Gritty and in your face with domestic violence issues and low self worth. The lead couple was a good pairing because it was so easy to imagine these characters (easy to imagine their interactions). Sloan is strong and solid male lead and Alexis is the perfect scared female lead. There are many good elements to this story but I just had a bit of trouble with the author's writing style. No matter what, the evolution of the scarred and scared heroine is communicated well. As well as the emotional scars that the hero carries.

Summary: Is finding one’s true love worth committing the greatest sacrifice of all?

Taken as a teen, prisoner 194 was stripped of his name and freewill, meticulously honed to be a ruthless machine. Even as he tries to fight his captors hold on him he knows that obedience is the only way to save his sister, who is the one person that keeps him from turning into a monster.

 

As a young girl Zoya Kostava barely escaped the brutal attack that killed her entire family. Now twenty five she lives in secrecy. That is until she hears her brother also survived and is living with their greatest enemy.

 

Zoya risks her safety and anonymity to find the brother she thought dead and is captured by a beautiful, brutal man. A man who both captivates and scares her, in him she sees a soul as lost as her own.

 

They both have so much to lose will they be able to save each other…and survive.

Title: Ravage
Series: Scarred Souls #3
Author: Tillie Cole
Publisher: St Martin’s Press
Released: 16th August 2016
Genre: Dark Contemporary Romance
Format: eGalley
Source: via Publisher on NetGalley – thank you!

**Please note that this may contain spoilers for previous books in this series.**

I absolutely love this series. It’s dark, mysterious, dramatic, romantic, with alpha males up the wazoo. Tillie Cole has written a fabulous world surrounding the Russian Mafia and an underground slave ring that had me gasping in horror and oooohhhhing in possessive love. Scarred Souls is a series that must be read in order from beginning to end; each book contains a story of a couple, but the characters from previous books are still included within each novel. Ravage was no less addictive than Raze or Reap and only adds to the intrigue surrounding the war between the Volkov Bratva and the Georgians.

The story begins in an orphanage, a brother trying to protect his baby sister, but that night ends in horror and begins the unspeakable life of the two children. The Night Wraiths had come!

It is now fifteen years later and Zoya Kostava has learned of new information that will change her life forever. She’s free! Her clan is free to come out of hiding and her lost brother has been found. She’s desperate to see her brother and cannot wait another minute. Sneaking out, Zoya uses her training to hide in the shadows and see for herself if Zaal is in fact alive. But what she didn’t factor into the equation was that others were also watching Zaal and Zoya is taken before she even gets to meet her brother.

194 wears a collar that injects a serum into his veins. This serum turns him into an unfeeling beast with only one thing on his mind, KILL. Mistress is 194s owner, she is the only one he is to obey, but he has no choice when they hold his sister, 152, captive to motivate him.

194 sees images of his sister and is promised to be reunited after a mission, but every time a mission is completed, he still only sees an image. Will this time be any different? 194 has no choice but to follow orders. He has a new target now and is told to take his time, use anybody necessary to get close and destroy.

Zoya discovers she’s been kidnapped by a beast, but the more time she’s in his presence, the more she realises just how similar they are and that under the horrifying exterior, there is a soft hearted, beautiful and possessive man.

Will 194 reclaim himself? Will Zoya be able to convince her kidnapper that he isn’t a complete monster? Will 194 be able to break free of Mistress and free his sister? Will Zoya get to reunite with her brother?

Follow the intense forbidden love of Zoya and 194, how they can find love in the most horrific of circumstances and convince everyone that their love is real and forever. This action packed, dark, sizzling hot intriguing romance is a must read. Ms Cole is a fabulous writer and I cannot wait to read number four, Riot, due out in 2017.

THE SERIES:

About the Author

Tillie Cole hails from a small town in the North-East of England. She grew up on a farm with her English mother, Scottish father and older sister and a multitude of rescue animals. As soon as she could, Tillie left her rural roots for the bright lights of the big city. After graduating from Newcastle University, Tillie followed her Professional Rugby player husband around the world for a decade, becoming a teacher in between and thoroughly enjoyed teaching High School students Social Studies for seven years. Tillie has now settled in Calgary, Canada, where she is finally able to sit down and write, throwing herself into fantasy worlds and the fabulous minds of her characters. Tillie writes Contemporary Romance, Dark Romance, Young Adult and New Adult novels and happily shares her love of alpha-male leading men and strong female characters with her readers. When she is not writing, Tillie enjoys dancing, singing, reading, horse riding, listening to music or spending time with friends and family. Her books include Raze, Reap, and Ravage

Taken by the Jakhua Clan as a teen, 194 was stripped of his name, his identity, and his freewill, meticulously honed to be a ruthless, soulless killing machine, trained solely to spill blood and stop hearts. This is a role he resents with every fiber of his being, but one he embraces to gain back the precious leverage the Georgians wield as their weapon of control: his younger sister, 152.

Mzia Kostava is in shock. After fleeing her mafia family's massacre in Georgia as a child, Mzia lives in secret, hiding from her enemies in the dark shadows of Manhattan. At age twenty-five, believing all her family is dead, word reaches Mzia that her brother Zaal is very much alive... and living with their family's greatest enemy: the Volkov Bratva in Brooklyn.

Yearning to be reunited with her beloved Zaal, Mzia risks her safety and anonymity for the brother she had mourned since childhood. But just as she reaches Zaal's apartment, Mzia is seized and taken captive by a strange man, who is strong, dark, and brutal... Unyielding, he demands her utter obedience as he locks her away in darkness. He is highly skilled in torture and inflicting pain, and demands to know everything about her brother Zaal and everything about her. He is a man that'll do anything to get what he wants.

Sometimes love requires the sacrifice and betrayal of those held most dear. But is finding one's true love worth committing the greatest sacrifice of all?

This is not a book to start half way into the series I've learned a quarter of the way into this book. There is a lot of history that is related to all the cast and everything that's happening in Ravage and the reasons behind why everyone does what they're doing that appear to relate to previous books.

That makes all the extreme content a little bit daunting to take in considering how intense a lot of it is. Between the emotions and the sex and the suspense its difficult to process.

However its written really well and I'm curious what put us where we are now, what got us and the cast here where they are in Ravage even though Readers get a little bit of background explanation.

I really want to go back and discover the first two books of this series so I have a fuller more developed understanding of this series before I judge it more seriously because I can tell there is a lot more to it than what I got out of reading the third book first instead of the first book.

I would like to say that Ravage is a great read, its interesting, its extreme and its violent but there's an under current of something really special here and I want to read the Scarred Souls series from its origins. I'm excited.

Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews received a digital copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts, comments and ratings are my own.

Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews received a digital copy in exchange for an honest review from St. Martin's Press via Netgalley.

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