most of us here are their neighbors, their nurses, their brothers or sisters. These books give them a chance to maybe understand us a little better, understand how and why someone could be into what makes most of us here tick.
Everyone has a fetish, something they are hiding that makes them excited, or some quirky thing they are afraid to tell anyone. I have friends who run a very up scale private facility. All of their clients are heavy weights in the community in which they reside. Since the 50 Shades books came out their phone has been ringing off the hook with people from every walk of life suddenly realizing that they are not a freak, sick, or weird because they too have had feelings along the same lines, or because they have always wanted "try" it out but have been too afraid.
These books, while not for most of us here, are in fact a platform for others to discover their innerselves. It is also a catalist for us. The more we come out, the more our little under world gets exposed and put out there the sooner we will be able to come out of hiding. In reality we are in the same boat the gays and lesbiens got out of 20 years ago. People, we can see the shore, if we all start rowing the boat as a team we too will also be able to maybe someday get off the boat too, and out of the closet.
And that's my soap box for one night, lol.
Mashie