Reviewed by Dan
This is a Series Review of Taken Series (Books 1 – 9)
Extreme Content Warnings: Abuse, Dubious Content, Extreme BDSM, Graphic Violence, Non-Consensual & Rape
AUTHOR: Keegan Kennedy
PUBLISHER: Self Published
SERIES REVIEW:
Warning: This series contains multiple instances of male on male oral and anal rape, kidnapping, extreme BDSM, water-sports, torture and general abuse. If those things are too far outside your comfort zone, this series is definitely not for you.
Wow, this series took me by surprise. The author had warned me that it was pretty intense and not your typical m/m romance. That was an understatement! It is dark…very, very dark…and quite twisted! At the beginning of the series, Ryan Hobbs, a straight eighteen year old high school student/baseball player, whose father and stepmother are ultra-religious freaks, has run away from home for the weekend to teach them a lesson for grounding him. After his car breaks down just off an exit of a busy California interstate highway, Ryan walks down the road looking for help at a truck stop.
He finds far more than he is looking for when he is taken prisoner by the trucker he approaches. Before he knows it, his life has changed forever. He is bound and raped repeatedly by the trucker, Jeb, who tells him he is now his slave and will be for life.
At first I wasn’t sure I would like the series. Part 1 was quite brutal, and the brutality follows through most, if not all of the series. What doesn’t follow through though is the concept of Jeb as a bad guy. We soon learn there are far worse options, and we gain a perspective on what could be happening to all those boys that disappear each year in the US.
By the end of the series, my perspective had been turned almost 180 degrees. Not that I’ll be rushing out to find someone to have some BDSM “fun” with….I’m much too vanilla myself….but I did gain some perspective on the master not being the worst option in this particular story.
You will notice that unlike my other Series Reviews, I did not rate the individual parts of this series. I felt the entire series needed a combined review rating, and that is what I’ve given it. Please see short reviews on each of the Parts below, and you will find Buy Links to them all at the bottom of the review. I’ve also not included the individual covers, since they are all the same except for the lower right hand corner where the Parts individual names appear. The parts need to be read in order, and you really need to read them all to get the entire story. The series kind of has a hint to a future tie in to another book or series, but is supposedly complete with the nine parts reviewed below. I hope that Keegan will re-release them as a combined publication at some point!
I recommend this series. I really enjoyed how it pushed my comfort level to the absolute limits! It is definitely not for the faint of heart. Read my warnings above and understand that if anything I’m downplaying the contents.
SERIES RATING: 
TITLE: Taken – The First Knot
LENGTH: 44 Pages
BLURB:
Ryan Hobbs couldn’t take any more. With four weeks left before his high school graduation, Ryan’s ultra-religious father grounds him for coming home five hours past curfew. The dumb baseball jock vows not to miss out on the rite-of-passage festivities and decides that it’s time to assert his dominance.
As revenge on his dad 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 teen, his fake plot leads him to an unexpected and fearful destination.
When Ryan gets stranded on the side of the California highway, the jock 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 teen’s life.
REVIEW:
What an introduction to the series! Ryan Hobbs reads as your stereo-typical “entitled” jock. He has been working his way through the easy girls, thinks of himself as quite the stud and thinks he knows it all. His father is an ultra-religious fundamentalist minister and his stepmother is a total harpy. She preaches random verses from the bible, and never the good ones!
Entitled eighteen year old Ryan decides to teach his father and stepmother a lesson by coming up with a runaway hoax in revenge for being grounded a month before high school graduation. Off he goes to hook up with a hottie that he had sex with multiple times the previous summer. The girl is a college student and he decides to randomly go to the campus to hook up with her for the weekend, leaving his parents to sweat it out that he is actually a runaway. Only one problem, his car doesn’t survive the trip and he breaks down near a truck stop.
When he approaches a random trucker, Jeb, at the truck stop, the trucker offers to help him once Ryan tells him the entire fake runaway, no one knows where I am, story. Moron! Next thing he knows he is waking up bound and gagged in the sleeper of the truck.
