So a friend of mine on facebook (who shall remain nameless, mostly because I haven't told her yet that she owes me $2.95 for the cost of this book) shared a truly excellent book ad the other day.  There was a beautiful shot of a man's arm in a french-cuffed white shirt, a heroine named Izobel, and a quote that was straight out of "Alpha/Dom speeches 101".  It had me.  And when my friend said she'd had a look at the sample and it was promising, that was all it took for me.  CLICK. 

And two hours later?  I'm done the book, I'm annoyed, borderline offended, and thinking that was $2.95 and two hours of my life I'll never get back. 

This should have been good.  Elise Hepner has taken two of my favourite tropes (marriage of convenience and best friends boinking) and mashed them up with a measure of kink thrown in for good measure.  Pretty standard for a contemporary romance these days, and I was looking forward to reading what this author's take on these standards would be.             

What I got was a disjointed, choppy, cheat of a story, with two-dimensional characters and flat dialogue.  The entire premise of the book was based on a need for the marriage in the first place, and 3/4 of the way through the book the premise is erased - just like that - and never mentioned again.  Not only that, but an icky, almost offensive connection between BDSM and the hero witnessing his mother's murder that had me thinking someone needed to take Bash to a psychologist, and quick.

Izzy and Bash have been friends forever (except for that time between middle school and high school that they weren't, and really who cares, but the author thought we should so she stuck in a weird flashback to start her story) and apparently Izzy is in love with Bash.  Don't know why really, even with all the telling the author does.  I never got the connection between them, never saw the foundation for what was to come. 

Somehow we are able to determine that Izzy's mom has cancer, is quite ill, and is in hospital having chemo.  Also somehow, through the garbled conversations and inner-voice meanderings of these two, we are told that Bash and Izzy have decided somehow to get married to make her happy before she dies. They share a couple of heated kisses at the hospital and somehow there is a wedding ceremony.

The wedding night doesn't happen, as Bash takes off from the romantic, rose-petal-strewn hotel suite and goes to some Dom/Sub club called The Attic where Izzy catches up with him in a "scene".  Then the book got weird.  For me, anyway.

There are flashbacks to Bash's mom's death - at the hands of a boyfriend who beat her for his own pleasure - which has somehow molded Bash's sexual proclivities.  This was where things got creepy for me.  I don't mind a little bit of BDSM in my books;  I've read that stupid 50 Shades, and virtually every contemporary you pick up nowadays has a hero who likes a bit of rough play.  What I DON'T like is when the hero is described as having a "not-so-secret love of BDSM", but his behaviour as portrayed by the author is closer to that of a sadist.  He considers himself a monster, and tells Izzy so. 

It just got worse for me after that.  Their first sexual encounter is rough, and Bash spanks the shit out of her.  For a first-timer, I found it a teeensy bit hard to believe that all it took for her was a bottle of champagne and a couple of hours surfing bondage porn on the internet to discover that she was really a sub and wanted to be bruised during sex.

And when he takes her to the club where they ARE the scene?  That was where the author lost me.  He puts her head in a STOCK for crissakes, flogs her, puts on nipple clamps and yanks on the chains, has some big-time anal involving a dildo (after never even having TALKED about that type of sex), drips hot wax all over her and jerks off onto her back. That's pretty serious for only her second time having that type of sex.  And also?  No mention of a safe word.  At any time.

Now, I'm not much of a serious student of BDSM but I've learned a couple of things since "the book that shall remain nameless" came out:

1)            BDSM seems to be all about the sub's pleasure.  The dom gets pleasure from giving pleasure to the sub, the sub relinquishes all control to the dom. Of course, that's pretty simplistic as I believe there is a lot of stuff about control, blurring the line between pain and pleasure, anticipation and most of all TRUST involved in that type of thing.  None of that was done here.  Bash seemed to have a need to cause pain (for some unclear, creepy, psychologically-fucked-up reason) and Izzy seemed to think that she would endure whatever she needed to because she loved him (and OH! she discovers that she likes it.)

2)            YOU NEED TO HAVE A SAFE WORD.  If I've got my head and wrists in a fucking stock, you've put clamps on my nipples and decide to splash melted wax on me, you better fucking believe there should be a word for me to scream at you to let you know I've had enough.  I would have thought this was basic, and I'm surprised that an author of erotica would overlook this.  It's irresponsible, IMHO.

