by Christine d'Abo
rating:☆
published: 27th June 2016
spoilers? yes
Goodreads
Galley provided by publisher
To be honest, I can't believe I finished this. I'm not entirely sure why I thought it would be a good idea to read it in the first place (honestly, the sex slave thing was pretty off-putting) but I did and so I read it.
And I wish I hadn't.
It's not that the writing was bad, as with most of these kinds of books which I give one star, because it wasn't. It's better writing than most of the ones I read, although that's not hard because sometimes the writing is flat out awful. The issues I had lay entirely with the plot.
For one, the whole sex slave thing is dodgy from the off. Especially the fact that Zain then has to go back into that environment after having escaped and endure it again. And Korbin doesn't really attempt to make it easier on him. There are the few cursory are you sure you're ok with this's but nothing else.
The mind reading stone is another problem I had. It just makes everything suspiciously easy. No worries that they can't communicate while they're in master-slave disguise (which, again, no thanks. Couldn't it have been the other way round? Also the bit where it's like Zain's all submissive, that he likes it? It doesn't seem all that believable given that he spend a lot of his life as a sex slave being abused by his master...) they can send thoughts to each other's minds (and just wait for it, by the end they don't even need the stone they've strengthened a connection in their mind that means they can do without! I'm willing to suspend belief for a lot of things but this is not one of them).
The final big problem I found was right near the end, at the climax, where Zain is captured by Clayson (his old master) and injected with the drug that works like ultra-Viagra and makes him hard, and then Clayson starts raping him and saying how everyone in his employ is going to rape Zain until he's raw and bleeding and dead. Like I am absolutely not here for shit like this when it's not apparently gratuitous, let alone when it is. It's gross and I really did almost quit reading right there in disgust. Instead I just skipped that scene. Then, a bit later, there's another scene where Clayson comes and beats up Zain and he slams his head repeatedly against the floor, but then two minutes later Zain's alright and walking around just fine. It doesn't make sense.
Just no, basically.
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