REVIEWED by Jen B.
TITLE: Sweating Lies – Criminal Delights: Taken
SERIES: Lies #1
AUTHOR: Emma Jaye
PUBLISHER: Purindoors Publications
LENGTH: 286 Pages
RELEASE DATE: April 29, 2019
BLURB: “Gladiator or toy?” Kaspar asks, as if it’s the easiest choice in the world.
It might be an easy answer for someone branded, brainwashed, and who remembers no other life. But that’s not me, not yet anyway. I’m a cop—or at least I was until my cover got blown.
Now, I’m one of the trafficked people I vowed to save.
Kaspar’s a toy —a pleasure slave— content to warm our sadistic owner’s bed; he laps up the abuse he’s conditioned to associate with affection.
He’s my only way out. To gain our freedom, I must play the hardest undercover role of my career and be everything his fractured mind needs: a more controlling bastard than the man who turns people into grateful slaves for a living.
Officer Jiao Sweatt thinks I’m a victim.
He has a lot to learn.
And it’ll hurt.
REVIEW:
This was a bit different than I expected. Throughout, I wasn’t quite sure if it was contemporary, dystopian or what. It starts out with Jiao on an undercover assignment, but things quickly turn when his cover is apparently blown and he ends up a prisoner destined to become one of the very slaves he set out to save. The story blossoms out from there as the other victims are introduced – men of all ages, of all backgrounds. Some destined to be castrated, trained and “adopted” out as companions, others as sex slaves, and still others as “gladiators” who are entered into fights. Jiao is heading toward this latter position, as he was a fighter when he was caught.
It becomes clear that there is a lot more going on than just sex trafficking. There is an entire organization which is run like a secret society, headed by one guy who can only pass the position down to his heirs. Unfortunately, it seems the heir has some issues which have forced the second in command (and seeming leader of the whole shebang) to take measures to ensure others don’t find out and that he remains in control. Things can get pretty brutal and violent at times, but it was easy to keep my eye on the other aspects of the story – Jiao and his figuring things out while finding a way to escape and save the other victims.
There were times this felt more contemporary or realistic, and other times where it felt more dystopian or otherworldly. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not, but the flip-flopping of not knowing kept pulling me out of the story. I generally need to suspend my belief and sink into the fantasy world and just go with it. That is on me and my reading requirements, and not necessarily the fault of the book. That aside, I was interested in what happened and wanted to see Jiao succeed. I wanted Kasper to find peace and the others to go down in a fiery ball of flames. I won’t say anything more about the characters so as to not give away any of the twists.
Needless to say, I am invested enough in the characters to want to know what happens next. I wasn’t ready for it to end the way it did, leaving us without truly knowing what happens. I’m really curious to see how these guys make out in the aftermath and hope they don’t suffer to terribly much before they find the peace they are all looking for.
RATING:
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