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piperclover's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I was really excited for this because I love anything by Annabeth Albert and I liked the first book a lot but unfortunately this fell pretty flat for me. It's not bad by any means. I still had a good time reading this but it wasn't quite as good as I hoped.
I really enjoyed the pain play and nipple play even though I wish there was more of both. I like the mutual discovery of kink.
Holden is a cool character and I appreciate how his disability impacts him. It's neat that he still does have some mobility even though he doesn't use it often because he deals with chronic pain. I've never read a book where the character is in a wheelchair but still has use of their legs so it was nice to have that. I thought it was handled really well because it's never used as A fetish or trauma porn or anything like that, he just exists as is.
The biggest problem I had was that I really saw through the formula in this book which made it feel really shallow and perfunctory. Maybe that's because I'm also listening to Arctic Sun by Annabeth Albert so I can really take note of the formula similarities and it stands out pretty egregiously here. I also didn't really remember the murder sub plot from the first book so when this book started talking about it and about what Monroe was doing regarding that case I was really lost until quite a bit in.
I really enjoyed the pain play and nipple play even though I wish there was more of both. I like the mutual discovery of kink.
Holden is a cool character and I appreciate how his disability impacts him. It's neat that he still does have some mobility even though he doesn't use it often because he deals with chronic pain. I've never read a book where the character is in a wheelchair but still has use of their legs so it was nice to have that. I thought it was handled really well because it's never used as A fetish or trauma porn or anything like that, he just exists as is.
The biggest problem I had was that I really saw through the formula in this book which made it feel really shallow and perfunctory. Maybe that's because I'm also listening to Arctic Sun by Annabeth Albert so I can really take note of the formula similarities and it stands out pretty egregiously here. I also didn't really remember the murder sub plot from the first book so when this book started talking about it and about what Monroe was doing regarding that case I was really lost until quite a bit in.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death
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