A seriously non-consensual rape scene follows, with Jeb forcing the young man into throat rape and then anal rape. Very, very dark. The frightening thing is that it could have been ripped from the pages of a news article. Kids go missing all the time.
TITLE: Taken – Part Two: The Honeymoon Night
LENGTH: 37 Pages
BLURB:
Nine hours ago, Ryan Hobson was kidnapped by Jeb, a sociopathic trucker… Now, the dumb baseball jock wakes up blindfolded, gagged and tied to a chair in an unknown place…
Trying to wrap his mind around the reality of what is happening, Ryan cannot seem to find a way to escape or a way to outsmart Jeb, who is far more intelligent than the jock had originally assumed. Deeming himself as the boy’s master and Ryan as his slave, Jeb has huge plans for his captured conquest, and none of those plans include letting his captive escape.
REVIEW:
Nine hours after his initial kidnapping, Ryan wakes up tied to a chair in a sleazy motel room. He has again been drugged, but this time he is blindfolded, as well as still gagged, and still in only his jock strap and cup. When Jeb comes back into the room he plays some psychological tricks on Ryan, but eventually rips the duct tape off his eyes, taking a bunch of hair off his head at the same time.
Jeb brags that he finished two years of pharmacy schooling, and is very good at drugging a person without overdosing them. He shows Ryan how good he is by injecting him with Rohypnol (roofie). Within minutes, Ryan loses his ability to fight off Jeb. After removing Ryan’s clothes, and putting a tight plastic chastity device known as a CB6000 on Ryan’s junk, Jeb drags him to the shower and gives him an enema with a water bottle and a gallon of hot water, forcing him to hold the water in until he allows him to expel it.
That is only the start of what Jeb bills as their “honeymoon” night. Ryan is again raped both orally and anally by Jeb, and after Jeb deposits a load in each end, he leaves Ryan tied face down, spread eagled, to the bed and goes to sleep. Oh, and I almost forgot the water sports! Before he goes to sleep, Jeb urinates on his dirty underwear and shoves the soaking wet tightie whities in Ryans mouth and duct tapes them in for the night. This series gets less safe for the faint at heart the further I read….
I’m really hoping that by Googling the CB6000 that it doesn’t start showing up in my Facebook suggested purchases column! LMFAO 😉
TITLE: Taken – Part Three: Deeper, Harder, Stickier
LENGTH: 36 Pages
BLURB:
Hoping is fading. The stakes are higher. The clock is ticking.
The captivity of Ryan Hobson continues… The young jock can feel the walls closing in all around him, and Jeb seems to be getting more twisted. So, when an opportunity for escape presents itself, Ryan jumps at it but his attempt ends in a massive fail. Enraged, Jeb disciplines the dumb jock, teaching him a lesson that he’ll never forget. Although Ryan is smart enough to know Jeb is attempting to mentally break him, the jock can feel that he’s starting to crack.
REVIEW:
Roughly 24 hours after his kidnapping, Ryan wakes up, still tied to the bed and still with the urine soaked underwear taped in his mouth. While Jeb is in the shower, Ryan manages to get a little wiggle room on one of his wrists, but his hopes of escape are dashed when Jeb comes out of the bathroom and Ryan can’t get free.
In this installment, Jeb shows a gun with a silencer to Ryan and tells him he will shoot him in the head and then dump his dead body in the desert for coyotes to eat his corpse if he tries to escape.
When housekeeping knocks on the door while Jeb is feeding Ryan, Ryan screams for help, but Jeb silences him and convinces housekeeping to come back later. He then knocks Ryan out inserts a very large butt plug into Ryan and then heavily restrains him in the closet. When Ryan wakes up, there is a scene involving fellatio and the gun, and a severe beating, followed by yet more rapes. Ryan is starting to give up hope. Is there any way out of this hell?
TITLE: Taken – Part Four: Sideswiped
LENGTH: 43 Pages
BLURB:
Things aren’t always what they seem…
The captivity of Ryan Hobson continues… The kidnapped baseball jock endures a grueling punishment for his attempted escape. As Jeb’s control expands over him, Ryan sees his reality changing into something that he never expected or wanted. As Jeb leads him further down the path of submission, Ryan is blindsided by a twist that he never saw coming, making Jeb’s true motivations all the murkier.
