Dark Desires

"Amber ends up in jail after a night of binge drinking and her bff’s brother, Emmett bails her out. Amber is a registered nurse and down on her luck. She’s just been evicted and needs a job. She runs into Emmett again at the hotel he owns after she checks in. He offers her a shady nursing job. Emmett runs a mafia-like organization & Amber doesn’t like what she’s gotten herself into. So she runs & gets caught each time. It became repetitive and annoying. <br/><br/>This started out pretty good and it had my full attention, until it didn’t. There was so much going on with the story and side characters that the romance between Amber and Emmett sat on the back-burner until about sixty percent into the book. I was not interested at all in the romance and the chemistry just wasn’t there. I was more invested in the mystery and dark aspects to this story. I wanted to know more about Emmett’s back story and his crew."

"Dark Desires by Effie Campbell is the 4th in her “Dark” series. This one has more smutty tropes in it than her others. This is by far her spiciest book. It has the word “daddy” 80 times in it if that gives you any indication of the type of book it is. It has sharing, MFM, MM and MMF all together. There’s also BDSM, voyeurism, age-gap and much more.<br/> Valentina or Cherry is a cam-girl and loves doing it. Logan is a mafia man who is being forced to take over for his deceased father in run the empire and marry a rival mafia princess to build the empire. Logan and his soon-to-be wife Nicole have arranged that publicly they have to seem like they are in love but in private they can be with whoever they want. Logan ends up finding Cherry on a cam-site and instantly hit it off. Logan let loose some of his inner needs where as it was everything that Valentina wanted in her deepest sexual fantasies. Logan and Valentina end up at a sex clubhouse and experiment with each other while knowing that this is supposed to be a one-weekend thing. Effie is by far one of the best author’s in giving plot twists and you realize Hugh is a bigger jerk than you ever could think of. This book ends in a happily ever after and some final kinky scenes before it’s over. <br/> My favorite thing about this book was that it wasn’t a man who consistently pursued. Valentina knew what she wanted and wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Often times it’s the man consistently trying to maintain the relationship or fighting for it and it was nice to have a female character doing so. This wasn’t just for her relationship with Logan but also her independence. She knew that she wanted to be a cam-girl and wasn’t self-conscious or ashamed of what she did. She wanted her own independence, her own way of providing for herself and whoever else and she knew what her body wanted. That in of itself is nice to read. <br/> My least favorite thing about this the daddy trope. I, myself, am not a huge “daddy” person. I love dominant men especially dominant book men but not a daddy person. For me personally since that’s how I feel, it was hard to get into some of the scenes. Especially with daddy being said 80 times. Lol. <br/> I gave this book a 3 out of 5 stars. It was well written and easy to read. I personally felt that this book was like 80% ****, 20% plot which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it did lend towards a lower rating for me. I just felt like there was so much of “we can’t be together due to xyz” that it made the plot of the story trying to fight those said reasons and then the huge plot twist that Hugh provides. <br/>"

"I never read a prequel before but I am so glad I did. This one was so good and very suspenseful. I can not wait to find out what happens next for Scarlett."

"I had this on my To Read list for ages and the book started out interesting but lost something along the way. I got to 40%, put it down and took weeks to go back to see if I could finish it, which I finally did. The book is very atmospheric in the beginning and for the most part the author really does capture the gloomy and creepy circumstances of London. But a lot of the plot just didn't sit well with me - Darcie's sister sends her to the doctor rather than have her become a prostitute (so it's presumably a safer place) but then warns her to be wary of him. His own staff seem wary of him for much of the book - until they do a completely unexplainable 180. Some of Darcie's reactions seem over-the-top. I get that she's a young girl with a bit of an imagination but a lot of it just seemed too theatrical, overdone.<br/><br/>Damien's nature wasn't completely brooding, which I liked, because it made his transformation a little more believable. The ending in various ways didn't make much sense to me -- too contrived is all I'll say so as not to ruin it for those who persevere. <br/><br/>I had trouble pinpointing what else bothered me but Sarah Mac's review sums it up well. <br/><br/>The overall writing was good and the gothic atmosphere was well done. The romance and the mystery needed some work. I will probably read another to see whether it's just this book or the author in terms of my tastes."