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REVIEW: Sweating Lies by Emma Jaye
Criminal Delights: Taken: Sweating Lies
“Gladiator or toy?” Kaspar asks, as if it’s the easiest choice in the world.
It might be an easy answer for someone branded, brainwashed, and who remembers no other life. But that’s not me, not yet anyway. I’m a cop—or at least I was until my cover got blown.
Now, I’m one of the trafficked people I vowed to save.
Kaspar’s a toy —a pleasure slave— content to warm our sadistic owner’s bed; he laps up the abuse he’s conditioned to associate with affection.
He’s my only way out. To gain our freedom, I must play the hardest undercover role of my career and be everything his fractured mind needs: a more controlling bastard than the man who turns people into grateful slaves for a living.
Officer Jiao Sweatt thinks I’m a victim.
He has a lot to learn.
And it’ll hurt.This book is part of CRIMINAL DELIGHTS. Each novel can be read as a standalone and contains a dark M/M romance.
Warning: These books are for adult readers who enjoy stories where lines between right and wrong get blurry. High heat, twisted and tantalizing, these are not for the fainthearted.Hmm…I don’t know why this has such a high rating because quite frankly, I was bored.
But if dark is what you want, this is as dark as it can get. Human trafficking, brainwashing, slavery, cattle prods up the ass and that damn parrilla made me shudder. It was sickening so if you want your limits pushed, this is it.
However, the book lost me when it dumped a boatload of information on the workings of the orta, a secret criminal organization specializing in bespoke slaves. I needed the backgrounder but it was just too much info for one scene and the way it was delivered by Kaspar, I think it was unnatural that he would suddenly give a lecture on the orta’s business model just because a captive asked him.
I couldn’t care less about Jiao and Kaspar. I didn’t feel the chemistry. I liked the story better when Jiao was still undercover with Maksim’s gang and I was definitely more interested in Maksim and James. But after Jiao was tasered and handed over to the orta, it became boring despite all the disturbing implications. The pace was slow going. It took a while to get to anything interesting and I have no motivation to stick around and wait for things to perk up.
So Sweating Lies wasn’t working out like I wanted it to but definitely YMMV because many people liked it.
P.S.
review of other Criminal Delights books here
Rating:
2 Stars – it’s a struggle to finish the damn bookSoundtrack: Happiness In Slavery
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Album: Broken -
REVIEW: Only The Devil Knows by Katze Snow & Tiegan Clyne
Criminal Delights: Serial Killers: Only The Devil Know – Katze Snow & Tiegan Clyne
My name is Max, but people call me The London Whipper. I’ve been silent for many years. Now I’m ready to make my final move.
Only The Devil Knows follows the people trapped within my web of lies:
Nathaniel Harris, a psychologist who works with the criminally insane.
Genevieve Knight, the Chief Inspector determined to find me once and for all.
Wyatt Pearson, the beautiful boy who believes I’m a hero instead of a cold-blooded murderer.
Each of these people has one thing in common—they all want me. But what happens when my whip tangles around them and distorts everything they believe to be true?
I’ve kept my identity under wraps… until now. It’s time to show the public what I’ve been working on. After all, what’s a serial killer if he doesn’t have some artistic flair and his favourite boy at his side?
This book is part of CRIMINAL DELIGHTS. Each novel can be read as a standalone and contains a dark M/M romance.
Warning: These books are for adult readers who enjoy stories where lines between right and wrong get blurry. High heat, twisted and tantalizing, these are not for the fainthearted.As far as the Criminal Delights series goes, the first two books, Wrong Way Home and Devil Next Door, still lean towards the ‘light’ part of the spectrum. The third book, Only The Devil Knows is DARK AS FUCK, it’s happy end reserved only for the our beloved sickos who used it to bring their game to the next level. The rest of humanity will have to settle for cringing like mangy dogs waiting for that crack of the whip.
There are four POVs and I totally love diving into the heads of Max, Wyatt, Gen and Nathaniel. The alternating POVs were very effective in creating that suspenseful build-up to the big twist. There were major hints dropped here and there and the moment when it came was (pun intended) insanely delicious.
Max, the Master and Wyatt’s beloved Sir. He is an artist at heart, creating beautiful paintings from the blood of his victims. He is brutal, sadistic and completely in control. With that mysterious charisma all serial killers seem to have, you will find yourself drawn to him against your better judgement.
Wyatt, Max’s Boy, is a pure masochist, reveling in the Master’s dominance of him. He is super loyal and willing to play any game The Whipper comes up with. And as he proudly announced, his crazy matches the Master’s crazy.
Gen is the chief inspector who has been frustratingly investigating The London Whipper case for 20 year with hardly any leads. In any other book, she would have come out the hero and I wanted her to be so but then this is not that book. I felt really sorry for her. Bring back up next time, Gen.
Nathaniel is the very prim and proper psychiatrist working in a mental health institution. He has a troubled childhood and a domineering father who constantly tells him he is no good. As a result, he keeps his attraction to his fellow colleague under wraps because he was too cowardly to ask him out. He was completely shaken when he found himself responding to Wyatt, who propositioned him. He tried really hard to stay in control but it was a losing battle really.
Monstrous and bloodthirsty as they are, I found myself rooting for Max and Wyatt. The Nathaniel+Wyatt angle was equally compelling too but I think that would leave Wyatt unsatisfied. Nathaniel is too nice. I like him though so Wyatt could go either way or both.
