Review: Depraved by Eva Charles

Depraved by Eva Charles

Series: The Devil's Due #1

Publication date: February 19th, 2019

Pages: 284

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

Smoke and mirrors. A web of lies. He's come for the devil's ultimate prize.

J.D. Wilder strides into my hotel bringing the dark musky scent of sin with him. Arrogant and powerful, he's the president's eldest son. Even after all these years, I can still taste him on my lips. But when he speaks, there's not a glimmer of the boy I once loved.

He struck a deal with my parents. That's what he claims. Loaned my mother the money she desperately needs to stay alive. Now he's here to collect.

What does he want?

The one thing I will never give him.

Depraved is the first book in JD and Gabrielle's story. Their story concludes in the second book of the series, Delivered, which is available now.

Available at:

Review:

Gabrielle thought she was done with JD for good. She left him in the past some fifteen years ago when he broke her heart in a million pieces and shipped her off to boarding school via his rich father's decree. She never truly got over him but she had at least attempted to move on. She was now the owner of one of the newest up and coming hotels, had a fiance, and a best friend who was expecting a baby. She was at peace with her life. That was until he entered her office and turned her world upside down. He brings with him a deal: be with him, be his willing sexual partner, and he will loan the money to her mother for life saving treatment. What is Gabrielle to do? If she keeps the man who has already crushed her once at arm's length then she could lose her mother. But if she let him back into her bed would she be able to keep him out of her heart?

I have a mixed bag of feelings about this book. In some instances it was good. The mystery of why JD pushed Gabrielle away all those years ago still hangs over the couple's heads. Why her best friend seems to have such a hard time with JD and Gabrielle associating again. And even wondering what JD's father is up to with his pharmaceutical company that seems so hush hush even from his son. But it was overshadowed a lot by some of my own beliefs and feelings on their arrangement. The arrangement seemed like coercion which felt very rape-y. That coupled with JD's demand for submission but his unwillingness to understand that there is more to the BDSM lifestyle than just kinky sex. The contracts he turned his nose up at are meant for the safety of both the Dominant and the submissive. The safe word that he almost didn't allow is another safety measure. The man is so pigheaded that he thinks he will be in such control that none of those safety measures are important. This ruined the book for me. I absolutely detest misinformation like this being presented to the general public. They already think those in the BDSM lifestyle are just a bunch of freaks but now they are meant to think that contracts and safe words are useless because the Dominant can "control himself"? Girl, bye. 

I pushed through the book to see the level of misinformation that was presented but there were some good moments mixed in. I do like the character of Gabrielle. She seems like a spitfire and I love that in my female protagonists. JD was not likeable to me. He was just a flip-flopping d-bag. One minute he is whispering sweet nothings in Gabrielle's ear and the next he's tormenting her simply for going to her best friends house to visit. I will keep reading the series only because I am curious about the non-romantic aspects of the story but even those seem like an afterthought in the grand scheme of kinky sex between the protagonists. 

I can't in good conscience give this book anything but a 1-star review due to the male protagonists dangerous thought process and practices. I am hoping that in the next book he'll have come to his senses a bit so I can rate the next higher. I think there is a good foundation for a story here, but just an offensive main character that sullied it.