★☆☆☆☆

Genres: erotica, romance, mystery

Pages: 384

Series: Book 1 of the “First and Last” series

Published by St. Martin’s Griffin

Release date: December 29th, 2015

Those who were put off by Fifty Shades, please don’t even attempt to read this book. Just avert your eyes and keep walking because it was child’s play in every fashion when it comes to the ‘dark’ quality.

Never have I regretted reading a book so much in my life.

Emily Wayborn is a voice actress on a hit show and when she goes home for Thanksgiving she receives a disturbing message from her former bestie, it’s an SOS in the form of a safe word they shared. Emily hires a PI to help her figure out what is wrong – her bestie, Amber is missing and no one wants to help since no one will believe her that she’s actually missing so, Emily ventures off to a resort where Emily was last seen and known to be dating the owner.

Once there the story severely drops in quality not that it’s so far into it that there is much anyway, I’m talking about the fact we cannot stop seeing mentions of her breasts and if you didn’t know she has big breasts you’ll be reminded of it quite frequently. You’re also not to forget she’s hot and basically enraptured with her appearance. Yes, it’s great she has confidence but this takes it to the extreme and not to mention this book repeatedly goes back and forth about this characters self worth. It’s not consistent, or maybe that is the point. I don’t know. I don’t like what this character is representing. Appreciating your figure is great, having confidence is great, but to throw it up in someone’s face all the time or to then purposely use her body to garner attention then to get uppity when she DOES? WTF.

This was only into chapter two mind you, it gets worse for me from there. We swiftly forget about Amber and the very reason she is there and the story begins to go down a very dark path when Emily finds herself infatuated with the dangerous and I mean actually dangerous Reeve Sallis. Reeve isn’t the mysterious and dark guy that is so often smeared in romance books, Reeve is dangerous, he admits it and even goes so far as to be physically abusive toward Emily. He refuses her the option of a safe word down the road, he threatens to snuff the life out of her while massaging her and also has his fingers at her throat, that kind of dangerous.

I’m not sure what I’m more worried about… the fact this book is out there or the fact that most people have rated this 5 stars and raved about how wonderful of a couple these two are. They represent an abusive, sick relationship. I don’t get it and I didn’t like it. This is glorifying the fact this girl is remaining in a highly abusive and highly dangerous relationship.

By the end when things are winding down we somehow remember that oh yeah, the reason why she is there in the first place is AMBER! Who she has come to resent because of the ties she had with Reeve! There is a cliffhanger that makes you want to know WHY, what HAPPENED.. but it is most certainly not enough to make me want to read the second one. I was really disturbed reading this book, it wasn’t sexy, it was sick and disgusting.