Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Shattered Heart
AUTHOR: Nikki McCoy
PUBLISHER: Totally Bound
LENGTH: 61,955 Words
BLURB:
In a world of devastation and slavery, two men must find the courage to overcome the pain of their pasts and fight for what they believe in–or fall, forever lost, to the ravages of war.
Biochemical war has devastated the landscape. Societies have fallen to territorial battles and new laws have arisen of which leaders were made by blood and force and slavery was condoned.
Markus is a man who has lost everything. Cold and precise, he rules his territory with an iron fist. Nothing could break through his barrier of control. Until he meets a boy who challenges his emotional restraint.
Corin has suffered through pain and degradation for as long as he can remember. Born from a rape and forced to work as a pleasure slave, his will to live has been all but destroyed by the hatred and abuse of his parents. Yet, he survives on the love of his sisters and the hope for a better life.
That hope is nearly ended, however, when his parents sell him to Markus. Now in the hands of the most feared man in the territory, he must find a way back to his sisters. But that path is not so easily taken. Under Markus’ control, he learns that being a slave is not about losing oneself, and that having a Master to show him the seduction of submission might be something he’d been searching for all along.
As the seeds of love grow unexpectedly between them, a war brews on the horizon. Can Corin trust that Markus would do anything to keep him and his sisters safe, or will he deny that which his heart cries out for?
Reader Advisory: This book contains scenes of BDSM, violence, slavery, sexual abuse, non-consensual sex and gang rape.
REVIEW:
Firstly, heed the warnings. This story begins with an on page gang rape scene that is rather descriptive and not just a glossed over past traumatic event. Actually the worst thing about it is that for Corin, it isn’t even all that traumatic but rather a not unexpected occurrence that is simply one more thing he has to endure. Even pre-warned that it was going to be in there, it’s still confronting to actually read.
The blurb says that Corin is forced to work as a pleasure slave but truthfully, I think that’s sugar coating his situation. I read “pleasure slave” and I think harems and brothels and courtesans. Corin is worked to the point of exhaustion keeping his family’s hotel maintained and running, his parents don’t feed him and his father (not biological father) rapes him and sells him to random men whenever he needs some extra money. This is the only life that Corin has ever known but he remains at the hotel and suffers any and all abuse aimed his way because it keeps his two younger sisters safe. I think one of the saddest lines in the story is that Corin can’t hate his mother because of the way she loves his sisters.
Markus, we don’t get to know so well. The story is told from Corin’s perspective and I really would have liked to hear more of Markus’s voice throughout the story, rather than just the last chapter. Yes, it is nice to end the story by finally knowing Markus’s feelings towards Corin but Corin spends a lot of his time locked in Markus’s apartment. We are shown how Markus acts with Corin but I really would have liked to see him interacting with his “soldiers” and all of the other people who live under his law in the territory he rules over. I just felt that this world the author created was left a little unexplored while Corin is locked away from everybody.
This isn’t my first slave fic and I can’t say I’ve read all that many but they tend to be hit or miss when it comes to whether I enjoy them or not. To be honest this book sort of floated somewhere in the middle of like and dislike. Definitely more towards “like” but much of this story just left me feeling rather ambivalent about the whole thing. Normally once I start reading a book I hate putting it down but I just never got fully immersed in this story. If you asked me why I didn’t get into it, well, I just don’t know to be honest. There’s not anything I can point at and say, I didn’t like that. I guess we’ll just put it down to this book and my mysteriously functioning mind not gelling at this time. But I’ll probably read it again at some point and maybe I’ll like it better next time. For some reason I’m left feeling as though it was my fault and I really should have enjoyed it more.
RATING: 
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