Review: My Dangerous Pleasure

Reviewed by Jen
 

It took me a while to get into this book. In fact, I almost put it down, which I something I never do.  But I'm so glad that I didn't.  It got better in a big way.

My Dangerous Pleasure is book four in Carolyn Jewel's Witches series and I haven't read the first three installments in the series.  And believe me, I felt my ignorance in the beginning.  The world building wasn't too hard to pick up on, but there was clearly a lot of backstory on the supernatural characters that the author tried to compress into short bursts of information overload.  I had no trouble understanding what was happening in this story, but I knew there were gaping holes in my knowledge of the characters, which I found distracting. I found the first half of the book to be slow-moving: very little action, no romance, and a lot of explaining. 

Paisley is a regular human who runs a bakery. But she has the misfortune of renting her apartment from a landlord who is demonkin.  That makes her a target for a mage, intent on bending her to his will.   Rasmus awakens magic within her as he stalks her and tries to possess her mind.  Iksander, our hero, catches wind of what's going on and becomes Paisley's protector.  They become friends and eventually lovers, as the Paisley gets deeper into the demon and mage world.

This is where the book got good... when Iskander and Paisley's relationship evolved into something more than friendship. The sex was awesome; frantic; needful. I loved the dynamic of Iskander changing to his demon form.  I enjoyed his struggle with his feelings.  Coincidentally, it was right around this same time that I also became invested in the action. The story picked up. The danger felt real.  Just as much as I struggled to keep reading in the beginning, I found myself unwilling to stop reading in the end.  And now I want to go back and read the first three stories.

I have a feeling that I really might have connected with this book a lot sooner if I had read the other books in the series. But the simple fact is, I didn't.  And I'm struggling to rate this book as a result.  I'll go with 3 1/2 stars. But I'll bet it would be more for anyone who has read books 1-3.

*ARC Provided by NetGalley

My Dangerous Pleasure

by Carolyn Jewel

Release Date: June 1, 2011

Publisher: Forever (GCP)