We recently received a lovely email from Duncan H. enthusing about ‘The Bottom Man’, the new novel by Stephen Sims. We asked Duncan if he wouldn’t mind reviewing the novel for us and he has kindly obliged, so we’re pleased to publish his review here:

I have just finished reading ‘The Bottom Man’ novel by Stephen Sims. I admit I’d been unaware of Stephen’s input into our favourite magazine over the years, so I hesitated about consigning myself to the time it would take to plough through what I imagined might be an overly elongated short story similar to what we’ve already seen. Instead, damn the man, I couldn’t stop reading till I reached the end, by which time I was entirely caught up in the worlds of the two heroes, Jed and Tamar.

This book has the lot – a thundering good narrative with a background of the spanking world and a magazine clearly based on Janus. I’d encourage others to read this bitter-sweet insightful evocation of the lives of a man who wants to spank and a woman who wants to be spanked, but neither knows quite how to go about it. It’s not overloaded with spanking action, the needs we all understand are internalised and explored in ways that are utterly compelling to read. I won’t spoil it for others by revealing the end, but it must surely lead to an action packed sequel. Intriguing, humorous, erotic and always entertaining, the story is also strangely moving in that it’s a love story too.

As if that weren’t enough, the pages are interleaved with something like forty previously unpublished photos from what I assume is the unused archive of Privilege Plus/Club magazines, in black and white and colour, some of which look so intimate and personal to the model concerned that it no doubt explains why they couldn’t previously be shown, but all of which delights the eye and makes each return to its pages an excitingly novel experience. Highly recommended.

Duncan is correct in identifying the many photos as coming from the Privilege archive. There are some wonderful unseen images of Christina Winchester and Lucy Bailey included in the novel (see below).  You’ll find high quality scans of these images from the original negatives and a lot more besides in the pages of ‘The Bottom Man’.

Don’t forget you can still read a free chapter from the novel and Jon Rayworth’s revealing interview with Stephen by clicking on the highlighted links.