Those who love the more extreme side of sex will find BDSM elements in full play alongside real torture, death and art. It is as graphic and disturbing as it can get, nobody was spared. I spared myself the full impact of these depravities by skimming the scenes. Chicken shit, I know.
Some niggles:
First, the book was set in London so I wished it had a more British feel to it. I hardly felt the place, it could have been anywhere in the US. Also,the writing had a more American/international English feel to it, I would have preferred more slangs and colloquialism. Maybe somewhere along the lines of the Constable Peter Grant novels. But that’s just me.
Felter’s part was unecessary. It gave an extra dose of horror to the proceedings but then his part could have been done by either Wyatt or Max.
Max is really not as careful as the book made him out to be. How is he not caught already? But do we want him caught?
Obviously, these niggles hardly matter because Only The Devil Knows was as good as advertised. This is a fun book that I recommend for those into fucked-up stories about fucked up people.
P.S.
Check out other books in the Criminal Delights series:
Wrong Way Home by K.A. Merikan (review here)
Devil Next Door by Alex Jane (review here)Rating:
4.5 Stars – perfection is only half a step awaySoundtrack: Discipline
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Album: The Slip -
REVIEW: Wrong Way Home by K.A. Merikan
Crimnal Delights: Taken: Wrong Way Home – K.A. Merikan
— One wrong turn. One right man. —
Colin. Rule-follower. Future doctor. Witness to murder. Captive.
Taron. Survivalist. Mute. Murderer. Captor.Like every other weekend, Colin is on his way home from university, but he’s taunted by the notion that he never takes risks in life and always follows the beaten path. On impulse, he decides to take a different route. Just this one time. What he doesn’t realize is that it’s the last time he has a choice.
He ends up taking a detour into the darkest pit of horror, abducted by a silent, imposing man with a blood-stained axe. But what seems like his worst nightmare might just prove to be a path to the kind of freedom Colin never knew existed.
Taron has lived alone for years. His land, his rules. He’d given up on company long ago. After all, attachment is a liability. He deals with his problems on his own, but the night he needs to dispose of an enemy, he ends up with a witness to his crime.
The last thing Taron needs is a nuisance of a captive. Colin doesn’t deserve death for setting foot on Taron’s land, but keeping him isn’t optimal either. It’s only when he finds out the city boy is gay that an altogether different option arises. One that isn’t right, yet tempts him every time Colin’s pretty eyes glare at him from the cage.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS:
Themes: prepping, alternative lifestyles, disability, crime, loneliness, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, fish out of water, opposites attract, abduction, Stockholm syndrome, family issues
Genre: Dark, thriller M/M romance
Erotic content: Scorching hot, emotional, explicit scenes
Length: ~ 70,000 words (Standalone)This book is part of CRIMINAL DELIGHTS. Each novel can be read as a standalone and will contain a dark M/M romance.
Warning: These books are for adult readers who enjoy stories where lines between right and wrong get blurry. High heat, twisted and tantalizing, these are not for the fainthearted.
This story contains scenes of explicit violence, offensive language, morally ambiguous characters.So the book comes with all these dire warning and promised to be dark but what we really get are bunnies, kittens and animal lovers who stand by their pets come hell or high water. Sure, somebody got an axe to the face and a few more were murdered, but they all deserved it. Like that guy who planned to burn an entire house full of cats. As Lucifer Morningstar would say, there’s a special place in hell for you, buddy.
The real star of the show were Missi and her kittens, who turned things around, kicked the story up a notch and made me warm up to the humans.
As for the humans, well, Colin was a bit none too bright for my liking. Like those horror movie characters, he made a wrong turn and was caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. He was held inside a cage and his plan was to fuck his way out of captivity. Good luck with that. To his credit, Colin never gives up without a fight. He could be a brat but he really did care about the cats.
Lucky for Colin, his captor, Taron, was an attractive hulk of man who lives in the middle of the woods so putting his plan into action was no hardship. Taron is a prepper who had some enemies out to get his property. He is very territorial, self-sufficient and makes a mean rabbit bacon. He has a soft spot for strays and doesn’t want to go to jail, so quite understandably he couldn’t let go of Colin, who, aside from being a witness to murder, has appealing chestnut eyes, is conveniently gay and most precious of all, knows ASL. The book felt entirely like him. Gruff, intimidating, hard-edged, intense, wild and rough but also with a surprisingly caring side that could give you a case of warm fuzzies.
I wasn’t entirely convinced with Colin’s reasoning during his captivity but maybe that was the point. They weren’t supposed to be 100% rational for the rest of humanity (and who cares really). But Stockholm Syndrome or not, the attraction between Colin and Taron was real and the part where their relationship gradually transformed from captor to partner was believable and executed really well.
Overall, Wrong Way Home falls between like and love. It is written in the usual K.A. Merikan style where huge chunks of the story were devoted to sex scenes and skipping those parts makes things go faster without losing the thread. It took a while for me to feel entirely invested in the story but in the end, it won me over and now, I am entirely convinced Colin and Taron would make it work. Also, the cats were safe which is what really mattered.
Rating:
3.5 Stars – that place between like and loveSoundtrack: The Woods
Artist: Hollow Cove
Album: Wanderlust -
When I see your light pieces with my dark pieces, I begin to understand why they say opposites attract.
Amanda Lovelace
