Ecstasy Unbound Author: Setta Jay Title: Ecstasy Unbound Series: Guardians of the Realms Genre: Paranormal Pairing: M/F, Poly Length: Novel Rating: One Petal On the Author's Website: http://www.settajay.com/books.html Summary: As one of the twelve Guardians, Urian has spent the last several centuries in a constant battle to keep the inhabitants of Earth’s Realms under control. Humanity has to evolve, hell beasts need to die, and Immortals need mates. But lately, Uri's mind is overrun with thoughts of when his sexy voyeur will find him again, watching him from the shadows, continuing their wicked game. All Guardians are forbidden contact with the little goddess and her brothers, but his need for her escalating, he finds it increasingly difficult to keep from pinning her down on the nearest surface and making her his. Alexandra has managed to evade the Guardians and being cast out from the human Realm for centuries, ever since the Creators sent the Gods to sleep for their sins against humanity and banished all Immortals. Always sensing that she was needed on Earth, only once has Alex gone against her instincts and the price she paid will forever haunt her. It is for that reason she forces herself to stay away from the only male who has ever truly enticed her. The only one who has ever made her long for what she knows is dangerous. In a desperate need to help her beloved brother, she will have to go to the enthralling Guardian, her dark obsession, and even though he will surely attempt to exile her, she won't go easily… Maggie's Summary:
I received this book as an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Before I start, I do need to say that there is a mention of graphic rape as well as other triggers that were not warned about anywhere before I picked up this book. I was not happy to realize this. The book begins with an extremely graphic sex scene in a bar while the main love interest watches from across the room. The women in the scene are objectified as solely sexual objects with no other purpose than to spread their legs. The thoughts of the men involved are equally vapid. Everyone is utterly consumed by carnality and I could not figure out how it applied to the plot in any way. I know the book is technically a romance and is being billed with "explicit and sizzling sex scenes with big dominant males", however this wasn't romantic at all and the big, dominant males were really just idiots with big dicks. The voyeur part was creepy, the sex did nothing to advance any plot, and the purpose of the sex--poorly described, but allegedly necessary for the continued survival of the men in the scene (I mean, really?!?)--was awful. I don't mind reading graphic sex scenes if they're well written and have a purpose to the story, but this one appeared to be written solely for the gratification of the author. At only twenty pages into the book I was seriously considering dropping it entirely, but the summary was so interesting I instead skimmed the rest of that scene and tried to find a bit of actual plot to continue reading from. Which is when I ran face first into the mention of rape that I was not prepared for. At this point it was not possible to be unbiased with the rest of what I did manage to read before I had to put this truly awful book down. Nothing is properly explained, from the magic to the reason why the male characters absolutely need to have sex. The main female character has to shield herself magically for some reason. How she does this is not explained and the why is only explained via the unnecessary rape scene. After viewing a man have a menage with a strange woman and his male friend, she then spends about ten pages walking around in desperate need of sexual gratification. I found that objectification utterly disgusting and I was completely unable to figure out why stripping both the male and female characters down to nothing but sex-bots was necessary. The book randomly switches point of view mid-scene, which was extremely confusing. There are also words left out of sentences and general grammatical issues that I was no longer willing to ignore after every terrible thing I had already read. I will not be finishing this book, nor will I read anything else in the series. Maggie's Recommendation: I absolutely do not recommend this book. It was unnecessarily graphic in ways that I found disturbing, and was overall poorly written. I could not bring myself to finish reading this book, it was that bad.
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Magnolia's Reviews
Maggie reviews paranormal and fantasy novels and novellas. She also interviews authors and hosts giveaways. Archives
April 2018
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