Review: Obsession by Harleigh Beck

Obsession by Harleigh Beck

Publication date: March 24th, 2024

Pages: 444

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

Savannah

Imagine my surprise when the chance to interview the country's most notorious man on death row lands on my table. His final confession. It's too good of an opportunity to turn down.

Robbie Hammond is old enough to be my father, a man condemned for the murder of at least fourteen women. He is dangerous, deadly. Intense in ways I can't explain. Yet, despite the red flags, his magnetism draws me to him. I'm powerless to fight it.

Robbie

Not everything is as it appears. The moment Savannah set foot in here, she shivered like a leaf in the wind, barely able to hold eye contact without a blush creeping up her neck.

I can't take my eyes off her. It's no mistake she's here, watching me from across the table.

There's a reason I only agreed to talk to Savannah Campbell before they put me down--why it has to be her.

Beneath the quivering smile hides a darkness I recognize.

A darkness that sparks my interest.

But the question is: how deep does it run?

Author's note: Obsession is a very dark thriller romance. It contains graphic sexual scenes and graphic violence that may be disturbing to some readers.

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Review:

Savannah thought she was getting her big break as a reporter by going to visit the most notorious serial killer on death row. What was the worst that could happen? Everything changed the minute the man sat down across from her and speared her with his keen blue eyes that she could seem to pull herself out of the depths of. As his story unraveled for her she started to realize that their traumatic lives seemed to match more keenly than she was comfortable with but she couldn't stop the desire from rising every time she went to visit him. Before she knew it she was pandering favors with the guards just to have an ounce of alone time with the dangerous man. He was slotted for death, she wouldn't have the opportunity for long. But when those favors land her in hot water, her killer crush decides to exact revenge in her name by escaping prison and going on a spree as her champion protector. Will Savannah escape the deadly killer man with the troubled past and the vengeful spirit or will she fall just like the other fourteen women who tried to reach him before her? And when there is a new killer who seems equally as obsessed with Savannah will she stand a chance in hell of surviving?

This was a pretty dark book for me. It wasn't something that turned my stomach or really made me even grimace but it was pretty dark. But even within the dark and depraved subject matter you couldn't help but feel sorry for the main characters. They had it very rough. Savannah was systematically abused by her father and even passed around to his friends to do their worst too. And Robbie was verbally and physically abused before his mother then started sexually abusing him. They were both so wounded and went two different ways with it. Robbie projected his pain onto others and hurt them just like he had been hurt while Savannah internalized it. She buried it so that if she didn't think about it, it was like it didn't exist. But pain recognizes pain so when the two were faced with each other it was hard for either of them to resist the darkness lurking within their hearts and minds.

I liked the growth that Savannah and Robbie both experienced. Savannah grew a backbone and Robbie softened. We were able to see how the two characters actually were underneath the masks they created for themselves. The entire book was a study in nature versus nurture. If either of them had come from a loving home would they still be as broken as they were? This was something that I loved watching explored by the author throughout the story.

While I did enjoy the book it was very predictable. There were no instances where I gasped in shock at  revelation within the story. There was one that I had suspected but when it was revealed I wasn't shocked by it. The book was twisted and incest was incredibly heavy. I am not sure if that was a choice made by the other because she was aiming for something revolting enough to make readers grimace or if it was simply an attempt to make the character's backgrounds as bleeding heart painful as possible to make the readers feel bad for them when they did terrible things. I would say this book was middle of the road for me. It was not something I would reach for again when hankering for a reread, but it wasn't one I would chuck across the room in disgust either. Entertaining read, interesting characters, and a solid plot but needed a little more intrigue.