And he's always been straight. But when he's seduced by magnetic local literary luminary Dario, Aidan must decide whether to keep playing it safe, or succumb to a ravenous passion and a nourishing love unlike anything he's experienced before. Will he find the courage to go after real happiness if it means admitting he's in love with a man?
Their journey together isn't easy. Sometimes it isn't safe. Even if Aidan has the courage to admit he's in love with Dario, can he endure the repercussions of the traumatic event in Dario's past?
This novel has mature content and is intended for readers over the age of eighteen. Although this is a story about two men falling in love, there are extended, explicit sex scenes, including some BDSM, m/m/m and m/m/f scenes. There are references to sexual violence which may be a trigger for some readers, although there is no graphic depiction of rape in the book.
A copy of this book was provided by the author for an honest review - however I already owned a copy of it....the review will still be honest though!
Every now and then I come across a book that I find really difficult to rate and this is one of them. It took me a lot of pondering to decide on a 4 heart review, and I will explain my reasoning for it.
You may, or may not know, that very often I don't look at a book's blurb - while I can stay away from handbags and shoes, and happily live in supermarket clothes, I am a compulsive book buyer (notices the nods, you too huh!), well, this was one of those books. The cover is PRETTY, the hype on FB etc good, I had no idea what it was about and purchased it. Then a request came in to the blog and, as I already had it, I thought why not, I'll review it - but I still hadn't a clue what the book was about. In fact I only discovered what the book was about as I was reading it.
This book is a mish-mash of romance and erotica and I'm not sure which bit dominates. I'm not against a bit of BDSM in my novels but it certainly isn't the staple of my literary diet. This has BDSM, menage (M/M/F & M/M/M). Now, I'm a romance girl through and through. For some reason I found the M/M/F scene harder to read...maybe I'm just to used to reading about the men at the moment, maybe I have deep-set psychological issues. Who knows. That isn't to say though, that the scene wasn't well written, it was, as were the M/M/M scenes. I think perhaps I have to be in a certain mood for the more erotic end of the romance scale and trying to read it in the holidays with the children asking questions every couple of minutes isn't really the way to set that mood. So I guess that's a convoluted way of saying it wasn't really what I was looking for to read at this moment in time. However it was very well written so I shan't knock of any marks for my own personal hormonal response.
The romance though, well that was something that I could get on board with. That first moment between Aiden and Dario, hells bells, now to me, that right there is SUPER hot. I adored the way we saw them fall in love through the obstacles and difficulties. And they really did fall in love. Krylov's writing style is very unique to her, it took me a few pages to get into it but once I did I thoroughly enjoyed the first person narrative, the long poetic sentences and I felt as though I understood Aiden completely. We saw Dario through Aiden's eyes, with Aiden's insecurities, but it was still very easy to understand him as a person, I very much liked both MC's.
I found the traumatic event in Dario's past hard, I also found the way he dealt with it hard. That is not just an issue with this book, it's something I've found in other stories of the same nature. Just because I have difficulty understanding the way he deals with his trauma doesn't mean that I think it was written badly or dealt with wrongly. I think when we empathise with characters in books it's often because we recognise our own traits/thoughts in them. In this case Dario is very opposite to me but I could empathise with him because the character was so clear - I just couldn't understand it on a personal level.
I think my thoughts on this really are, Varian Krylov is a wonderful writer and I love her writing style - her content though is not my preferred read. It's definitely a case of it's not you, it's me. I will say, if you have any potential triggers, please read the warnings before you choose this book. If BDSM, menage & romance are your things, then this book really could be for you.
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