Review: A Cross Between a Thriller like Gone Girl and a BDSM Billionaire Story like Fifty Shades of Gray or the Crossfire Trilogies!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 3, 2014
If you love romantic suspense novels and like your stories with a little edge to them on the passion side, you will want to check out White Collared Part One: Mercy. Think of it as a cross between a thriller like Gone Girl and one of the hugely popular BDSM billionaire stories like the Fifty Shades of Gray or Crossfire Trilogies. Please note though that this story is divided into four parts, each comprising its own book. So to get the full story, you will need to read all four parts of the White Collared series.Kate Martin has a dark past. Rather than let it get her down though, she uses her hard work and determination to go to law school and lands a third year internship at the prestigious law firm of Joseph and Long. The partner she works for, Nicholas Trenton, also just happens to be the man she has been tracking, and secretly in love with, for years. Everything she has done to get to where she is, has been done in anticipation of working by his side someday, and she will do anything to impress him.Nicholas is a civil lawyer, not a criminal one, but when Jaxon Deveroux's wife turns up dead, Jaxon, who is Nicholas' best friend, asks Nicholas to represent him. Strangely enough, although she is only an intern, Nicholas asks Kate to second chair the case (an honor usually reserved for senior associates and others of higher ranks). Almost immediately, she recognizes a mutual attraction to Jaxon. An attraction which interestingly enough causes all of Nicholas' protective instincts, and other affections, to rise to attention.This is a sensitive case since Jaxon and his wife were known to engage in BDSM, and the circumstances in which she was found indicate that the killer may have been a BDSM lover. Interestingly enough, Nicholas has a relatively solid alibi, and claims that he had not been intimate with his wife for over eighteen months given her darker proclivities which he was not willing to entertain. In fact, before he left for his last business trip, he claims that he had told her that he intended to divorce her. But when politics and the media combine to convict Jaxon irrespective of his alibi and alleged innocence, time becomes of the essence.Kate, who has always fantasized about the BDSM lifestyle, hatches a plan to get an undercover look at the BDSM club that Jaxon and his wife belonged to. Although Nicholas tries his best to talk her out of it, they proceed on the premise that Kate will act as Jaxon's submissive in order to secretly question the members.Who will Kate fall in love with: Nicholas or Jaxon? Who is the real killer? And what deep dark secrets is Kate hiding from her own past? Secrets which strangely seem to make her particularly suited for the submissive lifestyle.I highly enjoyed this first part and am eagerly awaiting the next installment, White Collared Part Two: Greed. I think this story has so much potential that I can't wait to see which way Shelly Bell takes it in! There are so many delicious possibilities!Source: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.