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geminienergy 's review for:
Cash Plays
by Cordelia Kingsbridge
Rating 2.5/5, round down to 2.
I definitely found this book more interesting than the previous one, but if I had to decide between a neutral score, liking it, or not, I didn’t like it. The plot this time around was more engaging, with the gang wars but it was also more confusing because there were three major gangs to keep up with + this up and coming starter one. Frankly I didn’t like the direction the author went with both Dom and Levi’s character arcs. Again, the romantic relationship between Dom/Levi ending was muted, and there was a lot more miscommunication and distrust in this one, meaning a lot of their screentime was NOT with each other.
characters
Dominic’s gambling addiction continues to be a major factor of this story. What I don’t like is some of the decision making he was written to do in order to keep Levi from unveiling his secret, some of their spats felt very contrived. Levi’s “darkness” is again the focus for this book, and it still feels a little forced. There is one particular dialogue exchange between him and Dom about him confronting his darkness that felt purposefully obtuse to muddy their relationship even more.
The side characters were more exciting in this book. Thought Gay Sergei and Rocco were cute, Stanton slays. We didn’t get to see much of Carlos/Jasmine in this series. Martine, Sawyer are also notable.
the mm romance
The romance between these two was lacking. The author is clearly gearing up to add all the mistrust and miscommunication between them to put a wrench into their relationship. So not only do they not hang out a lot together, a lot of their scenes are passive aggressive, bickering and cagey. The development of their relationship was being overshadowed by the plot which had to take a lot of the words to set up since there were so many moving parts. I thought for the most part, their fights were very forced and didn’t feel natural. Levi’s unwarranted jealousy, Dom’s “distraction” tactic, the last conversation between them in the story was particularly contrived to create the most tension possible.
plot
The plot about the three gangs and the “~saboteur~” was more engaging than the previous whodunnit book, but there were way too many NPCs because of it. Gangs from each division, the difference politics of each, it was getting very confusing and overwhelming to read through. From what we saw of the Collective, I liked the Russian leader there but virtually no one else made an impact on me. The saboteur subplot fizzled and was unremarkable. The intersection of Dom and Levi’s storylines lead to an interesting development, but overall, I felt most of the leadup to it was unnecessarily topheavy. The rest of the exciting stuff just breezed by like a prototypical action movie. Even though SoS is revealed to be alive in book #2, they actually aren’t the focus of the plot still, again being overshadowed by the gang war collective.
steam
Even though Dom and Levi are on the rocks, there’s still a comparable amount of sex scenes in this book. Notably more “aggressive” scenes where they have sex after adrenaline rushes. There is a hot outdoor sex scene.
+jewish rep
+better than #2 but not than #1
+interesting sex scenes
-Dominic’s gambling disorder
-MM romance sidelined
-contrived “fights” between Dom and Levi via irrational decisions/uncharacteristic dialogue
-confusing narrative with 3 gangs to keep up and a whole bunch of NPCs to keep track of
-forced “jealousy”
I definitely found this book more interesting than the previous one, but if I had to decide between a neutral score, liking it, or not, I didn’t like it. The plot this time around was more engaging, with the gang wars but it was also more confusing because there were three major gangs to keep up with + this up and coming starter one. Frankly I didn’t like the direction the author went with both Dom and Levi’s character arcs. Again, the romantic relationship between Dom/Levi ending was muted, and there was a lot more miscommunication and distrust in this one, meaning a lot of their screentime was NOT with each other.
characters
Dominic’s gambling addiction continues to be a major factor of this story. What I don’t like is some of the decision making he was written to do in order to keep Levi from unveiling his secret, some of their spats felt very contrived. Levi’s “darkness” is again the focus for this book, and it still feels a little forced. There is one particular dialogue exchange between him and Dom about him confronting his darkness that felt purposefully obtuse to muddy their relationship even more.
The side characters were more exciting in this book. Thought Gay Sergei and Rocco were cute, Stanton slays. We didn’t get to see much of Carlos/Jasmine in this series. Martine, Sawyer are also notable.
the mm romance
The romance between these two was lacking. The author is clearly gearing up to add all the mistrust and miscommunication between them to put a wrench into their relationship. So not only do they not hang out a lot together, a lot of their scenes are passive aggressive, bickering and cagey. The development of their relationship was being overshadowed by the plot which had to take a lot of the words to set up since there were so many moving parts. I thought for the most part, their fights were very forced and didn’t feel natural. Levi’s unwarranted jealousy, Dom’s “distraction” tactic, the last conversation between them in the story was particularly contrived to create the most tension possible.
plot
The plot about the three gangs and the “~saboteur~” was more engaging than the previous whodunnit book, but there were way too many NPCs because of it. Gangs from each division, the difference politics of each, it was getting very confusing and overwhelming to read through. From what we saw of the Collective, I liked the Russian leader there but virtually no one else made an impact on me. The saboteur subplot fizzled and was unremarkable. The intersection of Dom and Levi’s storylines lead to an interesting development, but overall, I felt most of the leadup to it was unnecessarily topheavy. The rest of the exciting stuff just breezed by like a prototypical action movie. Even though SoS is revealed to be alive in book #2, they actually aren’t the focus of the plot still, again being overshadowed by the gang war collective.
steam
Even though Dom and Levi are on the rocks, there’s still a comparable amount of sex scenes in this book. Notably more “aggressive” scenes where they have sex after adrenaline rushes. There is a hot outdoor sex scene.
+jewish rep
+better than #2 but not than #1
+interesting sex scenes
-Dominic’s gambling disorder
-MM romance sidelined
-contrived “fights” between Dom and Levi via irrational decisions/uncharacteristic dialogue
-confusing narrative with 3 gangs to keep up and a whole bunch of NPCs to keep track of
-forced “jealousy”