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Series: Spoils of Victory #1
Publication date: August 17th, 2021
Pages: 314
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Synopsis:
They'll protect me... if they don't break me first.
I refuse to be a disposable pawn in my father's underworld dealings. If that means heading out in the middle of the night to get as far away as I can from my mafia family, so be it. I have everything planned, and it's all going perfectly... right up until the point where they catch me.
Angelo. Scary, domineering, the bruiser. If he wants me, he's not going to stop until he gets me -- any way he has to.
Saint tries to be the "nice guy," but he's got a filthy little habit of touching me when I'm sleeping, when I'm helpless.
Victor? He's the most terrifying one of all, the brains behind the brawn, with a cold composure I'm desperate to crack. If I can get to him, the others will fall in line -- but what if he gets to me first?
They promise to protect me as long as I do what I'm told, but just how far will I have to go -- and how much of me will splinter in the process?
Note: This work contains extremely dark themes with triggering content. The men are irredeemable, terrible people who do terrible things and do not respect Lucia's boundaries. (As in, boundaries? What are boundaries?) Read at your own discretion. Specific warnings are available on either author's website.
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Review:
Lucia thought she had it all planned out. She could escape into the night and never have to see her father or betrothed again. Her life would be her own for once and she could almost taste freedom. That was until two large males stepped onto the same train as her and demanded she come with them. Without any other choice she went but not before her haughty mob princess tone got under their skin completely. Now she was the unwilling captor of a rival mob family. And they will stop at nothing to bring her to heel. What they plan to do with her becomes spotty when Lucia's father decides that the asking price of her safe return is less than favorable. Lucia starts to wonder if she holds value with anyone aside from herself and this weakness is well and truly preyed upon by the men who surround her. Will Lucia ever find her freedom or is she destined to die at the hands of three despicably dangerous men?
I have read a lot of dark romance books in my time as a reader and reviewer. I have never balked at any of it and I got through Skeleton King which was by far the most grotesque book I have ever read. I have very few triggers and I always seem to find some sort of redeemable quality to the book. This one I could not find a single stitch of likeability for me. There is a difference between dark romance and porn. This book read more like the latter in a number of ways.
First, there was no romance to be found. None. Not a stitch. Not a "I'm hard on her but I secretly love her" feeling. These men used this poor girl and repeatedly raped her. Granted, she did agree at one point to the arrangement, but when confronted with the debauched things they were interested in she started to try to say 'no'. They would only threaten her or force her and not let her have a choice either way. The minute she says 'no' is the minute any consent she gave to begin with was rescinded. Then it just becomes rape. And the unfortunate part was there weren't even situations like that where eventually she got into it or some kindness was bestowed upon her to change her mind. No. She didn't want it through the entire act. That's... that's deplorable.
Second, there was barely any plot to the story through all the sex scenes. The sex scenes just seemed to get more kinky, taboo, and degrading the more the book went on. Humiliation and degradation are a hard limit for me but usually in literature I can kinda put that aside a bit as long as there is some quality aftercare or some affection sprinkled in. But this had none of that. The sex was purely for the men and she was just their medium of use to achieve it. Nothing more. So just, really reaffirming that whole 'no romance' vibe.
And finally, I am not in favor of M/M relations within the 'harem'. That is just a preference for me. And while there wasn't any real blatant acts, there were hints of it headed that way. I also didn't like that one of them was homophobic to an extreme. I am sure it is because of him warring within himself but it was still unsettling.
In essence, this book was not at all what I would call a dark romance. This was humiliation/degradation abusive porn that in some areas I believed to be close to being snuff porn. There needs to be more to a dark romance book than just how far you can push that limit.
