Thursday, July 16, 2015

Review: Illicit by Madeline Pryce

Illicit
Release Date: June 14, 2015
Publisher: Self-Published
ASIN:   B00ZJMPM48
Genre: Erotic Paranormal Romance
Review Copy Source: Publisher
An angel trapped in darkness, a sinner imprisoned, and a lust borne of destiny.

Eva has no explanation for the tattoo wings shimmering on her back or her ability to heal.

Peter Marx, a reluctant alpha leopard shifter who is more rebel than he is hero doesn't want to rule, and he sure as hell doesn't want to fall in love.

A night of unforgettable passion leads Peter and Eva down a dangerous path. The killer's trap grows ever tighter, forcing the two lovers to fight with everything they have.

Warning: This paranormal romance includes explicit sexual scenes, dirty talk, light bondage, anal sex and dubious consent.

I had a bit of a déjà vu moment when I started reading ILLICIT, the opening bar scene reminded me a lot of another of Madeline's books, WICKED MAGIC, and I had to stop reading for a second to make sure I hadn't already read it. The similarities end there though and I quickly started to enjoy the mystery and danger of the storyline. There were a lot of neat twists thrown in and I enjoyed the characters for the most part.

I am sad to say that I had a big issue with ILLICIT when it came to Peter's character. He could be extremely rude and way rougher than I expected. His treatment of Eva in some scenes was a bit hard to get through. That just isn't my type of love handling. The warning in the blurb is something you should really take to heart before you start reading ILLICIT because I can see some having an even tougher time with a few scenes than I did. Besides those issues I did like Peter when he wasn't being a royal arse. I liked Eva, I thought she had a few moments where she should have kicked Peter to the curb, but for the most part she did a good job of sticking up for herself. The romance between the two was super spicy as you can imagine from a erotic paranormal romance and there are a lot of sex scenes.

The storyline was my favorite part of the story. Madeline is a great storyteller and did a good job of making the story more than just the sex the characters were engaging in. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of the pack included in the story, but I enjoyed the parts where they were present.

I gave it 3/5 stars

* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.