I’m not really sure what I was expecting going into this one. Abel is definitely the more unstable of the two brothers. That is reflected here but I think I expected him to be more brutal than he was. I’m not disappointed though, in fact, I appreciate this wasn’t quite as gruesome as Cain’s book.
The *as* is the operative word there. This book still has its share of gruesome imagery. If you’ve clicked on this review I’m sure you’re prepared for spoilers and triggers. Just a last chance reminder though. This review will be full of both. Triggers include but not limited to graphic violence, torture and murder, SA, noncon/dubcon, mentions of childhood abuse, escape from a cult.
Abel isn’t as controlled and methodical as his brother. He spots Aspen one day and wants to take her as one of his victims. He loses track of her but stumbles across her again a month later. He starts properly stalking her and planning. As with Cain & Kirby’s story I’m not sure exactly when his plans to kill her transformed into keeping her.
I very much appreciated that ultimately he never actually hurt her. She had a condition that made her body feel pain as pleasure but he didn’t even really take advantage of that.
This one doesn’t have as much on page murder. There’s a brother/sister pair he’s taken in the beginning that we see him torturing. It’s quite graphic but less so than the first book.
This devolves a bit near the end. The h has been on the run from a cult and it all comes to a head and it’s not particularly believable. The cult leader, turns out to be the copycat killer AND agent Hanson the other FBI agent investigating the murders and the former partner of Kirby’s mother. It’s bananas. Now, I’m still confidently rating this five stars because I don’t care. I enjoyed reading this book so I’m going with my gut on the rating here. It deserves 5 stars, highly implausible ending be damned. As of, 10/31/22, there were a few editing issues here. Typos, missed words etc. these things don’t bother me so I never factor them into ratings, however I know some readers are really irked by this stuff so I try to mention as a heads up if you are one of those readers.
Medium burn, he claims her vcard around 52% while forcing her boyfriend to watch. It’s definitely noncon, though it could possibly be interpreted as dubcon. When the stakes are life and death it definitely feels like noncon. Prior to that he drugs her several times and messes around with her while she’s asleep. We only see one night but he tells her and her boyfriend he’s been doing it for a week. Definitely noncon there.
Virgin h
He’s a rapey serial killing manwhore
Somnophilia
Push away from h
No separation
No cliffhanger
HEA
Epilogue
Safety - 0% safe, in no way a safe read. H takes great pleasure in raping and murdering both men and women. It’s unclear the number of victims he kills/rapes after meeting h but before taking her but it’s absolutely not zero.
We see the brother/sister pair. He doesn’t have on page sex with the sister but he muses about having had sex with her during the time he’s had them captive. The h has heterochromia, a blue eye and a green eye, and he wants recreate that so he cuts out the sisters eye and then the brothers and then decides to fuck the brothers eye socket on page. It’s really gross. If you’re squeamish I’d skim that part.