Review: Ruthless Queen by Amanda Richardson

Ruthless Queen by Amanda Richardson

Series: Ruthless Royals #2

Publication date: September 14th, 2021

Pages: 192

Spice: 🔥🔥🔥

Synopsis:

Hunter, Ash, Ledger, and Samson.

The Kings of Ravenwood Academy.

Their names still send shivers down my spine, for more than one reason.

Back then, they didn't expect me to fight back.

But I did.

And now I'm theirs.

After making a pact with them, they help me get revenge on teh one man who wronged me.

I'm not the same meek, little girl that got taken advantage of.

Now, I have four ruthless guys willing to risk everything for me.

The only problem is, I promised them everything I had in return for their help.

So while I may be the new Queen of Ravenwood, the Kings still own me, body and soul.

And I'm not quite sure I'm ready to hand over my crown.

Ruthless Queen is a full-length high-school bully reverse harem romance. It is book two of the Ruthless Royals duet. It is advised to read them in order.

**Please note Ruthless Queen contains explicit language, bullying, violence, and flashbacks of abuse/trauma. It also features four hot AF guys who would do anything to protect their feisty Queen. The story concludes with this book and does have a HEA.**

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Review:

Briar has some tumultuous waters to navigate. Her rapist has escaped and is after her once more. Her mother and stepfather have no idea the intimacy she has formed with her new stepbrother and his friends. She has grown tired of the Kings' reputation and has decided to do something about it. She has a lot of balls in the air and not a lot of time to rectify them. The boys and Briar are now tied completely together and there is nothing they won't do for her. Even trap her rapist stalker so Briar can polish him off for good. But will her stalker get to her before they can capture him?

I feel like this book was not really needed. It was much shorter than the first and just felt more like an excuse to write more sex scenes with very little plot. It read more like porn than an actual story. If some of the sex scenes had been cut the left over plot could have filled maybe an extra 20 or so pages in the first book making it a stand-alone and perhaps a bit better received for me. 

Is anyone but Briar actually straight anymore? I mean, Hunter and Ledger claim they are straight but they're constantly talking about how they find things done between Samson and Ash to be "hot". I have read my fair share of reverse harem books. Believe me. And most of the time if the partners have a sex scene together the straight men are more focused on the female protagonist's reaction than the actual acts going on around them. If there is a MM scene their eyes are focused more on how turned on the female is not what the guys are doing to each other. So... if you're going to claim that a male protagonist is straight, stick to that. If you want them all to be hetero fluid or bisexual, then own that too. This wishy-washy-ness is inconsistent and a bit frustrating. 

I am trying not to spoil too much but the ending of this book? The epilogue? I was appalled. I understand that this was more polyamorous and less reverse harem after reading it but it was presented as a reverse harem. At the end, they reaffirm they are poly by saying they live in separate houses, are free to date outside their group as long as they are honest about it, and so forth. That, to me, is not a reverse harem. So many inconsistencies and it frustrated me.

So, on the note, this book was not needed. It was just another excuse to add more intimate scenes and tie up loose ends that could have been done in the first book.