Affliction

De: Jenika Snow

Narrado por: Stella Bloom

It wasn’t until Cameron that I knew what real darkness was...or that I’d crave it so much.

I’d let the world weigh down on me - pull me under until nothing made sense anymore. Maybe that’s how I let myself get into the mess in which I was currently. Maybe that’s how I was in my current situation with a man I knew could save me from a fate worse than death. Even if being with Cameron and giving him the only part of me that was worth anything - my body - might very well ruin me, I had to survive.

Drug lord. Crime boss. Murderer. I should fear him, be horrified by what he wants from me, by who he was. But instead, I find myself wanting to please him, wanting to give myself over completely.

Because I know that gave me control over him.

Cameron Ashton reined over the gritty underworld, the danger and violence of depravity, from his throne. A pistol was his sword, and apathy was his second-in-command. I knew he was dangerous, knew he would break me and not think twice. But he was my only chance, the only way I'd survive.

He was possessive and controlling, claiming he owns me. And he does...every part of me. The darkness in him ran stronger, deeper than it ever had in me. Maybe we’re not so different? Maybe giving up my control to Cameron, giving him my very soul, made me the powerful one?

Maybe, in the end, I'd be the one who owned him.

Warning: There may be subject matter and triggers that are sensitive to some listeners. In the end, this is a romance, albeit not a traditional one.

©2017 Jenika Snow (P)2018 Jenika Snow

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BOOK

It's hard to know where to start in explaining how much I loved this book. It's the perfect antidote to a pandemic. It has every kind of thrilling twist and turn, and explodes with the HOT sexual chemistry between Cameron and Sofia. The fear, the lust the uncertainty about what is happening.... but fear not, HEA finds us in the end with a kind of peace and joy that warms the coldest heart.

Stella Bloom does a magnificent job narrating, her aural ability to convey joy, anxiety, fear lust and love are incomparable. She is the icing on the cake for the sweetness that is this book. Despite the black soul of the hero and the heart of darkness living within the heroine. A++ and a double thumbs up.

Good bones, but not enough flesh and blood…

I started with “Bite Marks” and “Cold-Hearted Bastard” from Jenika’s canon, and if you’re looking for the full-on fire of alpha male lust, dirty talk, and possessive “toxic masculinity” that so many of us (including myself!) are such fans of her work for, you might be a little disappointed here. The story feels very rushed, the characters don’t fully develop because of it, the sex is good but much tamer than many of Jenika’s other work and it ultimately doesn’t fully live up to its’ promise. Not truly a spoiler here, but this guy tells our heroine she won’t be able to walk after he’s done with her and yet they seem to only have actual sex once? All in all it just feels a bit rushed and like so much more could have been done here. All the building blocks are present for a Jenika Snow master work if she ever revisits it (which she often does and then re-releases) and adds about 100 more pages of character development, build-up, and steamy sex. If you are looking for the best Jenika can do (and she’s one of my favorite authors working in the erotic, dark romance milieu so she can do ALOT) I suggest Bite Marks or Cold Hearted Bastard, both incredible listens you will revisit many, many times. One other note: this narrator is quite good, but I felt her voice didn’t match the character very well; possibly her voice is a bit too old? She sounds more like a woman in her 30’s or 40’s then a virginal 21 year old. And after you get the dual narration from Bite Marks and Cold Hearted Bastard (especially how hot Jason Clarke’s voice is in Bite Marks) it’s pretty tough to want anything else.