Minx

This is the first Sophie Lark book that really touched my heart. Seeing Blake deal with a speech delay in her youth resonated with me as my own daughter is dealing with the same. So it was nice to see representation.

While in most of Sophie Lark's books I feel the story often comes second to the spice, the story really stood out to me this time.

This is my third book by Sophie Lark, and they have been either a hit or miss for me. This was a hit all the way through. There is a particular way to write such stories, to perfect the plot as well as the smut. I will admit that I picked it up for the smut, and as much as the smut was a prominent plot of the book, so was the character development. The characters had substance, the presence of side characters was not abrupt or too short to remember anything about them. The possessiveness of the alpha male had made sense instead of it being ridiculous, but most importantly, there was nothing that possibly made me cringe or feel repulsed.

I think what this book had that others lack in dark contemporary romance books is that this had consent and respect, but what it did not have was protection. There was no mention of condom or contraceptive pills, or any other form of birth control. Our female main character is an escort, she obviously has been with many men and maybe they have discussed it behind the scenes, but there was no mention of it and it kind of bothered me.

The second thing that did not allow me to give this a full five star was the fact that the period blood scene put me off. It was just not my cup of tea and it made me uncomfortable. Otherwise, this book was so good. I loved it.

5✨

There was crack in between the metaphorical pages. Sophie Lark did it again. The writing was impeccable, the pacing was perfection. I know if I ever pick up one of Sophie Larks books, I will not want to put it down and this was no exception. I loved Rasmus obsession with Blake, it wasn't simply because she was smoking hot (which she was) but it was deeper than that. The depth of Blake's character was perfect. We had pained backstories, side characters that completely grew on me, and pained love. HEAR ME OUT there was a third act conflict but let me say this was done incredibly well. It wasn't draw out and they came together like grow adults. It was beautiful.