Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Dax
SERIES: The Theriot Family, Book 4
AUTHOR: Silvia Violet
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 274 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 27, 2021
BLURB:
Travis is my friend’s little brother.
I’m supposed to keep him safe. To be a man he can trust. But I haven’t seen him in years.
When he turns up hurt and needing a place to stay, protection is only one of the things I want to offer him.
Because Travis isn’t a kid anymore. He’s all grown up now. And the way he looks at me tells me he feels the heat rising between us.
He deserves a lot better than me — a man who can walk with him in the light, instead of pulling him down into the darkness. But every instinct in my body is screaming at me to hold him close…
And there’s no way I’m letting him go.
REVIEW:
Silvia Violet’s Dax continues her The Theriot Family series. This story of Dax, the Theriot family’s information extractor, aka torture specialist, and Travis, the estranged younger brother of Beau, Corbin’s boyfriend from Corbin, follow the same cookie-cutter template as the previous books in the series, and its predecessor Marchesi Universe series, Vigilance: sex-heavy, mafia politics, danger, intrigue, and yes, an M/M relationship. I hesitate to dub them “romances” per se because there isn’t much romantic about the relationships. They are typically lust to love in the blink of an eye with completely improbable men who then fall into a highly unbalanced power dynamic. Dax, referring to his cousin Lancelot’s relationship with Julian, which is featured in book three, Lancelot, aptly points out:
“[M]y cousin Lancelot had jumped on the fall-in-love-with-someone-completely-unsuited-for-you bandwagon like his brothers.”
And he’s right. These relationships don’t make much sense. Further, every book shows our mafia/vigilante male protagonists exerting caveman, testosterone-laden ownership over their men. In some cases, it works better than others, generally based on the level of complexity Ms. Violet develops in the characters and the plausibility she can build into the connection between the two men. For example, as explained in my reviews of Lancelot, which works, versus Remington, which doesn’t, the opposites attract, improbable pairing requires nuance to translate successfully. In particular, because of the overbearing, controlling nature of the Marchesi Universe men, the sex scenes are hot if the context is established.
With Dax, I diverge from my generally positive reviews of this series because these elements are missing. First, we don’t know much about Dax or Travis coming into this story, so we have no pre-established connection to either of them. Then the story picks up in the middle of a storyline without transition. It challenges the reader to accept and like both Dax and Travis without context to allow us to do so.
Add to that the evident complexity of Dax’s character. This is a man who lives in darkness, as he readily admits. He struggles with self-control, sinking into a disassociated personality devoid of conscience, morals, or remorse. He has a need for aggression and violence to quell the ever-present simmering rage that inhabits the barely-tethered beast inside him. This is what enables him to engage with his “talent” and skills as the sadistic torturer of his enemies, and he revels in it.
Given Dax’s personality, it’s a tough sell for the reader to get on board with #DaxandTravis. I don’t find that the heavy-handed, rushed treatment of the relationship achieves that goal. Additionally, one of the draws in these books is the hot and heavy steamy scenes. But for me, Dax’s need to control, own, and “punish” Travis borders on an abusive relationship. Ms. Violet communicates Travis’ purported consent to Dax’s treatment, but not the groundwork to make it believable. Consequently, I didn’t enjoy those scenes or find them sexy. Rather, they confounded and unsettled me.
As I’ve noted with the other stories in the Marchesi Universe, if you’re not looking for in-depth content with an authentic relationship, you’ll generally enjoy these low-angst, high heat, mafia romances. Dax stands out as a notable exception to that rule. As such, I suggest reading the other books and skipping this one, at least for now. The next (and I suspect final) book in The Theriot Family series is the upcoming Ambrose, whose titular character is Dax’s disturbed, violent reclusive twin brother. Ambrose’s story will focus on Ambrose’s relationship with a sheriff introduced in Dax, so it remains to be seen if you will ultimately need to read Dax to understand that story.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: