My 69th read of 2023 and none of these hoes even bothered to do 69. Lame. Easily one the most deplorable books I've read, ever. Like this would've made an interesting book if this had been about Tiernan getting to know what it would be like to be a part of a family and everything was familial love and shit and not that Tiernan is gonna know the true meaning of family through fucking and Jake and co. weren't such weirdos. But at the same time, Tiernan's parents are so comically, exaggeratedly neglectful and emotionally abusive I can't take it seriously. Also this book has one of the worst things in fiction: the "money isn't everything" bullshit. That shit is more painful to read than an ovarian torsion pain. I think books where rich people are sad and pitiful are the worst. I like it when they're absolutely unhinged and messy lol.

Anyway, I hated that this book used an attempted sexual assault to titillate. I just don't find that hot, it was weird, and worse how Tiernan throughout this story wants to ease Kaleb's culpability and share half the blame to idk give her like control and give it nuance??? And even worse worse when it happens right after Tiernan was raped by Kaleb and then it horrifyingly segues into a sob story of Kaleb's childhood trauma and we have to like feel bad for this serial rapist and forget what he did to Tiernan??? Hello???

The writing in this is terrible; the way every complication was conveniently resolved by Jake or Noah knowing information that would absolve Kaleb of any would be wrongdoing, like if he's a baby daddy (HIPAA? we don't know her) or how also conveniently Kaleb turned out being a diarist and therefore all character development was lazily shown through that. The characterizations were even worse, just all-around levels of dross. (Jake disappears out of the story in a haphazardly done way though who cares bc he SUCKED. And Noah, who is the most normal one out of these clowns but the bar is in hell so, was just a doormat and spokesperson for the man-child nontalking troglodyte. He deserved better. Actually getting away from this horrendous family.)

I'm not too close minded and I don't moral outrage easily so the step-family incest angle of this did nothing to me and I could've overlooked it but the out of nowhere "romance", "love" with a sexual abuser and all the steps Penelope Douglas took to make it cute just enraged me. But then again, there are other awful sins this book makes like sexualizing pigtails (!!) and Penelope Douglas thinking having the attention of an ambiguous 40 year old when you're 17 is hot. Idk about anyone else but at 17 I DID NOT want some 40-something year olds sexual attention and now at 33 I don't want to feel 17 again thinking how nice it'd be to have some 40-something year olds advances. And there's sprinkled homophobic prison rape jokes, for good measure.

I enjoy smut but nothing written here was even good bc the characters were fecal matter awful and just everything that preceded it throughout the story was a nightmare. The ableism and sexism towards Tiernan, for example. This Jake dude wants her to "smile more" and be his little ray of sunshine and her maybe neurodivergence is weaponized against her but his animalistic son who doesn't WANT to communicate is ok? Yeah yeah. At some random point it's shown that Jake wanted to teach Kaleb ASL and whatnot but it was only to conveniently explain what a gesture Kaleb made before disappearing again meant. In conclusion, this is a mediocre and stupid and bad book. Save yourself and don't read it. Don't let curiosity kill the cat like I did.

Credence- 1⭐️ 5🌶️

Contemporary Romance

Taboo Romance

Multi POV 

Small town

Polyamorous FMC

Tw: suicide, parental death, SA, Rape, emotional abuse, physical abuse, pedophilia, predatory behavior, grooming a minor

The start of this book is interesting. A 17yo, raised by her parent’s assistant, looses her narcissist parents to suicide and goes to live with her step uncle in the middle of nowhere… but then the FMC turns 18 and things take a turn that I knew was coming, but by the end I felt like I was reading a train wreck I wanted to just finish and be done with. I think the setting was the only thing I enjoyed about the story. The rest just was a giant red flag. I think I kept reading because I was interested in how the situation could be sustainable enough to be considered a happily ever after.

This… was not the book for me. I don’t enjoy reading about the romantic couples abusing each other. I don’t consider that romance.

All of the characters were sad and depressing. There wasn’t a single person in this book that knew what joy or contentment looked like. Every single person in this book needed interventional therapy. The men were all misogynistic and gross. And once they had their “turn” they basically disappear from the plot . How? What? 

The POV shifts were fine, but the 1 POV from the MMC (who is barely in the book other than SA/R scenes) was written to make his internal monologue sound like an absolute psychopath. 

 This was definitely a “taboo romance”. Although there was not really anything romantic about it. The girl sleeps with her step-uncle and step-cousins, who are supposed to be alpha males, but didn’t get possessive when it came to their own family. Nope. The spice was very disjointed and flipped on and off like a switch. It read more like Stockholm syndrome. The only character that showed her any type of romance was her pedophile step-uncle. 

As if it could get any worse, it was over written. There is more than enough plot with the step-family…. Absolutely no other plot tools were needed to add to the drama. 

Thank you NetGalley and Berkeley Publishing Group for the Advanced eReader Copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I enjoyed this one. The story was pretty good. Some of the moments filled with so much emotion bleeding through really drawing you in. If you enjoy stories that have lots of character development and difficult sordid pasts you'll likely enjoy this book.
My biggest 'complaint' was that it was very predictable. Now that's not too say it was bad and could just be my familiarity with reading so much in this genre.
The character building in this book was fantastic, Penelope does a really great job drawing you into each character. So much so that even though some are so unlikeable you're still drawn in wanting to see where their story leads. 

omg this book is my new favorite!! the character development is just mind blowing its so good and the smut🤭 like holy shit its so good! if u like dark romance u need to read this!!!

LORD HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL, lol
🔥🔥🔥🔥

The writing was good! Let it be know that this book is a TABOO plot! I went in unknowingly, enjoyed it but I was definitely punching the air a few times! 
It’s a “will they won’t they” set up 

FOR GOOD REASON. 

AND when they OOO CHIIILLLLEEE I had to hang on for the ride!
Uncle Jake should have known better!! 💀💀💀 is it just me or did you want her to end up with Noah?! I was hanging on the edge of my bed when the couch scene dropped! I really wasn’t expecting Kaleb to come for her 🥹🥹