.png)
Series: Sick Boys #2
Publication date: January 1st, 2021
Pages: 412
Synopsis:
Rule No. 2: Show no fear.
They're vile and twisted.
The only thing more fucked up than the Sick Boys is me, and I'm ready to show them.
The Sick Boys are hiding something from me. They want to pretend like I didn't kill my rapist and they didn't help. But we're not ordinary college students, that much has become clear to me, and I'm growing tired of all of the lies and secrets.
Their masks are cracking and finally, I'm starting to see the grotesque reality underneath. It's far darker than I ever expected, and it's not enough. They know everything about me, so now it's my turn. I fear nothing. Not them. Not the man that I killed or the people who set me up.
Fear is for the weak and I, Avalon Manning, am anything but.
Available at:
Review:
With the cliffhanger that was presented in Pretty Little Savage I was curious to see what Dean and the boys were going to do after discovering Avalon drugged and raped on the floor of her mother's trailer. The scene of the assault was unlike any I had read before. It was more detail than I had experienced and made me squirm a bit and want to fly through the pages to save the heroine from her plight. But I settled on reading the next book in the series in the form of Stone Cold Queen.
Avalon is a woman on a mission and her mission is to find and make suffer all those who contributed to her sexual assault. After ridding the earth of her rapist she now sets her sights on finding out who was paying close enough attention to her activities to call her attacker moments before she showed up at her mother's empty trailer. All roads lead back to Eastpoint. The vengeance she hopes to unleash is enough to make her question her sanity and also the sanity of the boys who are as bloodthirsty for redemption as she is. After the fight between her and Dean that caused her to flee back to the home of her past and set her fate in motion, she once again is determined to resist Dean Carver. But after being with him, that proves a lot more difficult than it had once been.
Dean blames himself for what happened to Avalon. If he hadn't been so cruel to her perhaps she wouldn't have fled home. The only way he feels he can right the wrong he played a part in is to help Avalon find her revenge. If Avalon things that she still isn't his after all they've been through she is sadly mistaken. If only she would admit that she is his in both body and soul.
The angst between Dean and Avalon has been dulled a little bit because Avalon's resistance was more forced. If she had been a little more traumatized over her experience so that he had the opportunity to comfort her, I feel they would have formed a deeper connection. However, curling up in a ball and sobbing is not a characteristic of Avalon as a whole. In that respect, holding true to the character's personality won out over the develop of the romance between the protagonist. While I personally couldn't imagine not having weak moments after something like that happening to me, I can understand why it didn't happen here.
I am a bit more intrigued by the plot than the romance in this book which seemed to be the aim of the author. The romance was the main focus in Pretty Little Savage while the plot was the focal point of Stone Cold Queen. I do like that the author isn't treating each book as a segment in a story and is running them all together. Seeing them see-sawing what lacks in one book for what is needed in the next and vice versa makes a more concise overall reading experience.
Stone Cold Queen is everything you were missing from Pretty Little Savage and more!
