BOOK REVIEW - Haunting Adeline - H.D Carlton - Digital Book - 4*

 

BOOK REVIEW

Haunting Adeline - H.D Carlton

*this review contains affiliate links, see my profile for more info :)

I can't blame TikTok or Bookstagram for this one. This one was all me! I really enjoyed the taster plot in the Satan's Affair Novella (check out that review here) so immediately downloaded the Cat and Mouse Duet and started book one. This book, similarly to the first, has trigger warnings (of a slightly different nature), this time more around consent and kinks, I'll share the warning below, so you can have a good idea of what you're getting into before you read it.

It's a much more meaty tome, almost 600 pages and I was really interested to see how Sibby, the character in Satan's Affair, slotted in here. 

I'll post the trigger warnings as they are printed so that I don't make them any less harsh than required to give a true reflection of the contents. 

WARNING

The contents are very dark with triggering situations, such as non/dub con between the two main characters, graphic violence, human trafficking, stalking, child trafficking, child sacrifice, mentions of child death, and explicit sexual situations. There are also particular kinks such as gun play, somnophilia, bondage, and degradation.

BLURB

The Manipulator

I can manipulate the emotions of anyone who lets me. 

I will make you hurt, make you cry, make you laugh and sigh. 

But my words don't affect him. Especially not when I plead for him to leave. 

He's always there, watching and waiting. 

And I can never look away. 

Not when I want him to come closer. 

The Shadow

I didn't mean to fall in love. 

But now that I have, I can't stay away. 

I'm mesmerized by her smile, by her eyes, and the way she moves. 

The way she undresses...

I'll keep watching and waiting. Until I can make her mine/ 

And once she is, I'll never let her go. 

Not even when she begs me to

MY REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

SPICE: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I didn't know what to expect from this book, but after reading Satan's Affair, I knew that anything could (and probably would) happen. The gore/horror elements were less intense, though the intimate scenes felt significantly MORE so. 

Adeline is an author, she lives in a creepy mansion left to her by her grandmother, who she loved dearly. When she's renovating the house, she discovers her great-grandmother's (GiGi) journals. They describe her final few months, before she is brutally murdered and seem to indicate that she had a stalker, who became her lover. GiGi's murder was never solved, and Adeline wants to get to the bottom of the mystery. 

Zade on the other hand, is a bit of a vigilante, morally grey is an understatement. He infiltrates and takes down (by murder rather than socially accepted justice) child and human trafficking rings. He is currently in Seattle, trying to take down a group of gross, rich, above-the-law type men, who use child sacrifice and other depravities as part of their Satan-loving rituals. He takes a liking to Adeline and immediately starts stalking her. The stalking leads to the dubious consent situations that the trigger warnings allude to. 

Adeline gets roped into Zade's complicated and dark life and some fake dating ensues. Not the nice kind, the kinky kind. 

As a character, Adeline is a strange one to describe. She gets a thrill from fear so tends to do the opposite of what you or I would do. But then, she'd have to have that personality for this book to even remotely start to make sense. I wanted to yell at her, tell her she was an idiot, and shake some sense into her at times. She also spends about 50% of her time drinking straight alcohol and margaritas, so maybe she needs to get that addressed, it's clouding her judgment :)

Some scenes were almost too far, one with a gun in particular was read through my hands which were covering my face. I'll let you guess as to why. It was pretty uncomfortable and the consent elements were challenging and, at times, scary to read. Some scenes on the other hand were embarrassingly sexy. A bad guy fantasy on paper. I'm studying psychology and I'd be intrigued to know what makes this type of romance sexy for some people but not for others. That would make for an interesting dissertation! 

BUT...while I appreciate that I sound like a guy with a stack of Playboys saying he reads them for the articles...the underlying story was an excellent dark thriller. Infiltrating gangs of sick blokes, saving kids and young women from a life of horror, alongside solving a decades-long murder mystery. I mean. That stuff is my cup of tea! 

Similarly to Satan's Affair, the story would have held its own brilliantly (and been a bit more palatable to a wider audience) without all the kinks and consent issues (this was the main thing for me. Creepy stalker/vigilante child saver or not, I can't see him as a good guy if he doesn't take no for an answer!). That being said, the story was genuinely solid, engaging, and interesting to read. 

THAT CLIFFHANGER THOUGH...basically, if you read the full book, and get into the story like I did, you'll be reading the next book. I felt like I was watching a season finale of a TV show, where it just cuts off...right when everything starts kicking off! 

I won't be reading the next one straight away though, the trigger warnings indicate that it's SIGNIFICANTLY darker than this one. I need something heartfelt, funny, and light, to connect me back to reality before I scrape the barrel on the depths of depravity once more. 

Have you read this duet? What did you think of the cliffhanger? Do you agree with me about the story/plot being strong enough to hold its own?

