Taken - The Ties That Bind

The Taken Series - Book 1

Appearances can be deceiving and things aren’t at all what they seem to be… What starts off as a brutal kidnapping turns into a supernatural feud centered around outsider, Ryan Hobson. As revenge on his father and crazy stepmother, Ryan hatches a runaway hoax to mess with their minds and show them that he is his own man. Unfortunately for the clueless and cocky baseball jock, his fake plot leads him to an unexpected and fearful destination. When Ryan gets stranded on the side of the California highway, he turns to a friendly trucker, Jeb. Seemingly a southern rube, Jeb is actually a sadistic and cunning dominant as well as a sociopath. With insidious intent, Jeb hijacks Ryan and forever changes the course of the jock’s life. For the first time, all nine parts of the series: Taken is available in The Ties that Bind. The complete novel is a dark fantasy containing, mature themes, including dominance, submission, bondage with a preternatural twist.

Indulge your dark desires

While this story is a fantasy, the supernatural aspects don't come in until later in the book. At first this is a violent kidnapping and sexual assault that screams against everything I know about BDSM relationships. BUT- the further down this rabbit hole you go, the more you want to be either one of the characters. I had to keep reminding myself that this is fantasy and the real "Rules" of BDSM do not apply. The first is brutal but as the story unfolds it reveals the ultimate desires we secretly have.

NO VIRTUAL VOICE

The story overall is a good one, it lags at some areas, but the captor-captive exchanges are hot as hell. The virtual voice ruins the hell out of it though, especially when the "mmmmmphs" happen, the virtual voice, which I assume is AI generated, is horrible at doing that. Surely you could have found someone to narrate it for you, have you ever heard of Fiverr? Hey Keegan, there are narrators to hire on there for any kind of genre instead of using the crappy AI voice narration. Again, the overall story is a good one, quite kinky, but the AI voice I could have done without. It's a shame because it is a good story, ruined by AI voice over.

Stockholm much!

I really want to hate this book, but I just can't. I feel a little guilty actually liking the story.
Spoilers...
I really wanted Ryan to get revenge for what Jeb did to him instead of falling in love. With that said, I couldn't stop listening to this story. Their are a lot of triggers that are very graphic that may not be for everyone. Proceed with caution.

Stockholm syndrome.

first off, these AI readers are awful. it's really distracting and makes me not want to purchase a book with an AI reader.

secondly, the main character was incredibly annoying and I immediately did not like him. I don't think you're rooting for anybody in the entire story.

search for a better story than this.

The "Virtual Voice" is a disaster!

I LOVED this story! It's what I've been hoping and praying for in the years since Aaron Travis stopped writing. But I will never listen to most of Keegan Kennedy's audio books as long as the publisher chooses what I assume is the cheapest way to create an audiobook: have a robot read it. There are some real tense scenes in this book, but you won't hear any of that in this audiobook. A gagged guy moaning (and there is a lot of that) is written by Kennedy as "mmmmmpppppphhhhh". The idiot robot reads each letter. It actually took me a minute to figure out what the robot must have been 'reading'. What a shame to ruin a fascinating, and scorching HOT, story like this by using a robot to read it to save a few bucks.

Please boycott all "virtual voice" audiobooks until this very bad idea is ended.