Micaden's Madness

 

 
What an excellent way to start off the 2019 reading year. I loved everything about this book (not a huge surprise as I really enjoyed the other two books I have read by this author as well). The writing was fantastic. It was told in a dual POV format with a lot of back-and-forth time jumps (something I usually hate but worked very well in this instance). The plot was completely enthralling and held my interest throughout. I didn't feel like this story was as dark as the previous two I have read in this “series”, but I will give a heads up about a trigger that I wish I had known about before starting... this book has a mildly graphic gang rape scene that features the hero as the victim. I am sometimes triggered by this type of scene, so I figured I would give a heads up in case anyone else feels the same. I believe the heroine was raped as well, but there are no scenes of that, and it wasn't 100% clear to me if she had or hadn't. Last it was all wrapped up in a very satisfying ending.


 

Both the main characters were very likable, and when all the truths come to light my heart broke for all the pain and wasted years. The hero wasn't a manwhore. The heroine was a virgin (and 17 when these two first meet). There is no OW drama. There is OM drama in the form of a “baddie.” The sex scenes were suitably hot. It also had a great cast of secondary characters. A mixture of old (from previous books) and new faces. I SOOOO want Arson's book ASAP (I will beg)! (lol) I had one TEENSY issue and I am not sure if it is because I have an ARC copy (hence it still needed to be edited) or what, but the Olivia/Donavon/Tom/Eve situation confused me. I thought Olivia was Eve and Tom was Donavon, but it is never explained (unless I missed an explanation, but I went back to look and found nothing. So maybe they were all different people #confusedpartyofone

All in all, this was a fantastic read, and I can't wait to get my hands on Jaxon's book (even if I wish it were Arson's first (lol).