Mimi

Lilah Raine's writing has really improved and I'm so happy to see it.

I've tried a few of her books but I could never finish it as I thought the writing wasn't great.

The writing quality of this one is what I'm talking about. I hope she keeps this up. There were a few typos I wish weren't in there but it was a small number so I was able to move past this.

This book had so many tropes I absolutely love in a dark romance, MMC so obsessed with FMC he stalks her, plants surveillance, tampers with her birth control, touch her and die, the breeding kink, spit kink, cockwarming, loves seeing her pregnant with his baby and lactation kink.

I'm not a fan of blood play but there wasn't much of it so it didn't bother me.

I did like both the female and male lead. The female lead was sweet, naive and while normally I don't like stories where the FMC pursues the MMC, I did think it worked quite well. The male lead is obsessed with the FMC but surprisingly a cinnamon roll. He isn't really dark or manipulative apart from the birth control tampering and stalking. He's very respectful of the FMC's comfort.

I do tend to prefer my dark romances slightly darker. Despite how much the MMC liked the FMC he was going to stalk the FMC in the background forever. If it weren't for the FMC taking initiative, they would never have ended up together. He would not have manipulated the circumstances or forced the FMC.

The plot twist with the FMC's best friend took me off guard in a good way. It wasn't a strong plot line but I didn't see it coming.

I also wish we got to see the main couple with their babies but perhaps this is in the epilogue

I did really like this - age gap forbidden romance between a virgin heroine and her boyfriend's father, who schemes behind the scenes to move her in with him. I do wish the book was darker, the manipulation was so good but the FMC readily accepted it when confessed. There was a bit of smut but there wasn't a lot and not the most spicy.

I did like the breeding kink, mistaken identity, the MMC unable to resist going after the FMC into the club and birth control tampering but again, the FMC was very accepting of it so a bit anticlimactic as well. We also missed out on seeing much about the pregnancy despite the breeding kink

The ending felt anticlimactic as well. The meeting of FMC's mother bored me and felt unnecessary

This book is a twin MMCs/step sister FMC fic and it had a lot of tropes I read: breeding kink, obsessed MMC who kills anyone who touches the FMC, spit in mouth, forbidden romance. But the writing and dialogue felt like it wasn't flowing smoothly, the POV changes didn't work well and I found I wasn't really connecting with any of the characters, didn't care about them and wasn't feeling the chemistry.

The smut didn't feel spicy and the ending abrupt. No pregnancy in this book and though it was mentioned once, no lactation kink. The plot felt flawed, half-baked and disjointed. Eg the hunt sounded significant but nothing really happened, I still don't get why Sinkler hated Harper while supposedly being obsessed with her - I don't buy waiting for the hunt as the reason, it made no sense. It was a bit of everything where nothing was properly explored

It had potential but the writing wasn't great. It was all telling, no showing, descriptive language or even much dialogue.

It was an OK read. I do love reading spicy books but this book was full of spanking as opposed to smut. There is sharing but only for spanking. Essentially if spanking is your thing, you'd love this book.

For me, this book was actually rather slow and I found myself getting bored of the repetitive maintenance week spankings. I was interested in Lacey and Hunter's attraction to each other and the move to White Valley but took more than half the book to get to these plot points.

I wouldn't reread this one but I'm curious enough to see what White Valley is like.

I really liked the first half of this book. An unhinged male lead obsessed with the female lead he's secretly been stalking her for years, killing any men who hurt her including his brother. To the female lead, the male lead is her best friend and just the nicest guy. Secretly the male lead has already claimed her as his and is just waiting for all his scheming to pan out.

I was hooked on the first half but the second half lost me. I was bored from when the female lead and the male lead's friendship started breaking down. The male lead's niece suddenly became a huge plot point. I don't get why everyone just expected the female lead to be OK with her when she is the evidence of her fiancé cheating on her. I didn't like the whole Alicia plot and I didn't like her, especially the role she played in the end.

I also wish the male lead's schemes were kept hidden from the female lead and she never found out about any of it. I hated everything that happened from it. It instantly just dropped from 3-4 to 1-2 stars.

The non HEA ending was definitely 1 star. I would have liked the non HEA to be the two leads together though the female lead would be reluctant. Whatever that was just destroyed any positive feelings I still had about the book.

