Mia, one of the younger twin sisters of Jeremy, looks like goth Barbie, clad in head to toe black, with blue eyes, blonde hair, and blue ribbons in her hair. She doesn’t speak, not because she was born unable to, but because of a traumatic event in her past that resulted in her having a petrifying fear of speech. We see glimpses of Mia in God of Malice, Pain, and Wrath, and in God of Ruin we find out that she is not someone you want to cross. When Lan, head of the Elites, kidnapped her brother, it made her furious, and this story begins with her getting revenge. I liked seeing one of the female leads in this series take action, but my delight was short lived.
Lan is yet another overly aggressive, overly controlling, closed off man. He has more kinks than Killian, Creighton, and Jeremy combined, and they are all on the far end of the BDSM spectrum. This is the man that the author decides will make the perfect romantic interest for Mia, who just happens to be a virgin. Surprise, surprise, says my inner monologue with extreme sarcasm.
I just wanted one female main character in this series to be on the same level as the male she was paired with. The imbalance of power, physically and politically, combined with the extremely sexually experienced males and virginal females, screamed of an author who is an advocate of erasing women’s rights. It was just too much for me to fully enjoy the first four novels in this series, the patriarchal themes were always in the back of my head, irritating me constantly. Yes, the intimate scenes are spicy and exciting. But that alone is not enough to hold my interest or make me consider recommending this novel and the rest to others.
Besides getting sucked into a six book series in which five of the books focus around my least favorite trope, the reason behind Mia’s voluntary mutism makes absolutely no sense. Mia is a mafia daughter. Her parents and their associates are some of the most powerful and wealthy people in the country, if not the world. She could have bodyguards on her twenty four seven, she has no reason not to tell her parents or anyone else the identity of the person who caused her to go silent. She herself has admitted that she refuses to speak out of fear, and that the only way to let go of that fear would be to name the person or kill them, and yet she does nothing. She truly believes that the person who did this to her is unable to be found. I find that logic to be lacking.
I am trying to be optimistic and stay excited for the fifth book in this series, God of Fury, which is the only male/male romance in this series. I am hoping that the two men that they pair together have at least somewhat of an equal footing.
Nonfiction and Nonsense 