REVIEW:
In Part Four, Ryan is still a captive of Jeb. The constant mind-fuck by Jeb is starting to payoff. Ryan is becoming more and more confused, and at one point when Jeb pulls him out of a boiling hot storage on his truck, where he confined Ryan all the way through the deserts of Arizona, Ryan begins to feel grateful to Jeb for “saving” him!
Once in another hotel room, Ryan is allowed to go to the bathroom, and bathed by Jeb before he is bound to the bed and raped again. Then there comes a knock on the door. Two men enter, but they aren’t surprised to see Ryan naked and tied to the bed. The opposite is true. We learn there is more to Jeb’s story than we thought, and there is concern amongst a group known as ‘The Circle” that Jeb has abducted a “Pedigree” “boy”. What will happen when one of the men, Clifford, sneaks back and decides to help himself to Ryan’s wares while Jeb is out? One hint…it doesn’t end well for Clifford.
TITLE: Taken – Part Five: Tsunami
LENGTH: 42 Pages
BLURB:
The big wheels are still turning; and mile-by-mile, the rig continues toward Ryan’s new home as Jeb’s permanent slave… In the aftermath of Clifford’s death, Ryan is perplexed by the situation in which he finds himself entangled. With a clear warning from Nate and Mabon, Jeb speeds away from Tucson with his foot on the gas pedal, which attracts some unwanted attention. Challenging Jeb and taking an unexpected leap toward freedom, Ryan sets off a chain of events that leads the captive to realize that Jeb is already in his head. And when a tsunami washes over Ryan, things will never be the same for the young jock.
REVIEW:
This story is like a car wreck on the highway. Horrifying, but you can’t look away!
It has now been 48 hours and Ryan is still a captive. The big rig is moving steadily east at a high rate of speed. After the other men come in to “clean up” the mess from Clifford’s death at Jeb’s hand, one of them, Nate, warns Ryan that he better hope if Clifford’s former master, Vernon, comes after Jeb that Ryan is killed with Jeb, because his life will be infinitely worse, and far shorter, if he is captured and sold.
Along the way in the speeding journey, hope comes in the form of a highway patrolman. When Ryan works his gag loose, his screams bring the patrolman to the rescue…but could it be that easy? Follow along….Ryan’s journey isn’t over yet. There are still some miles to go to get to Jeb’s home in Mississippi. Will Ryan have enough will power to make it through? Or will he finally admit he likes it? What will happen to the unwary cop?
TITLE: Taken – Part Six: Homeward Bound
LENGTH: 72 Pages
BLURB:
“Like a termite infestation, Jeb had moved inside of my head…”
The captivity of Ryan Hobson continues, and with their arrival at Jeb’s home, the game completely changes. As Ryan becomes more susceptible to Jeb’s scheme, the young jock bonds with his fellow captive, Deputy Jason Powers. With the right dosage of chemicals, Jeb takes Ryan to a whole new level of submission, which leads to a surprise admission.
When Jeb’s father, Wilson, arrives to view his son’s new claim, Ryan learns more about the one who got away. Having met with the highest ranking members of The Circle, Wilson also reveals the ultimate price that Vernon demands for Jeb having shot and killed Clifford.
REVIEW:
Poor Ryan is still in captivity. He and Jeb have arrived at Jeb’s house in Mississippi. Instead of the tar paper shack that Ryan expected, Jeb’s house is actually an Antebellum Plantation mansion, complete with the big white columns and surrounding trees covered with Spanish moss.
Deputy Powers, or Jason as he insists Ryan call him, is locked in the basement with Ryan, and Jeb drugs Ryan with a combination of “roofies” and “truth serum” and then hooks him up to a fuck machine with a dildo that penetrates Ryan anally while Jeb throat rapes him yet again, but this time it is all with the audience of Jason. While under the influence of the drugs, Ryan tells Jeb that he loves him and that he loves having him rape his ass.