The HEA was a little better but again, I hated the direction of it, Alicia's role and the ending just felt like forced advertisement for the next book

I love second chances but I really wanted DNF this book. It didn't hold my interest from the start. I only continued because it's an Emily Henry book.

There was some chemistry between the leads but I didn't care about either of the leads or any of the side characters. I really didn't like the plot from start to finish and the writing couldn't hook me at all. I found myself skimming all the way. The ending especially was disappointing - the female leads abandons her career to move in with her ex. It's framed as if she did it because she discovered she hated her job and discovered her lifelong passion for pottery.

Firstly, we commenced the book reading about how the female lead enjoyed even the menial aspects of her work at the hospital. She got along great with her coworkers. And pottery was only ever pursued as a relaxing hobby, she has never monetized it before.

Unless she's rich, the two leads are going to be stuck in the same situation as previously but reversed in Montana. She'll be stuck with a minimum wage job while her ex has a satisfying career. This seems like they're repeating the same mistakes as the past.

DNF31%


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Attempt two resulted in my finishing this book and I can say I liked this book OK, though I wouldn't reread.

I really liked the tropes in this book: a manipulative MMC who doesn't accept no from the FMC. He would threaten all of her friends, plant hidden surveillance to track her and listen in on her conversations, force marriage, go ballistic at the thought of her sleeping with other men, tamper with her birth control to ensure she never leaves and just can't get enough of her.

What stopped this book from hitting reread quality is I can't say I liked or disliked either of the main leads. I wasn't all that invested in the characters themselves - they were just OK. It was the male lead's antics and obsessiveness with the female lead that kept me reading. There is smut in this book but I didn't find the scenes spicy unfortunately.

The miscommunication between the leads when the female lead refused to believe the male lead didn't have anything to do with Jeannie's death also frustrated me. I felt pretty bad for the male lead because for all his faults, he doesn't lie to the female lead, so the female lead should have immediately believed him when he denied responsibility for it. Luckily it didn't drag on too long.

I normally love breeding kink/forced pregnancy in dark romance so I was excited to see it but I feel like this wasn't well explored in this book. The male lead was remorseful and owned up to doing it very quickly. It's the right thing to do but I prefer it when the male lead stays bad from start to end.

The ending was also very abrupt. I would have loved an epilogue with the female and male lead with their baby.

I struggled to rate this a 1 or 2.

I hated the plot of this book.

I was looking to a 3 star at the start. Mateo has officially stopped caring about Meg and I liked the relationship between Mateo and Mia.

And it was getting all interesting with Dante planning to overthrow Mateo but it was all fake? To keep Meg alive? That was the most frustrating thing - the most intriguing plot twist was never going to happen because it was never real.

Meg should not be alive. In fact, it was out of character for her to have turned her gun on Dante at all knowing she was surrounded by 3 armed mob bosses and Mateo subdued in the floor.

And I hated Mia playing happy family with the kids that Mateo had with the other woman he fucked and impregnated while with her. Especially Roman. And Mia is still friends with her? Just no.

I was so excited when Vince's name popped up and he started to talk about vengeance but more than half the book was him falling in love with a Mia lookalike and I just completely skipped through those scenes. And this was half the book.

The only parts I liked were Vince's interactions with Mia at the mansion and him having the conversation with Mateo about wanting to spend time with his son. The goading was so good I've reread it.

Baby Dom is the highlight of the book. Vince was finally standing his ground on something. And seeing Mateo thrown for the first time at the thought of possibly losing Mia felt so satisfying. The scene where Vince begs for a relationship with his son is so sad. Mateo indeed has everything he ever wanted

It equally angered me saying Meg's son steal from Dom and Vince was right to be concerned Mia would be too soft to stand up for his son if Mateo had to choose between Dom and his other biological children. Mateo should not have even had children with Meg.

Rafe/Meg/Laurel felt so unnecessary and forced as a side couple/love triangle that I also skipped through those.

I would have preferred Rafe/Mia.

