GRR Reviews A Debt Owed by Clarissa Wild

WARNING: Cliffhanger

Easton viewed the Davis family with utter hostility, and he planned to ruin them all, while claiming Charlotte Davis for his own. The older Davis worked Easton's chef father into an early grave (heart attack), and blackballed Easton himself just for talking to Charlotte ONCE. Now the revenge is complete: The older Easton, Charlotte's father, offered Charlotte up as Easton's wife if Easton will stop collecting on the 20 million that was owed. // Charlotte was horrified when she was offered up like property by her father, but when Easton threatened her father's life, she had no choice but to comply. Kept like a bird in a gilded cage, and moved to the Netherlands, she has to play the reluctant wife, even as Easton seduces her with taboo sex and ultra luxuries. But she will always look for a way out...

Eh.... While Easton justifies his actions, he just comes across as a jerk, stealing her diary like a burglar and use it to gaslight her. Charlotte shows some backbone and sass. I guess I just didn't like dark romances overall. At least this one doesn't deal with non-consensual stuff.  Oh, and the book ends on a huge cliffhanger.  3/5  (includes -1 for cliffhanger)

GRR Reviews Billionaire Protector: A Dark Romance by Nikki Chase

Billionaire Protector is a dark romance, in that there is kidnapping involved, usually a woman being held prisoner, and falls for the captor. At least this novel has a proper motivation and reason for holding her, but I honestly don't see a romance from this other than Stockholm syndrome. Add that to the extremely unsatisfying ending, and I find this book quite hard to accept.

To recap, Alice started as a waitress and gone to culinary school, and now is a chef at a local restaurant. There is this guy who's obviously rich and looks somewhat familiar that comes in every week, always order the same thing, and usually had a complaint or two, but ate the food nonetheless. But he's otherwise harmless despite giving off a dangerous bad boy vibe. Until one day, he suddenly made her an offer she can't refuse... He'll double her salary if she'll come work as his personal chef at his mansion 2 hours out of town. But once there, there seems to be way too much security on the grounds, and Alice found that Seth, that's the guy's name, is basically keeping her prisoner, albeit with a ton of regret. All he can say is he's doing this for her safety, and she's desperately looking for an escape... even as Seth revealed his vulnerable side. But Seth is fighting a ruthless enemy who has no regard for human life, and he'll get at Seth any way he can, through Alice if possible... But how do you keep someone safe when that person only wanted to be free?

To explain the problem, I'll have to spoil the ending.

SPOILER AHEAD

I TOLD YOU SO

Seth has an enemy that's totally ruthless and kills people left and right if they get in the way, and he will go after the family of people if those people don't fall in line. Alice was totally unconnected except Seth has a soft spot for her because she was nice to him while visiting prison he was in as a cooking instructor. When Seth noticed someone in the rival organization at the restaurant, Seth has to keep Alice safe... at his place, except he refused to tell her why. So her thought was to escape, and obviously, when she managed to escape, Seth's enemies caught her. So Seth mounted a rescue mission, and it was easily successful.

Which begs the questions

1) WHY doesn't he just TELL HER? Sheesh. Keeping her out of the loop doesn't keep her safe! And only one guard on her? It's almost as if he dared her to escape.

2) If all it takes was Seth and four guys to kill the rival leader and his goons, without a single casualty, it should have been done a LONG TIME AGO! All this talk about the rival being utterly ruthless and reach anyone anytime and assault would be suicide, this is WAY TOO EASY!

Add this to the lack of chemistry between the two, only some weird tension that's not quite sexual, I honestly don't see what's so romantic about it.


Category: Dark Romance

Primary Plot: Lady chef was held prisoner by a man who wanted to protect her, without telling her why. Can she fall for such a protector?

Tropes: protector, woman in peril, kidnapping, hot for boss

Overall Rating:  2/5

GRR Review: His Hostage by Willow Winters

His Hostage is, to put it simply utter crap. The characters are a total joke and none of the decisions makes any sense.

Elle bailed out her mother time after time even sacrificing her own scholarship, her savings, and her grades. Elle was about to drop out of school altogether when she discovered her mother had lapsed yet AGAIN. She decided to do ONE single discretion... Make out with an insanely hot guy in a bar. Next thing she knew she woke up in that hot guy's bed... But why are the hot guy's relatives looking at her funny? Why does she felt as if she did or knew something she shouldn't have? Why is the hot guy holding her hostage? Does he want to love her or kill her?

WARNING: Remainder of this review is full of spoilers.

Elle is a TOTAL doormat and this never changed. She's a total doormat just cleaning up after her mother's mess. Vince, aka "hot guy" is actually the Valetti family underboss,  and was nice to her. They ended up in bed, then Elle witnessed something she shouldn't have. Vince gave her a roofie which may or may not have messed with her memory, but then Vince was smitten (after ONE f***) Vince decided the only way to keep Elle safe is to keep her permanently... by impregnating her (WTF!?!?) which means he had to tie her up and bed her repeatedly and keep her around. This makes f***ing no sense!  Oh, and this somehow turned her on so much she became a "rope s***" that she begs for more bondage play. WTF?!!?!?!

Category: Bad Boy / Dark Romance

Primary Plot: Innocent girl fell for a hot guy, then his folks all looked at her funny... did she do something wrong and saw something she shouldn't have?

Overall Rating:  1/5

GRR Review: The Alpha Billionaire's Revenge by Deana Farrady

BOOK NO LONGER AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

The Alpha Billionaire's Revenge by Deana Farrady is a very hard book to rate, as it deals with what is basically a kidnapping and holding a woman prisoner, then the kidnapper fell for the prisoner. It has a lot of domination / submission scenes. While I like the reasons given for each character to behave as he or she did, I honestly find the entire premise rather absurd.

An "alpha billionaire" is out to avenge his brother, who was betrayed by a woman while he was young, did some bad drugs, and almost died. The billionaire kidnap the woman to turn her into his "plaything" (almost a slave, without physical torture). Except he got the wrong woman. He actualy got the target's submissive twin, who not only likes being submissive, she reasoned it as protecting her twin's family, who has since reformed into at least a decent human being. What will he do when he found out? 

I find the entire situation completely implausible. Someone who can dream of a way to take revenge and takes years to bring his plans to fruition can't even verify which twin he was holding? This is a "dark romance", which I find, was not romantic at all.

Category: Dark Romance

Primary Plot: Billionaire intending on revenge holds woman captive as his pet; he's actually got the target's submissive twin and fell for her

NOTE: Non-con cohabitation, D/S and BDSM, Sex

Rating: 1/5  (unless you like the genre, I don't)