I'll be posting the review for Hunting Adeline here, once I have read it. You can SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG to make sure you don't miss it (or my other reviews :). I also post bookish content on Instagram and my YouTube Channel

BOOK REVIEW - Satan's Affair - H.D Carlton - DIGITAL BOOK - 4*

 

BOOK REVIEW

Satan's Affair - H.D Carlton

*this review contains afilliate links - see my profile for more info

This book is my first instance of "TikTok Made Me Buy It". I had seen lots of videos, memes, and general "bookstagram" shenanigans about the Haunting Adeline/Cat and Mouse Duet by H.D Carlton. When I read up a little, the advice I got was to read Satan's Affair first. The only information I had going into this is that it's a standalone prequel about a gory haunted house. 

I haven't read much horror or gore. I was unsure if it would be my cup of tea but I'm all about trying new genres. I've definitely expanded my repertoire with this one, that's for sure!

WORD OF WARNING - THE BOOK AND THEREFORE MY REVIEW CONTAIN HEAVY TRIGGER WARNINGS - READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS FIRST IF YOU HAVE CERTAIN

BOOK REVIEW - Maestra - L.S Hilton - Physical Book - 4*

BOOK REVIEW

 Maestra - L.S Hilton

This book has been sitting on my physical TBR shelf for the best part of a year after reading the tagline and thinking "yup that looks like my cup of tea". After reading The Time Traveller's Wife (click here for my review) I wanted to head back to my comfort zone of the thriller and this one seemed to fit the bill. 

The cover gives nothing away, which I always find intriguing, but I definitely wanted to read "the most shocking thriller you'll read this year"!

BLURB

THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

GLAMOUR'S WRITER OF THE YEAR.

WHERE DO YOU GO WHEN YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR?

Fatal Attraction meets The Talented Mr Ripley, and soon to be a major Hollywood film - prepare for this year's Girl on the Train. 

By day, Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a London auction house. 

By night she's a hostess in one of the capital's unsavoury bars. 

Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She's learned to dress, speak and act in the interests of men. She's learned to be a good girl. But after uncovering a dark secret at the heart of the art world, Judith is fired and her dreams of a better life are torn apart. 

So she turns to a long-neglected friend. 

A friend that kept her chin up and back straight through every past slight. 

A friend that a good girl like her shouldn't have. Rage. 

The Talented Mr Ripley meets Gone Girl in this darkly decadent and compelling thriller that asks:

Where do you go when you've gone too far?

MY REVIEW

I'll admit, I stopped reading in my early teens, when my forays into so-called "spicy scenes" were from borrowed readings of my mum's Mills & Boon books. In the last year, through fate rather than any other reason, most of my books have either been non-romance or fairly closed-door in their depictions of romance and sex. A Touch of Darkness, which I listened to earlier this year, was the spiciest book I had read (except for Fifty Shades of Grey) and I now realise that this was reasonably, erm, vanilla for want of a better term. 

I didn't pick up, from the tag-line or the blurb, that Maestra is what's classed as an Erotic Thriller. It wouldn't have put me off though, I am not averse to a bit of spice, and the whole point of me going on this reading journey is to explore different genres and sub-genres. 

Yes, there are some pretty spicy scenes. Some surprised me in their bluntness (again, Mills & Boon brain!) of language and lack of feeling. What impressed me though was that these scenes were from a female point of view. Women can enjoy the spice for what it is too, without the fireworks and lovey-dovey palava. The surprise at the course language was based on my own naivety of this type of scene being played out in writing. Maybe I am also a little immature, for a 38-year-old woman! I did have to do some position maths while I worked out what bits of people were where. That was fun! Poor Mike, my other half, had to deal with my expressions of sheer surprise, followed by a bewildered explanation of what I had just read!

I'd suggest that if you're not a spice reader, this might not be for you. There's scenes with multiple people and, erm, activities of a spicy nature, so maybe have a look at content warnings if you're not sure. I won't say too much more here though as I feel like it's a bit of a spolier! 

OK, moving away from the spice (which is an addition to, and not the entirety of, the plot). I read this book in under 24 hours, I found it really engaging and it all came together (no pun intended) nicely at the end with a twist that I wasn't expecting. It's the first book of a trilogy and I'm excited to read the others. 

Part one was a little slow and I wasn't sure how it fit into the rest of the story until later on. The pace picked up nicely though and soon I was engrossed. Some of the art references went over my head, as did some of the millennial speak (had to Google some terms to avoid getting muddled). Overall though this was an enjoyable book and a great change of pace from some of my other recent reads. There was enough intrigue to prevent it from becoming predictable and the end served as a great lead into the next books.

Judith is the epitome of the morally grey main character. She's unlikeable in a likeable way, unforgiving, sly, but really quite vulnerable too. Add this to high-class art shenanigans, cat-and-mouse games, bad guys, badder guys, betrayal, conniving, and plotting, and you've got yourself a great thriller read. Follow her on her Eurpoean travels, discover the friendships (and enemies) she makes on the way, and you'll find yourself rooting for her, even when you don't want to. Maybe that says more about me than anything else!

Solid four stars, well-written, engaging, and compelling. Has anyone else read this or have plans to add it to their TBR? 

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