I wish the epilogue with Mia and Mateo's new baby, not Vince with his Mia lookalike though

It was almost a 3 stars or even 4 stars. I loved Mateo's POV of Accidental Witness and his pining over Mia. I had no idea he tried to get Mia pregnant! It was such a shame it didn't work out. It would have prevented the entire sequence of events in the entire serjes

This book lost me at the reminder of Meg and all of the scenes of them as ‘sister-wives'.

I struggle to buy Mateo loved Mia the whole time, when he fucked, impregnated and proposed to Meg. This was even after he got back together with Mia. And this was for four years. Years of Mia sharing Mateo with Meg and bonding with children that aren't even hers.

And in this book, the nerve of him to complain about 7 children at the end. It IS all of Mateo's fault. It was his choice to impregnate Meg, fuck her for 5 years, even knowing he loved Mia the whole time and her relationship with Vince was not going to last.

I also hated Meg's POV and her bonding with Rafe. Her ‘friendship' with Mia just destroys my soul everytime I read about it

Mia deserved so much better. Everything post Meg really made me wish Mia went back to Vince.

I also agree we should have gotten Mateo's POV while Mia was in Vegas. I would have loved seeing him completely lose his mind. Or even that breakup scene where Colin calls Mateo to tell him Mia was going to leave him for Vince again.

I did really like the scene with Mia, Tristan and Mateo, though I would have loved to see Dom again too

The plot of this was horrible. I swear I lost twenty years of my life reading the Meg/Mateo/Mia drama.

I still hated Meg throughout this book. In fact I hated her even more in this book.

I was really disappointed in Mia and Mateo in this book, especially Mateo.

I was horrified to read that the sister-wives situation continued for 4 years. Not a few months. Years. And then Meg is pregnant again. And Mateo says to Mia's face he doesn't want a son with her and doesn't want her pregnant.

I don't buy Mateo's redemption that he only kept Meg around as Mia wanted a friend. He definitely knew Mia was possessive and not happy with the sharing situation. Yet did it anyway. For years. And I know they called it a sister-wife situation but Meg was right, Mia is the side piece. Mateo continued to respect Meg's wishes that she be the only one to carry Mateo's children. And clearly Mateo was still bedding Meg with passion, taking her on solo vacations and saying “I love you” to her despite him claiming he only loved Mia.

I never thought I'd say this because I did root for Mia and Mateo together but I really wanted her to have some self respect and leave Mateo. She was in denial but she was a side piece, and she wasn't having Mateo's baby.

I was so glad when Vince showed up. I was actually excited to see him putting doubts in Mia's head about her relationship with Mateo. And he was even willing to have children with her. But to my frustration, she kept aggravating Vince and refused to give him a chance. She would set aside her own wants for biological children and mother other people's children. An idiot.

It became easier to read after Meg was out of the picture and I was considering 3 stars. I liked how Mia was still firm on protecting Vince. But Meg's forced coupling with Rafe, Francesca warming to Meg and Mia's continued friendship with her was frustrating as I just wanted her gone.

And even though Meg and Mateo aren't together anymore, it doesn't change they had children first and one of them is Mateo's actual heir. Mia deserves so much better.

I was hoping Mia would run away with Vince's baby in fear Mateo would mistreat the child but she didn't.

There is smut in this book but I couldn't even like it because I just wanted Mia to leave Mateo and see him fight for her

I did like Mia's friendship with Adrian and Sal, though I miss her friendship with Mark

The best plot arc was Mia finally going against Mateo and him actually caving on Vince's baby. Isn't ironic for Mateo that he had four years to impregnate Mia but he didn't want to only for someone else to swoop in? I loved seeing Mia's maternal side

Finally a proper continuation of Vince/Mia/Mateo.

I loved seeing Mateo's manipulative and villain side again where he's trying to get Mia back with him again.

What I hated was this “sister wife” thing Mateo had going on. He supposedly wants Mia, but still sleeps with, says “I love yous” and is still having a baby with Meg. And he agrees with Meg not to have a baby with Mia and he would stop seeing Mia if it made her uncomfortable anytime.

As much I love Mateo and Mia and hate Meg, this made me pretty uncomfortable and felt wrong.

As much as I love doormat female leads, I wish Mia had more self respect and willpower to say no. And she said yes to Mateo while still dating Vince.

