Blog Tour & Book Review: Enthralled by Giana Darling

Enthralled
by Giana Darling
Series: The Enslaved Duet #1
Genre: Dark Romance
Release Date: March 29th, 2019

Blurb:

It was the biggest day of my life.

I know most people say that about something joyous; a graduation, a wedding ceremony, the birth of their first child. My situation was a little different.

Sure, it was my eighteenth birthday, but it was also the day that I was sold.

Sold to a man with hair like a crown of gold and eyes blacker than the darkest pits of Hell.

He bought me to own me, to control me, and to use me as a means to an end.

I was his tool and his weapon.

And through it all, somehow, I also became his salvation.

Buy now:
Special Price $2.99!
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2HOnuq3
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2TEI9i5
Amazon CA: http://amzn.to/2uAK7G8
Amazon AU: http://amzn.to/2I13eRI

Excerpt:

I was locked in the dark but it was more than an absence of light. It was the blackness of my own solitude, the quantum hole at the center of my soul that was slowly sucking away at everything that made me me.

I tried to write an encyclopedia of Cosima facts to cement my sense of self in the chaos of night that had become my life.

Cosima Ruth Lombardi.

Born August 2nd 1998 in Naploi, Italia to Caprice Maria Lombardi and Seamus Patrick Moore.

My favourite colour was wine red, captured in a glass and held over rich, warm candlelight.

I loved poppies best of all flowers because they reminded me of me in a way that was narcissistic but true. They were bold as blood, stark against the softer colours of the traditional Italian countryside. They demanded notice and received it. But their beauty was short-lived and fragile as the thin silk of their petals. They fell to bits within a week and scattered on the wind.

I felt very much like one of those black centered blooms, falling apart with every breath I took without even one witness to my dematerialization.

He wanted me like this.

Lost like decaying particles in a petri dish.

I didn’t have to hear his British accented voice clipping the words into neat little explanations to understand why.

He wanted me broken.

A beautiful, hollow shell to break open and f*ck into.

About the author:

Giana Darling is a Top 40 Amazon Best Selling Canadian romance writer who specializes in the taboo and angsty side of love and romance. She currently lives in beautiful British Columbia where she spends time riding on the back of her man's bike, baking pies, and reading snuggled up with her cat Persephone. She loves to hear from readers so please contact her at gianadarling[at]gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.

Website / Facebook / FB Group / Twitter / Instagram / Bookbub / Goodreads / Amazon / Newsletter

My review:

I knew to expect the unexpected with this book by Giana Darling but still it left me speechless because I wasn't prepared for this.

Having met Cosima in The Evolution of Sin Trilogy I never imagined her story to be like that. I guess I got comfortable with the author's previous books and lovable characters because no matter how mean, violent, sexy or romantic they were, I still loved them all so much in different ways.

This time though she really got me because I was not prepared for how dark she would go. I mean, I’ve read my fair share of dark books and it's not that I didn't love this one, it's just that I was taken aback by how much I hated the barbaric characters in this story. And the twisted, fucked-up person that I am, I still loved this book because it was just so magnificent and vile at the same time that it shook me to the core.

I will not talk about the story because saying anything would already give too much away. What I can tell you though is to not come looking for romance in this book! It's not for the faint of heart and only for you if you love angst, violence, taboo, and asshole men who treat women like even less than a doormat. Yes, it's that kind of dark.

Oh my heart! I swear I had heart palpitations!! And when my heart wasn't pounding so hard in my chest that I feared it might burst, it stopped beating a lot during this read when I held my breath and struggled with the emotions flooding me!

Never did I imagine that it would be possible for me to hate someone as much as I hated Alexander and some other characters in this book. I was so furious and raging on Cosima's behalf. But not everything was as it seemed and not all of them were entirely evil because it was much more complex than that.

Yes, there was violence, degradation, humiliation and pure evil, and it was unbelievably hard to read at times because I was disgusted by what was done to Cosima. But despite or even because of all that, I loved this book in all its fucked up glory. Call me sick and twisted but I can't deny how fantastic it was. Not many people have the gut to write a story so full of darkness and expose themselves and their stories to the harshness of reality and people’s different opinions.

One of the reasons why I love Giana's books so much is that they touch me so deeply, whether it’s out of frustration or full of love, they always bring out the worst but also the best in me.

I didn't want to love the dark but felt compelled to, and what better way to explain how I felt about this book than with a quote from this story?! ->

‘I wanted to hate that such a cruel, nonsensical man had given me my first experience with mind-bending pleasure, but a small part of me wondered if that wasn’t one of the reasons I’d loved it.’

May can’t come soon enough!

In case you're wondering why I gave this book 4.5 Stars, I felt that especially in the first half of the book some things were unnecessarily detailed which slowed the story down. Apart from that, I also wasn't fond of the stockholm-syndrom feelings from Cosima later on in the story (although it was to be expected, I thought her character was stronger than that), and how the book ended with a rash and uncharacteristic decision by Alexander.

-- I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book given by Candi Kane PR. --

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
View review on goodreads