Review: 4 Twisted and Bloody Stars
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 27, 2013
The Estate.....Run by Joseph Carmichael, a twisted, sadistic, warped shell of a man. He does what he wants and no one can do anything about it.He is master and ruler of all the Estate encompasses....including its occupants.Aaron, the son of a monster...the heir to the Estate. He kills and tortures men for the Estate. He is the Executioner. He is in a constant battle with the dark side that is his father.Madeleine is a cellist....sweet...innocent...timid...brilliant . She finds solace in her music. She lives in her own sheltered world...until one night, she is abducted from the only life she has known and dragged into Hell.Madeleine is a gift. An attempt by Joseph to reel Aaron into the underworld and make him the rightful heir that he should be.To survive, Madeleine has no other choice but to submit to Aaron and do as he says. Through her time with Aaron, she sees that he has goodness within his soul and light that tries to shine through. But Aaron is a man filled with hate for his father.....hate for his work...hate for what he must do to Madeleine.It quickly escalates into a deadly game of power and greed...a tug of war between Aaron and Joseph. Aaron has fallen for the beauty and the innocence that is Madeleine. He will do everything in his power to make sure that she is safe from the claws of the Estate...and from Joseph who has slipped further and further from sanity.I had to sit on this review for a while because I wasn't quite sure how to put into words how I felt about the book. I think it's a great read. Well thought out. Great storyline and great characters. After sitting on it, I did end up changing my rating from 3 to 4 stars.From about 83% on though....it felt a little Pulp Fiction-ish....and little unbelievable. A bit....ok A LOT of blood and death. I just had a hard time with how unreal it was. Yea yea...I know...IT'S FICTION. But still...pure chaos at the Estate. It was a bit much for me.I loved Aaron's character. Underneath his armor, he had a heart. His heart beat for Madeleine from the moment he met her. He loved her the only way he knew how...and he loved her hard.Madeleine for me was for the most part your typical slave. She was scared...as she should have been. She fought back even though her natural personality was timid. She proved though, at the end of the book, that she would take no shit and she would rule Hell the best way she knew how.Joseph....holy bejesus.. He was scary. Sick...twisted...harsh...brutal. I have never in my life wanted to kill a fictional character as much as I wanted to kill him.OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!A dark, gritty, seductive, torturous book. Lots of twists and lots of surprises.