I loved how angry Mateo and Vince got when Mia tried to end things with each of them. I would have LOVED Mateo's POV when he received the phone call from Colin while on a date with Meg

I loved seeing her pull away from Mateo when she was with Vince, when she was grieving and her disappointment she wasn't having Vince's baby. And his frustration that he couldn't fully have her. Finally some grovel from him!

I don't necessarily like her with Vince while Mateo was in the picture but his final hug with her changed my mind. Vince was willing to work on their relationship and I hate how Mia would rather cheat and be a side piece for Mateo than reduce her time with Mateo to Sunday dinners. I just wish she'd have more self-respect.

And Mia then deciding after Vince's “death” she'd leave Mateo and be with Vince properly if she could go back in time and Vince is still alive. I really liked that. Vince didn't deserve the relationship ending he got.

I wish Mia took Mateo up on leaving the mansion for a city apartment, went through with a suicidal attempt or tried going back to Vince after finding out he isn't dead. I just really hate the threesome relationship and want Mateo to actually fight for Mia and grovel a bit.

I also loved Mateo's jealousy over Mark.

I hated every moment of this story because I hated Meg and I hated her and Mateo's love story.

I was hoping for more exploration of the love triangle between Mateo/Vince/Mia. But Mateo moved on just like that? He wasn't a dark villain in this either.

It was just not believable that he would substitute gas for water instead of actually threatening Meg when Mateo found out she was trying to assassinate him. She was a stranger at this point, it made zero sense.

It didn't even feel like a dark romance. It's just a mafia romance.

Meg was just weird and unlikeable. She was trying to come across as fun and dorky but I hated her. When Mateo actually requited her feelings, said “I love you”, proposed and had a baby with her? Just no.

I really should have DNF but I only kept going because the series apparently needs to be read in order and I was forewarned that Mia comes back to play a bigger role later on. The only bit worth reading in this book was that first Sunday dinner scene when Meg meets Mia for the first time and assumes she's Mateo's ex.

The forced coupling at the end of Cherie felt unnecessary and forced also

I was so excited to see Kate Raven had released something new. There is still no dark romance out there that matches the unhingeness/possessiveness of Tanner with forced breeding/pregnancy/marriage.

This one is a novella, so a short read.

First of all, the good. I can feel Kate's writing improving and much better proof reading. There was one odd grammar issue but it was an outlier and didn't bother me.

This story also has the forced breeding/pregnancy/birth control tampering that I love, with forced marriage and a male lead who isn't afraid to scheme and manipulate to get the female lead by his side. It also has the forbidden step sibling romance trope and lactation kink in it which was new and I really liked.


In this book I wish things were fleshed out more.

I found everything to do with the cult very confusing.

Throughout the book, there were constant references to a past between the leads that wasn't revealed until the end and it felt like the reveal was too slow.

I think this book would have benefited from going in chronologically order - starting from the day the lead's met each other. The female lead would have been friends with the male lead and genuinely enjoyed his company. Even though, the male lead was constantly trying to reign in his feelings to keep the female lead close. Or maybe the male lead was tricking the female lead into thinking certain romantic things were normal between step siblings.

Then, the female lead started getting bullied at school. Maybe the female lead was keeping the bullying from the male lead. But the male lead eventually found out by spotting her injuries and sought vengeance on her behalf, only for the violence and the revelation of his feelings to scare her away into confessing to the church to get him away from her. This really would have explored the forbiddeness of the step sibling dynamic.

Then time jump into years later. The female lead talks about her step dad suddenly asking them all to move to a small town for a better life 3 years ago and she's finding she's loving her life... only to then have her step brother reappear in her life.

I would have loved if her feelings for William were explored more so we could have had an unhinged jealousy scene.

I thought the female lead had a change of heart about the cult too quickly. She didn't seem shocked and uneasy when her parents started cleaning her shoe and even told her stepdad to clean it more thoroughly. It just seemed out of character when she was still a devout believer of The Eye. She just instantly became a non-believer.

I also thought her ‘I love you' confession to Saul came too abruptly. Her sudden love for him just because she became pregnant seemed to come out of nowhere.

This book was also nowhere near as spicy as the Catcher. I think there were only 2 smut scenes in this novella.

I'm struggling on whether to rate this 3 or 4 star. It's not the spiciest book but wow the romance and the manipulation by Matteo kept me hooked and I finished the book in one sitting.

