Review: Four dark, suspenseful stars!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 1, 2014
4.5 Dark, Suspenseful Stars!Celeste Barstow has had the mother of bad days. She shows up to her greasy job at Jones' Food Truck and gets not only fired by her boss/boyfriend Jones, but also dumped. His reasoning...wait for it...she's boring. Boring? He gives her time to pack up her stuff, a few bucks for a hotel, and off she goes...jobless, boyfriend-less, friendless and no family. Great.Boring boring boringCeleste wastes no time in hitting the local salon, swapping out her boring brown locks for sexy blonde highlights, manicure, pedicure, and she's on the way to Vegas baby! Spontaneous but not BORING! She just needs to shed her old skin, live a little. To hell with Jones.. She's not boring, right?It doesn't take long for her to realize Caesars is way out of her price range, so she changes into something tight and sexy and begins to stroll through the casino, bag and baggage. Taking a pit stop for a drink, she notices a man staring at her from a card table. Suit, tie, dark hair, groomed beard with stunning onyx colored eyes. She's taken back by his clear interest in her. He sends her a drink...Celeste obviously isn't in the safest emotional frame of mind when she approaches this mysterious man. A few flirtatious moves back and forth and she's on her way up to his executive room to "store her luggage." Yah, right! His name is Leonide. He's got a beautiful possibly Russian accent...and he makes her feel ANYTHING but boring.. A few drinks in the room, the seduction begins...Deeper, deeper darkness sets in. She's barely able to stay awake...She hears his voice. A few distant words..."Yes, I do love a good American whore."When she wakes, she is no longer in the hotel...she's clearly been abducted.... Her prince has turned into her demon.That's all you're getting. It seems like a lot but that is literally the first 10% of the book. Hold on for the ride!Who is Leonide? Where is he from? What use does he have for Celeste?I really enjoyed this darker read. It's not the darkest I've read by a long shot but if you're into a bit of dark, mysterious suspense reads, I highly recommend it. I don't like to refer to other books within a review. If you've read dark abduction-themed books, then this is within that plot line (how many times can I say 'dark' in one paragraph).Leonide is not a good guy. He's a true anti-hero and it took me a bit longer that average for me to warm to him. The author waits until pretty late in the story to start to trickle feed his background...his true motives. It's mainly in Celeste's POV but towards the end we get his POV...which I loved.Is it graphic? A bit but not bad. I feel if a book is tagged dark, a reader needs to keep an open mind and come to expect the uglier part of human nature. Only Pretend is not a hearts and flowers romance for sure. Do we at least get a HEA?Why did I deduct a half star? I would've liked more meat to the story...50-100 pages more to get me a little more invested in the angsty details of the storyline. I was invested but not deep in my gut like I could've been.This is my first, but surely not the last book I'll read from Ms Flite.And I thank you,Advanced reader's copy received from the author in exchange for an HONEST review.