There were other problems I had with the book as well - in addition to the bait-and-switch with her mother's illness (aw shucks! They switched the biopsies! I'm really fine and not dying and probably didn't need all the chemo I just had!)  Bash is referred to as a workoholic by Izzy. Um, doing what? Don't think he went in to work during the entire span of the book. He drives an expensive car, and dresses well, but doesn't every contemp romance dude? And what does she do? Details, that's what was missing.  Substance, depth,  character, emotions.  Wasn't feeling it.

As a matter of fact, I wasn't feeling anything by the end other than somewhat annoyed.  And wondering if I actually did practice BDSM, how PO'd I would be at the portrayal of my "likes" in the bedroom being linked in a novel to a boy watching his mother being beaten to death by a sadist because it pleased him.  I also wondered if Jenny Trout has read this - and what she would have to say if she did.

Can't recommend this one.  I didn't buy the romance, I didn't buy the characters, and I sure a s*** didn't buy the dom/sub aspect (although what I will say is that those scenes contained the best writing in the novel). And where was the frigging SAFE WORD????

1 1/2 stars, rounded up.

Mikasa and Eren have already moved into a high ranking of favorite characters, bestest best friends, ultimate badasses, and my darling babies you touch them and you die.

Mikasa's backstory (my fave part) is heart-wrenching but the scarf, while also likely to break your heart into a bunch of tiny little pieces, will simultaneously make you shriek a small shriek of joy. You'll see.

Still not a huge fan of the art, especially since a good number of the action scenes are nearly impossible to tell what's actually going on. Me and my sister were reading it together and we'd get to the action scenes and squint, comment "There's something actiony going on here. Some blood, guts, gore, movement, swinging, oooh, Mikasa, scribbles," etc. I vastly prefer the art from Full Metal Alchemist but then again, that art style wouldn't work for Attack on Titan. Still...

So after a lot of thinking, I realized I really couldn't overlook the little things that bugged me so the rating won't go up. I am too lazy to write a review so I'll sum up why this book didn't work for me in the spoiler tags below.

** It's been 2 weeks since I've read this book

Shiloh Walker's books remain full of awesome. I have yet to read one that I didn't enjoy. I've been having a little trouble lately finding a romantic suspense that actually satisfies my expectations but Shiloh kind of knows exactly what I want from a good book. It helps that there is a second chance romance in this one. I am a sucker for those.

The book starts of nicely, not making us wait for the good stuff. We meet our main characters, feel the sexual tension between them and learn that someone has stolen Shay's secret identity as an author.

Shay has a traumatic past that keeps her up at night and prevents her from trust people. She can barely survive with her sanity intact. The scars of what happened to her run deep (mentally and physically) and she doesn't want to burden anyone else with that knowledge. And to a certain extent she is right to do that, judging by Elliot's reaction, I can definitely see why she kept that knowledge to herself.

However, this woman who has been emotionally, mentally and physically traumatized is NOT weak. She is not the kind of person to wait for someone to come around and rescue her. She takes matters in her hands. She takes action. She is strong and has a lot of will power and is overall a very likable female lead.

Elliot. Elliot is perfect. Yes perfect is not a term I use a lot (okay maybe I lie) but he is the perfect guy for Shay. He had the guts to break up with a woman he loved because he knew she would never trust him, to stay around and hope for something that wouldn't happen wouldn't be fair to him and he realized that. Not a lot of people would. They would hold on to the scraps of a failing relationship (because let’s face it, a relationship that is not built on trust, is going to fail, even if the people happen to love each other).  But I like how he never pushed her to tell him, not when they were dating and not in the present. He waited for her to trust him enough to tell him. What I also liked was his patience with her. Even when Shay tells him what happened, he realizes he needs to go slow with her, be gentle. I realize this makes Shay sound like a fragile porcelain doll but she isn't one. She has a backbone and a strong will power. She doesn't want to remain powerless when it comes to the past, she wants to be able to overcome her nightmares and asks Elliot for his help. 

The mystery/suspense was everything I ever wanted from a romantic suspense. I don't like the twists you find in this genre, they are predictable and it always seems as though the author is trying hard to make it interesting. It didn't happen with Stolen though, the person behind everything that had been happening was not predictable but it hadn't come out of nowhere, the author gave us enough clues to figure it out for ourselves if we had tried (and I even came sort of close). 

The romance as you can obviously tell was great. It wasn't angst filled or even dramatic; in fact they resolve their issues very early on in the book. They don't try to hide their feelings. They talk. They communicate. Which is why they make a great couple. 

The book is well paced, full of suspense and keeps you on the edge. It's was a fun read and incredibly refreshing.