It would be a 4 star read if Mia and Matteo's story continues. But a 3 star read if Mia actually ends up with Vince like this.

Even though I knew there was couple switching in this series, I was still in awe of how it was done. I initially thought Vince and Mia were end game, though the smut was sparse and non-descriptive.

However, Matteo's romance with Mia hit all of the dark romance tropes I love reading, a manipulative/cunning male lead who schemes to get the female lead by his side, birth control non-consent, mistaken identity, non-con - all of those kept me on my toes and I loved that. Matteo is a true villain from start to end

This was a really fun short read. Male lead is a mafia boss while also the CEO of a legitimate company where the female lead works. The female lead is his executive assistant who due to her aging grandma decides she wants to become a mother.

Enter in our male lead who notices her browsing for sperm donor and immediately loses it, proposing he will become the father of the child in exchange for her being his fake wife, though with real marriage papers. I loved the male lead's scheming side though it was very light.

For a breeding story, it actually wasn't spicy with only one smut scene in the novella towards the end.
Parts of it was funny like the London Mathematics society, though it would have been funnier if the female lead was naive and genuinely believed the male lead.

I really liked reading it until the 75% mark where I felt the male lead's confession came too quickly and rushed the pacing - I would have preferred some smut before we got to this point. So a 4 star read until that mark, then it was a 3 star read

Overall a fun read I wouldn't mind rereading some time.

I struggled with how to rate this whether it'd be 1 or 2 stars. I would not reread this book.

I didn't care for any of the characters in this book. I hated the plot. The pacing felt slow. The female lead's poisoning experiments confused me. Contrary to other reviews, I thought this was very light on smut and was very plot centric.

The only reason the book is above 1 star is I did like the MMC's lust for the FMC - he stopped wanting other blood, pined for her body, the scene where the MMC liked to leave marks on her, the hugging/soothing/comforting, the MMC saying he would never forgive her if she died and the smut in chapter 38 with the male lead tricking the female lead forced knotting/mating at the end suited my dark romance tastes.

This was quickly ruined by the FMC revealing she had been non conned numerous times by a side character off page in the past in the same chapter. And then there is descriptive non con, blood drinking and biting of the FMC by a side character as well which I hated. What made it worse is the male lead just stood by and did nothing while this side character, who is also the villain in the story, did all this. He didn't try and save her nor did he try to harm the side character. This destroyed even the romance part of the nook, which was its only redeeming quality, for me. This is the same male lead who chopped off someone's head for insulting the female lead. He didn't even visit the female lead immediately after she was captured - I kept waiting for him to save her and he didn't even have a plan.

The male lead actually knew who the side male character was early on and what his motivations were. Instead of warning the female lead and or even the female lead's friend, the male lead just stood by and continued to let the side male character approach the female lead, eventually leading to her capture.

What didn't make sense is with them all being in the same vampire nest, how did the male lead not know who Lukas looks like?

Even without knowing what this side character, Lukas, looked like though the male lead knew the side character was on his father's payroll early on. Despite this, the male lead didn't try approaching his father to try and prevent the female lead's capture. He is his father's oldest son yet acted as if he had no knowledge or power.

Once the male lead knew what the side character looked like, he didn't kill, confront or stop the villain from hurting the female lead further either. Again just stood by and watched

And why would the female lead even be poisoning vampires in the first place when vampires have hosts that volunteer? And the poisons don't even work so why is it such a big deal for the vampires that Lukas was hired in the first place?

It all made zero sense.

And female lead running away as the ending just seemed unrealistic with how advanced the vampire nest's ability to investigate and track people down, in addition to all of this going down in a party full of vampires. The female lead poisoned one vampire, not the entire nest.

I probably should have DNF this book but I wanted to finish it because it was short and I've seen it recommended at a few different online forums and wanted to give it a go.

It was unfortunately a 1-2 stars for me. The writing to me seemed very choppy and the plot overly simplistic. There is a bit of smut but not memorable. I also think it's not dark enough to be classified as a dark romance

I love forbidden romances and a male lead that blackmails the female lead into a relationship.

