Review by books_wine_cause3kids - Ruthless Bonds

books_wine_cause3kids 's review for:

Ruthless Bonds by Emily Klepp

5.0

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

⭐️ 5/5 stars –Not because it was easy to read, but because it got under my skin and stayed there. I didn’t love it because it was dark—I loved it because it made me feel something real. And that deserves five stars.

🌶️ 5/5 Spice Rating –This isn’t the kind that makes you fan yourself—it’s the kind that makes you tense up. It’s pitch black and filled with morally void individuals—intense, explicit, and laced with control, power, and noncon/dubcon dynamics.

🖤 5/5 Darkness Rating –This book is pitch black. Incest, coercion, ritualized sexual violence—all on-page. Nothing is softened. Nothing is safe. It doesn’t explore trauma—it names it. And dares you to look.

⸻

Some stories aren’t safe—but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be told.

I’m halfway through Merciful Vow (Book 2 in The Dark Allegiance series), but I haven’t stopped thinking about Ruthless Bonds (Book 1).

The fact that the zon pulled it has been sitting heavy with me—not because this book is for everyone (it’s absolutely not), but because it made me ask why it stuck so hard. And the answer came quietly, in a way I didn’t expect.

Thanks to @mysmutcorner, I’ve been learning about narrative therapy—how telling our stories, naming trauma, and reclaiming language around what’s been done to us is part of healing. Ruthless Bondsdoesn’t tell a safe story—but it tells a true one. A brutal one. A necessary one.

Because Emily Klepp doesn’t write stories that ask permission. She writes with sharp edges and full-body honesty. Her heroines don’t rise gently—they claw their way up from the wreckage, bloodied and burning, and dare you to look away. What she captures in these pages isn’t just pain—it’s what pain does to power, and what survival looks like when you’re not expected to make it out.

There’s no softness here. There’s trauma, degradation, and unrelenting control—but there’s also this slow, razor-edged shift where Samara moves from being an object to becoming the one who watches, plans, and finally acts.

That shift? It cracked something open in me.

It named something.

And that’s what makes Emily’s writing important.

So no, this book isn’t safe. But it is honest. It’s terrifying, yes—but for readers who need to see their pain named in a space that doesn’t flinch or look away, it can also be powerful.

Thank you, Emily, for writing something this fearless.

Content Warnings