Things might be changing quickly though. Vernon, the former master/owner of Clifford, who Jeb killed when Clifford attempted to rape Ryan even though Jeb had “claimed” him, is on the hunt for Jeb. What he offers as a solution could change everything.
TITLE: Taken – Part Seven: The Bonding
LENGTH: 55 pages
BLURB:
“Jeb was becoming everything that I never knew I wanted…” The gauntlet has been thrown down, and the wrath of The Circle is imminent. Stubborn, Jeb finally agrees to take his father’s advice. To keep Jeb safe from the impending storm, Wilson gives his son a gift to make him stronger and make it possible for Jeb to create ‘the bonding’ with Ryan. As Ryan’s mind becomes consumed with Jeb, the two of them learn some unexpected news.
REVIEW:
Now that Jeb has accepted the gift from his father, he is much stronger and his eyes have changed to a more amber color. Suddenly we have found that Jeb is one quarter non-human and his father is half non-human. People we have met in the previous parts turn out not to be human at all!
Jeb decides to try an experiment based on his father’s advice and he is only feeding Ryan his cum and only giving him his urine to drink. Both are satisfying Ryan’s hunger and thirst and are bringing the two men closer together. Ryan now feels he can’t live without Jeb. I’m loving the term “Frankenbottom” that Ryan is beginning to use to describe himself!
Of course, this part is as full of bondage, discipline, oral and anal sex as the other parts, but it is switching over to more consensual. Is it Stockholm Syndrome or is Ryan truly falling for Jeb? And what will happen when there is a shocking break in the nationwide search for Ryan?
TITLE: Taken – Part Eight: Enthralled
LENGTH: 43 Pages
BLURB:
“This was so far beyond a simple kidnapping that there was no comparison. I was surrounded by this inexplicable supernatural feud. Danger was fast approaching, but Jeb and I were so caught up in this newfound fascination with each other that our thoughts kept getting lost. But the approaching specter of peril was not far from my mind.”
The bonding successfully frees Ryan from his anger and denial regarding his growing feelings for Jeb. Deep within the throes of the bonding, Ryan and Jeb have fifteen hours until they can escape from The Circle, but time is running out… Weakened, Jeb’s father summons a person to help in their defense, but will it be enough to save them from the wrath that is speeding toward them like a hurricane about to make landfall?
REVIEW:
Well, in answer to my question in Part Seven above, it appears not to be Stockholm Syndrome. It is the bonding that is building between Jeb and Ryan. Somehow Jeb can now feel the things that Ryan is feeling, and neither has to eat food any longer, as they are both feeding off each other’s sexual energy.
But the members of “The Circle” are on their way, most of them are from another dimension, and far stronger in magic and other powers than humans. Aunt Granny, a powerful witch has cast a spell of protection around the mansion. But will it be strong enough when the bad guys show up?
You might notice, I no longer have Jeb on the bad guys list. The author is doing a fantastic job of twisting my perceptions so that I almost like the guy???
TITLE: Taken – Part Nine: The Howling Vortex
LENGTH: 44 Pages
BLURB:
In the final installment of the Taken Series, Ryan faces a dire threat alone. Vernon’s hidden motives are revealed. And Jeb and Ryan’s face their fate…
REVIEW:
In what is billed as the “final” part of Taken, we get some wrap-up of the story. The bad guys show up at Jeb’s house, where one of them strangles Jeb and then the other calls down fire on the mansion, setting it alight. Interestingly, it harkens back to one of Ryan’s dreams in a way. That portion is never explored, but left me curious.
After strangling Jeb and burning the mansion, the two men take the bound Ryan away. But one of the men has an ulterior motive for the whole thing. Will Ryan die so that the man’s evil plan will come to pass?
BUY LINKS:
Amazon
My, that was an intense review! Addictive but intense. I would have originally said not-for-me but now not-so-sure. Gotta think about it, so added it to my list.
It definitely is an intense series. As I said, not for the faint at heart!
I’ve read some of the authors others works and have enjoyed it. I haven’t read the more darker stuff yet but I like a story that has twist and turns and just gives me a different perception on events that can happen. Thank you for the review!
Come back and comment if/when you do read it and let me know what you thought!