In this book however, the female lead pretty much accepts the male lead's blackmail right away and doesn't fight her feelings or the male lead's feelings at all. She's not even a doormat for the male lead, she just happens to instalust too. There is no sexual tension. It didn't feel like a forbidden teacher/student romance novel at all.

There is a pairing of two side characters in the story that felt forced and unnecessary.

None of the main leads were likeable - I didn't dislike them but I just didn't really care for them or their love.

There is a brief moment at the end where the main couple are blackmailed by the male lead's mother. The female lead jumps the gun and breaks up with the male lead.

But the female lead essentially comes back to the male lead almost immediately after saying she loves him and it's like the blackmail never happened and they live happily ever after. There is no chase or grovel. The blackmail essentially just disappears in thin air.

Wouldn't reread

The first 40% was one of the most boring piece I've writing I've read. What I loved about the series was Poppy and Casteel's romance, their chemistry, their banter and their smut.

The plot of the series was interesting but this book was clearly an example of the plot dragging. There were a whole bunch of unnecessarily complex plot points that added nothing to the overall story. The Veera thing for example. And the drakens were hyped up to be game changers and will wipe out all revenants but they barely contributed. Just picked a few off. Poppy's magic also could have saved a whole of battle time but again rarely used unnecessarily dragging out all the battle scenes

I was so tempted to DNF so many times but kept going because I wanted to see Casteel and it took almost half the book to even get there.


There were also so many people speaking in riddles to unnecessarily drag out the plot as well. For example Millicent could have easily just told Casteel everything but instead just tells him he's wrong but she won't bother telling him because she'll need to start explaining the history from the old realm times. Well, hello? How else are the main characters going to stop Isbeth if you don't tell them everything you know.


I also hated the heartmate coupling of Millicent and Malik. It felt forced and unnecessary.

Everything was so much better once Casteel and Poppy were together again in the second half of the book - the way he's obsessed over her, their smut and their relationship with Kieran. Omg I didn't expect to dig the joining but I loved it as well as all of the smut scenes. We finally got to see Casteel lose control! Now that Poppy has fangs, I wonder what scenes we'll get now!

The romance is 4 or 5 stars. Really liked Poppy, Kieran and Casteel, even loved them.

But the plot is just nonsensically dragged out and complicated now and I hate it. It really should have been a 4 book series with the first half of this book deleted

I would only reread the spice in the second half of this book

I really liked this book.

I'm not usually a RH reader as I don't see chemistry between the female lead and all of the men, or I get confused who's who so I was skeptical there were 7 men in this one but I really enjoyed this and had to force myself to put this book down to sleep, otherwise I would have finished this in one day.

The female lead was young when we meet her but I didn't get an ick vibe at all.

I liked reading all the smut in this - there is no MM action, it was all female lead focused, punishment sex, dirty talk, dom/sub dynamics, overstimulation, gangbang. There is choking and a bit of knife play though which I don't like but it wasn't a big theme

I liked the female leads and the male leads - the female lead's hypochondria, OCD and germaphobia all added positively to the male leads comforting the female lead dynamics and endeared her to me.

Her innocence when it came to sexual education also resulted in some funny moments.

The plot while wasn't mind blowing was a fine read. Romance took the centre stage which I really liked.

I didn't find the pacing slow anywhere or anywhere cringe. There were plot twists I didn't see coming

I wish there was more blood drinking or the male leads being jealous of another male character though

I wouldn't be in a hurry to reread this book but I would definitely be open to it

This was almost a 4 star - forbidden stepfather/innocent step daughter romance with breeding kink and decent smut - a non con somno scene was the biggest highlight.

What dragged it down by a star was the plot at the end. About 90% of the book was romance focused which I liked. Then there was a big reveal and villain scene that I thought packed too much action in it and I didn't like any of the plot that went down. I find it odd that the female lead's mother could even orchestrate a whole explosive/burn the whole building plan - she's not mafia and the leads would definitely have noticed if anyone of that sort was invited into the house therefore thwarting the villain's plans.

The so-called Savage Six that the book alluded to as having a lot of power pretty much did nothing except act as fire wardens?

I almost DNF this book and only finished because it was a short book.

This book essentially was 3 smut scenes between the female lead and a different husband slapped together in one book. The smut scenes were not really interconnected or linked to each other and each scene was just OK.

