The Degas Girl by AJ Adams - Win a $10 Amazon Gift Card!
The Degas Girl
By AJ Adams
Promo Price US$2.99 until 15 July 2014
Complete and standalone novel
#1 Amazon UK Paid Kindle Organised Crime
Dark, violent and twisted
“He wore jeans and a turquoise T-shirt. The colour made his eyes look
blue instead of green. I wasn’t fooled by his looks and his gentle ways. This
man had a will of iron, and by the way he looked at me, I could see he was just
as determined to control me as Angelo. He just used his tongue instead of his
fists.
I’d go along with it, because anything that kept me out of the hole
meant I had a chance to escape. I’d pretend to be docile, and as soon as he
fell asleep or took his eye off me, I’d make a run for it.
He looked me over, frowning slightly. Suddenly I wondered if he was
changing his mind. Maybe he wasn’t going to let me eat. Maybe it was a game
maybe he’d show me the food, and then tie me up and leave me to starve while he
stuffed his face. I was trembling at the thought. "
###
Serenity Bishop is a work of art. Her skin a canvas,
decorated with the scars of her evil captor’s twisted abuse. But her tormentor,
Angelo, is about to lose control.
Zachary is an art thief and forger. His handsome face is merely
the mask that hides a cold, calculating man whose own childhood of abuse has
honed him into a remorseless killing machine.
Zachary is about to take an intense disliking to Angelo.
Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire.
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Review: This is labeled as a dark romance, yet the elements that make a story dark aren't shown in this book; rather, we're told what happened, but all of the incidents have already taken place at the start of the book. And while we don't get the full-on scenes of abuse as they happen, we do get the early histories of Zachary and Serenity and what they endured growing up (including rape, domestic violence, child sexual abuse); what's written is graphic enough to imagine (the "poker" game and the sex toy scenes are two such incidents).
I liked both characters, although there were times I wanted to shake Serenity, because for all that she experienced growing up, she was still so damn naive when it came to the people in her life, and how she finally realized they were just using her, yet she still turned to them to try and help save her; talk about an unfortunate wake-up call. What started out as a plan for revenge slowly morphed into a romance, albeit twisted and unconventional, given the nature of both Zachary and Serenity.
"All those years ago I had hunted down my attackers. I had killed, leaving a trail of corpses in my wake. I had tortured those who had hurt me, and I had taken a savage joy in their agony. That morning, in the dawn of a new day, my knife had completed the transformation. I had killed the last one of them, and now I stood alone.
Are you alright, Zachary?
I felt nothing because I had completed the circle. I had been a victim, and I had taken that experience nd used it to debase and exploit this girl. I hadn't survived; I had become the abuser.
Are you alright, Zachary?
I looked into those blue eyes and I knew myself for what I was: I was a monster."
I will say that I think this could have easily been a two-book series; still done in the same fashion of dual POV, but the first book could have been both Zachary's and Serenity's stories as they happened when they were growing up, and then The Degas Girl could have been the conclusion, if you will. But I still enjoyed this story and recommend it.
Rating: ♥♥♥♥
Thanks for this! Really appreciate it. Pimping your blog on FB and Twitter.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I really enjoyed this story, thank you for the chance to read it :)
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