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Series: Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer #1
Publication date: July 14th, 2021
Pages: 595
Spice Rating: 🔥
Synopsis:
Finding out you're the daughter of a millionaire true crime novelist isn't all it's cracked up to be.
When I was two, I was kidnapped. Kidnapped by a loving family, sure, but still kidnapped.
Now, my biological mom wants me to live with her on the opposite side of the country.
Her... and my new stepdad and his jerk of a son: Parrish.
Wannabe tattoo artist, languorous rich boy, pouty mouth.
Starting a new life on the West Coast sucks, especially when there's no love lost between me and my new family.
Oh, and my biological father? Did I mention that he's a serial killer who wants me to play his games?
Find the right clues, follow the right trail, or someone I love gets hurt.
But what if he's just kidnapped someone I hate instead?
Parrish Vanguard is a royal asshole.
The question is: does he deserve to die?
With the help of Parrish's best friends--Maxx and Chasm--I have to risk everything to save a boy who considers himself my sworn enemy. Even if I save his ass, he'll never thank me.
Lucky for him that our love-hate relationship isn't a deal breaker.
I'll play, Dad.
Start the game.
STOLEN CRUSH is a 180,000 word love-hate/high school romance with suspense/thriller themes. Includes foul language and sexual scenes; any sex featured is consensual. This is a reverse harem novel, meaning the main character has more than one love interest.
Review:
Stolen Crush was an enigma I hadn't encountered during my past reading experiences. The synopsis lays out the entirety of the book in a few short paragraphs, however, what the synopsis discusses only comes to pass in the last eighth of the book. The rest of it is a slow excursion into self discovery and a taboo romance. For me personally, I liked the bully-ish slow burn love story over the underlying mystery.
I related extremely well with Dakota/Mia. I am a gamer girl who frequents Twitch on a regular basis. I also would much rather be comfortably me than dress to impress those around me. Dakota marched to her own drum and I loved that about her. Watching Dakota navigate the change from rural middle-class life to the upper crust rich girl experience was riveting. She handled it about the same as I would expect. She preferred the comfort of the mundane over the glitz and glamour. Dakota seemed to take hit after hit from her new family. A mother who seemed more into obtaining her because she owned her rather than wanting her, a stepfather that tolerated her, a stepbrother and half-sister who mocked and belittled her to the point of it being uncomfortably cruel, and little half-siblings who are just trying to understand who she is and how she relates to their family. Add to that some mystery surrounding her father, Dakota is managing the best she can and I applaud her for handling it better than I would have.
The boys in the book were not all that enticing to me. Parrish was a spoiled rich boy who bullied Dakota for no reason other than he can't face his own feelings for his new stepsister. Chasm has misguided loyalty to Parrish and so joins in on bullying her like the sidekick role he has been cast in. Maxx is trying to shed his rich boy stereotype and be a good guy but he still has a thing for his girlfriend's little sister, so is he really such a nice guy now? None of them really got my blood boiling. Add to it that any sex scenes were borderline fade-to-black and I was meh about 3/4th the way through the book.
I think if there was more spice and more development of the male characters the way Dakota was would vastly improve the book overall.