There is a group scene between the female lead and all 3 husbands towards the end as an epilogue that would have tied it all together but that scene is cut off before it even gets off the ground.

The names of the husbands were also really weird and cringe. Mr Black, Mr Blue and Mr Red? Really?

And the ‘powers' the female lead has in this book is weird. This is a contemporary book, not paranormal/fantasy. It was just odd and served no real purpose.

This was so close to being a 4 star, I even briefly contemplated 5 star because it hit definite-reread-quality but I really hated a moment about 90%-95% of the book.

Male lead, part of a gang, kidnaps and instalusts a naive rich female lead. There is a good non con/dub con scene and then the leads part ways for months only to meet again after the female lead gets lost on her way to college.

The male lead corrupts her, takes care of her, protects her and he is definitely an obsessed touch-her-and-die boyfriend, while she is clueless of their history. He drops everything to make sure no one but him hurts her and cares about all of the things she wants - fuschia, Taylor swift, the pink bracelet - it was so cute. This was all 4 star - I really liked the leads and their romance - I just didn't want to put my book down.


There were two moments that were odd in the book after the male/female lead had a fight in North Shore, once at the male lead's house, the second at the warehouse, the male lead's just let her walk out seeking her own transportation despite knowing he has enemies and how dangerous North Shore is? He, the same boyfriend that freaked out about the female lead getting a cut to her knee (which I loved)? It made no sense.

I loved how controlling the male lead was. I loved how he refused to let the female lead break up with him. But I wish the female lead didn't cave during a fight as soon as he kissed her. It was fun the first time but afterwards, I really wanted some grovel because our male lead is a bad boy


What I really hated, and what dropped the whole thing by a star and means it's in maybe reread or do not reread quality, is an out of character scene were the female lead apparently schemed the whole scene between her father and the male lead, leading to the revelation of various truths.

Perhaps it was trying to show the female lead had grown a backbone due to the male lead's influence but it was so out of character of the female lead I thought it was unbelievable and hated it.

And the only dirt the senator had was he orchestrated the kidnapping of her daughter? It was a good plot twist but also was so let down that this was the only dirt on him. Just seemed so anticlimactic.


And the female lead's mother being unaware of all the abuse going on between the father and the female lead was so unbelievable. The mother was in the same building and sometimes same room when the female lead was being mistreated. Therefore the big reconciliation between the female lead and her mother just felt like a forced happy ending

I was really torn on 2 or 3 stars. I really liked that it was spicier than other Ali Hazelwood books, I liked the pining the male lead showed the female lead, I liked the cameo of Adam/Olive and I really liked the epilogue. The ending felt a lot less abrupt than other Ali Hazelwood books.


But I didn't like the plot of this book.

The male lead's ties with his ex was really unfair on the female lead - his failure to announce a proper breakup leading to people around them thinking they were cheating on Pen. The male lead's friends even told him once they thought he was cheating but he still left the situation as is, only clarifying with his friends he isn't with his ex anymore, leading to the whole avoidable drama at the end.

The male lead was also too much at his ex's beck and call. Despite being broken up and starting something with the female lead's friends, he let his ex hold him, hug him, kiss him, sit on his lap, bypass his emergency call system and dropped everything including the female lead to be with her. At this point, I was thinking the female lead deserves better.

When his ex wants to get back with him, there is a small scene with the female lead where he expresses his anger at the situation but after that, he's right back to being overly friendly with his ex.

There is also a ridiculous scene with the male lead ghosts the female lead to try and prove he doesn't need her. And the female lead takes him back just like that?

And Pen, the male lead's ex, hated her. I can't believe the female lead still got matching tattoos with her despite the catty behavior already starting and the make up towards the end where they're friends again and forgiven? Hated it. Pen should not have been forgiven

This was better than the last book - Peter being obsessed with Sara and refusing to let her go is still what holds the book together.

I almost thought of giving this a three star because of it because he was wearing her down, there is some smut and there was a bit of breeding kink.

But ultimately there is so little romance and chemistry between the leads I settled on 2 stars and giving up on this series.

Peter is not dark for a dark romance. And Sara wavers between having feelings for Peter and wanting to leave him forever so much that her inconsistent actions started annoying me. She had no idea what she wanted and it just really dragged