Search - Undercover (Federation, Bk 1)

Lauren Dane is one of the better authors out there doing erotic romance. Dane's a very good storyteller, creative, witty, and capable of drawing original characters and plots and breathing life into her tales. Dane has used domination and submission in several of her books to varying degrees with and without menage. In Undercover, a futuristic novel, she uses D/s and menage in combination.

Undercover is set in set once upon a time, somewhere in space - not Earth's future. Lieutenant Sera Ayers of the Federation Military Corps has been summoned by her commanding officer, Subcommander Yeager, for new orders - not with the team she's worked so hard to get.

Pissed off and ready for a fight she gets more than she bargained for when Commander Ash Walker, her lover and 'master' ten years ago, is there - as her new boss. She greets him as he deserves - "F**k you," she snarls, landing a solid right hook to his jaw. (Two thumbs up for Sera.)

Ten years ago Ash Walker taught Sera how to surrender and be his submissive. An interpreter for the diplomatic corps, after the break up with Ash, she moved to the military corps. The Federation is dominated by the Ranked Families, old extended business/blood lines that effectively run the Federation and employee the vast majority of the people outside the military. The Federation is trying to keep the Imperialists (Fascists) from winning control of anymore of the outer systems. The war has been going on for many years and it's the ordinary people that have been doing the bulk of the fighting and dying. Both Ash and his partner Paracommander Brandt Pela are both from high Ranking Families.

Sera has rebuilt her life and wants nothing to do Ash Walker, but Ash isn't giving her any options. She's forced to report to her new quarters where Ash and Brandt live. A confrontation after dinner in their quarters when Ash collars Sera with his hands has Ash on the floor with Sera's boot on his throat. Brandt just manages to get her to calm down so he can speak with her, but he realizes she’s just barely holding it together. After convincing Sera that she really needed to pose as a concubine she's hit with the last bit of information - Brandt is the brother of the woman Ash married. Her break up with Ash happened after he professed his love for Sera then the next day offered her a contract as his mistress with her own apartment near the new house where he and his wife would live.

After Sera sends them away, Brandt and Ash realize this might be too much (Ya think?), but Ash wants Sera back - and he wants Brandt too, the three of them together. Brandt and Ash have a longstanding sexual relationship and switch back and forth on the dominant role. Ash wants Sera and knows he made a huge mistake with her. He broke more than her heart, he broke trust, and that will take a great deal to overcome.

As the story progresses, the three struggle to begin functioning as they will be expected to on Nondal. Since Sera will be posing as Brandt's concubine, this includes growing used to his touch - among other things. Sera even gets hair extensions, semi-permanent makeup and body sculpting to look more like a true Nondal concubine. Her real problem isn't getting into the role of sexual submissive, it's can she get back out when the mission is done?

Dane does a balancing act here between Sera the military officer and Sera/Sela the sexual submissive concubine. The relationship that Brandt builds with her is more than cover, it's what he wants for real. Ash wants to get back with her and a run in with his ex-wife, Kira, on Nondal gives him the chance to reestablish his bond with her and to start the relationship as a permanent menage.

I genuinely liked Sera, Ash and Brandt and enjoyed their story, even if I do have problems understanding D/s, it never really bothered me much here. Sera is smart, strong and independent and doesn't roll over for Ash and Brandt like some simpering wimp. Both men must exert considerable emotional energy get and keep the relationship working and convince Sera to make this arrangement permanent. In the end, Sera does have the pleasure of seeing the snobs caught in the web of their own making. The sex is hot and the D/s elements didn't overwhelm the love part till it felt twisted, as it so often does to me in BDSM stories. There is far more sex here than in her previous books. Sometimes it felt like the sex was thrown in because there simply hadn't been any for awhile, so someone said "let's add some sex here". The established relationship between Ash and Brandt is very well done, quite believable and adds depth to the story. I just wish Dane had expended more time and effort developing the surrounding story which would have taken the book up several notches. This was not up to her usual storytelling quality.

