Cat’s Stats
MMC/FMC- Frank and Emily
Genre- is there such a genre as Depraved Romance? No? We should start one.
Length- about 329 pages
Heat- um, 95% of it is dub con or straight up non con/R, so I wouldn’t exactly call it hot per se. It’s complicated.
Series? Y
Safety? Hahahahahahahaha… right. Honey, if you are looking for “safe” you won’t find it.
Triggers- seriously, this book has more triggers than an NRA convention. You really need to check the TW in the front matter of the book. A small sampling of some triggers are extreme descriptive violence, detailed medical gore, explicit and graphic erotic content, substance/alcohol issues, pregnancy loss, non con (i.e. on page grape) and dub con, BC tampering, abduction, captivity, discussion of past child abuse… and there’s more. What I listed is the triggers at the redneck swap meet rather than the full-on NRA convention.
Tropes- Captor/Captive, Stalker, Fairy Tale Retelling (Rumpelstiltskin), Second Chance, Stockholm Syndrome, Five Pounds of Crazy In a Three-Pound Bag, Medical Romance, Who Was That Masked Man?
Mewsings
I just finished the book and now I’m wondering… does the fact that I love this get added to the list of Reasons I Am Probably Going To Spend Time In Hell, or should I add it to the list of Reasons My Psychiatrist Will Never Lack For Business?
Man, this book is good. Man, this book is twisted. And I love it. Behaviors that would send up red flags and set them on fire in real life are somehow more than acceptable, even attractive here (and we can add this to that long, long list of reasons Why My Psychiatrist Will Never Lack For Business).
Not to say it isn’t hard to read. It is. Above, I mentioned a few of the many triggers, and I am serious when I say that these, and more, are all in this book. But if you have no triggers, or if you can be mentally prepared and get yourself into the right mindset, it’s very good. I’m not going to talk about what triggers me; that’s personal and everyone’s triggers are different anyway. But I was able to get myself into the right headspace so that I could read about these events without being triggered. The writing is that good.
There’s something very appealing about a crazy MMC (and I know from crazy). It’s freeing and tempting and there’s no coloring inside the lines. But the hero isn’t the only crazy one here. Well, besides me, of course. The FMC has her own demons that she dances with in the moonlight, and these help her endure the torture while captivating the MMC.
I don’t think any other author I’ve read has had the MMC do such diabolical things to a FMC and STILL had me thinking that he wasn’t evil. And the Stockholm Syndrome actually starts to make sense! It’s not that he’s a good person, because he’s not, right from the get go; he comes across as someone with some serious sociopathic tendencies or perhaps a narcissistic personality disorder (although he denies this). Whatever, that’s for the psychiatrists (like the one for whom I am likely paying the vacation home’s mortgage) to decide. All I know is that he is so crazy that it’s hypnotic and the writing is so skillful that I was rooting for the MMC and FMC to have a relationship. Maybe I’m suffering from some kind of book-related Stockholm Syndrome myself….
Either way, this book is compelling. This book is unpredictable. And extraordinarily well written. I give it five stars.
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