I was actually expecting way worse because I've read things like SWEET SAVAGE LOVE or BLEDDING SORROW, and apart from having more graphic sex scenes, this book really didn't have anything that shocking if you're familiar with old skool romances. Things get DARK in this book and really bad things happen to the hero and the heroine. There's rough sex, torture, dub-con, cult-like situations, abuse, and violence. It's basically a modern-day bodice-ripper. Regarding some of the negative reviews for this book, I can totally understand why people wouldn't like this book. It was a total 180 in character development but it also made sense and I just loved her character so much. So I was REALLY fucking happy that the glimpses of occasional maliciousness we saw from Story in book one took hold in book two and she becomes a one-woman revenge act who's ready to fuck things up. I don't deny that this can happen in real life situations but it's not fun to read about and doesn't make for a good romance. I felt really sorry for her but she really didn't have a lot of agency as a character, and she was veering too close to one of those heroines in dark eroticas that just sort of takes everything thrown at her at the cost of her self-respect.

She made all kinds of questionable decisions and felt like such a victim. Story, the heroine, was really hard to relate to in the first book. So now that she's legal and still a virgin, they're like YAAAASS. The other two, Tristian and Rath, helped sexually assault her when she was underage.

The Lords of this story are one such frat and the girl they have chosen to be their live-in prostitute/sex slave is the stepsister of one of the boys, Killian. It's a really weird story where frat boys act like mob bosses. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what the authors were going to do with the story. Like, oh my God, why am I reading this? And, why do I want more? And, what kind of literary cocaine did the authors inject into this book to even make me like a story that has so many tropes I hate? I don't like reverse harem and I don't like caveman alpha heroes, I don't particularly like crime/mafia stories, and I hate stories that fetishize virginity/purity, so the fact that this book had all of those elements and I still enjoyed reading it made me feel like I should call shenanigans.Īnd yet, here I am. Okay, so after I read LORDS OF PAIN by Angel Lawson and Samantha Rue, I had a lot of thoughts.

The order by angel lawson