I gave it 3.7*

Ten years ago Sera walked away from Ash. Due to his social status he could never get married to her and was forced to marry another women. Ash offered Sera the status of being his mistress which hurt her deeply. Now working as an officer for the federation she is forced to work with Ash and Brandt to expose traitors within the Federation. Sera is furious because she has to pose as Brandt's concubine so they can gather evidence. She is fighting her attraction to Brandt and really hates herself for still having feelings for Ash.
Ash has never stopped loving Sera and now that he is no longer married he wants to pick up where he left off. In the beginning he comes across as an unfeeling jerk and Brandt defuses alot of the tension between Sera and Ash. Since Sera is supposed to be Brandt's concubine she has to get used to him making love to her and touching her. Sera starts falling in love with him also and after forgiving Ash they start a menage a trois relationship. Both Ash and Brandt are dominants and Sera loves to submit in the bedroom only. There is some m/m interaction , some flogging and spanking. I would consider this light BDSM. There was no humiliation, slave or masters. Even during the sex scenes you could feel the love and respect both males had for Sera.
If you enjoy a well paced story with alot of graphic sex, mild BDSM and a HEA menage a trois then you will enjoy this book.

This story was awful. I regret wasting my money on this book.

Futuristic/SFR with a relationship driven plot. I’m not saying there isn’t action but much of it is sexual. Since this is a ménage book, a great deal of time is spent on scenes exploring combinations of one, two and three partners. [Despite the heroine assuring them she is okay with 'boy touching' - her words, not mine - the two guys are into her and not each other. They are emotionally intimate, and there is an occasional kiss or caress - but it's on the way to what they really want, her.] Light BDSM elements – bedroom submission, a few toys, spanking…

The book opens with the heroine, Sera, storming into her superior’s office demanding to be sent back to her unit. He refuses and introduces her to her new unit, Brandt Pela and Ash Walker. She decks Ash, puts Brandt on the ground when he tries to block the door, and storms back out. Eventually she is forced to listen – she has been assigned to work with these two in a covert intelligence unit – for reasons having to do with her skills, not her past with Ash.

Both Brandt and Ash are Ranked [think English aristocracy, especially before the introduction of the House of Commons.] Ranked men are not supposed to do more than play around with unranked women. Sera is unranked. Ten years ago Sera and Ash were together and, she thought, deeply in love. The shock when she found out he was engaged to be married and he asked her to be his official Mistress was devastating. She left him, and any thought of love, behind.

The mission necessitates her being a ‘mistress’ to one of the men since the society they will be entering requires it and they need someone to spy at that level. She refuses to have anything to do with Ash but agrees to do it with Brandt. Circumstances [of the extremely obvious plot device variety] occur that require her to be the mistress of both of them…

The threesome work well together in the bedroom and on the mission. They succeed in tracking down the traitors and bringing the proof back to their superiors, proof that rocks the comfortable world of the Ranked…

Ash wants her back – desperately. The wife he was forced to marry divorced him seven years ago so he is now free, but as a second son he still cannot marry without his father’s permission – permission that he could not get ten years ago and cannot get now.

Brandt had heard a great deal about Sera from his best friend and he falls deeply in love with her. And his father is much more liberal than Ash’s..

Sera learns about the realities of being Ranked and finally understands why Ash did what he did ten years ago. She slowly begins to trust again, both Ash AND Brandt…





Federation Chronicles

1. Undercover

2. Relentless



Phantom Corps

3. Insatiable

4. Mesmerized

5. Captivated

This book is not good as the second book in the Federation series. The heroine is reunited with the much higher ranking aristocrat who devastated her years earlier by leaving her to marry a more politically connected woman. Of course now that he's divorced, he wants the heroine back. It reminded me of the old adage "Never make someone a priority who treats you as an option." Too bad the heroine didn't know that saying. I thought he need to squirm some more and beg her forgiveness for a lot longer. He put her through so much, but I didn't feel he had suffered enough. Call me a sadist. The plot could have been better. The plot disappears after several chapters. The heroine's close relationship with a strong secondary character just happens. That relationship needed to be developed a lot more. I didn't find the strength of their connection so believable because it happened far too quickly. The heroine starts off strong, but ends up not as strong by the end of the story. I was disappointed by that. This book has a lot of explicit sex and not just the vanilla variety either. If that kind of thing bothers you, don't read it. While the hero and his best friend do indulge in some m/m action, it's really nothing much. I felt the author wanted to add m/m to spice up the romance, but she didn't want to commit to writing an entire scene or two about it. Either she should have left out the type of thing or she should have committed fully to having m/m love scenes.

Lauren's books get better over time. Being one of her earlier ones, Undercover has some challenges, but I give it a 3.5/5.

Sera started out strong, with a righteous fury that she really owned. But the setting quickly stripped her of that (somewhat by necessity) and by the time she can be herself again she's fallen for the object of her fury. So that felt a bit quick and somewhat of a letdown.

The D/s aspects of the book were cursory - this isn't a D/s book in and of itself. Still, the sex is hot as usual. The setting is really interesting (and gets better in book 2!), and I'm not disappointed that I read it.