Whispers in the Dark

 
 
~WRITING - PLOT - PACE~
So this book was...INTERESTING. Saying I enjoyed it seems a bit weird. It was VERY dark. Maybe one of the darkest I have read to date. It would be wise to heed those trigger warnings because this isn't a book to dip your “dark romance” toe into. That said, it was very well written. I struggled with the pace a bit. For me, it was a bit too long and slow in places. I think the plot could have been tightened up a bit. There were a lot of extra scenes that didn't really add a lot to the overall story. Without them, I think the book would have moved along at a better pace. I loved the ending though.


~HERO~
JACOB...Not really sure what to say about him. He was a super f-cked up anti-hero. He suffered a lot and did a lot of bad stuff. But my heart kind of broke for him, especially in the first part. I don't know that what happened to him excused his behavior, but it made his character a BIT more sympathetic. 


~HEROINE~
ALANA...Alana's character was a bit like having two different characters in one. The kidnapped Alana broke my heart. It was very hard at times to read all she had to go through. But she was a fighter, and I admired her courage and will to survive. I loved the bond her and Jacob shared. The after her escape Alana was a bit hard to buy into. And here is where I think it would have been helpful to have cut some unnecessarily long scenes pertaining to her actions in the present and fleshed out what she had been going through the eight years after she escaped. That issue aside I did rather enjoy the vigilante justice Alana.


 

~SECONDARY CHARACTERS~
This one is fairly light of secondary characters. We have the evil kidnapper and a fellow captive, but other than those two this book was mainly focused on Jacob and Alana.


~HEAT LEVEL~
Low. There really wasn't many “romance” type sex scenes in this one. Mostly A LOT of rape and cruelty. Blood. Knives. Whips. Pain. I didn't go into this one expecting unicorns farting rainbows so I wasn't bothered by the lack of “love” scenes. The scenes we got fit the overall tone of the book.


~ANGST LEVEL~
Low. This wasn't an angsty book in the traditional sense. Obviously, it was a captive book and so there was drama and angst surrounding that. Most of the characters in this one were majorly messed up, so again, we get angst because of that. Jacob was a virgin. Alana was a virgin. There was no OW drama. There was some OM drama Jacob's Dad rapes Alana repeatedly.


~IN THE END~
I liked it. This was my first time reading this author and I will definitely be keeping my eyes peeled to see what she has up her sleeve next. This was a heavy read with A LOT of triggers. It will make your stomach turn in parts. It will make you cry. It will make you cringe. It will even make you cheer and smile at the end. Therefore yours truly is going to give this one a solid thumb and a half up.