Posted by Tobias Tanner on 23rd Apr 2010

Aunt Daisy’s Secret by Lizbeth Dusseau
Reviewed by Tobias Tanner

Aunt Daisy is dead and buried, but her secrets aren’t. Among the minor treasures left for her niece Melanie is an old trunk with a secret compartment, and in that compartment, a bundle of love letters and a diary long forgotten. They are treasures for an old woman’s heart, a testament to awakening passions and lost love. Daisy met and married a young sailor in the halcyon days just before World War II and discovered with him a secret pleasure. Spankings weren’t just for childhood infractions anymore. They were for childish outbursts by a grown woman. Her first with young Joseph was a briskly applied back-of-the-hairbrush spanking, her second a furious flat-hander on the bare backside. And afterwards, the heat burst into flame and there was lovemaking—lots and lots of it.

Melanie reads this confessional with an odd mixture of disbelief and puerile excitement. She has never considered such a thing. Well, maybe never is too strong a word. But, fantasies aside, she had never seriously considered such a thing with her husband—and certainly not of late. They are remodeling Aunt Daisy’s grand old house, she and Tony, and the strain is beginning to tell. Their marriage is not exactly on the rocks, but is definitely drifting through stormy waters toward a lee shore. Something needs to be done. Melanie knows it and Tony knows it. They just don’t know what.

The real secret (there is more than one) is that Melanie’s favorite Aunt knew a whole lot more about things than she ever let on. She also learns that Tony is more of a man than she ever considered possible. Melanie reads the diary and the words translate immediately, paid forward in time to a troubled couple who take those lessons to heart, slowly to be sure, but steadily. Domestic discipline is an experiment that moves them forward. And after a time, it becomes domestic bliss.

Here is a gentle and rather sweet spanking story, an exploration into the dynamics of loving dominance and submission. It is lovingly crafted, too. I liked these people very much. They have depth and perception and humor. And spankings. What more could you ask for? Let me just state for the record that fans of Lizbeth Dusseau need to read this book. It is not her first but is, in fact, her first of this particular genre. There is subtly and tenderness here—a story about love and lovers and loving. And spankings. Did I mention there were spankings? Lots and lots of spankings.