I had to read this to support the authors due to the book being banned by Amazon twice. I will not say that it is the worst thing that I have read in regards to trigger content but it also isn't sugar and spice. I wish there had been more to the actual story than just the smexy times. There was so much possibility to the story and it frustrated me that more of that world wasn't explored. It is a short story but it did keep me entertained.

Heed the trigger warnings. Saphyre doesn't have it easy. ( )

On my sweet and unholy Dread Lord Cthulu. That's really about all I can say. This book left me breathless, excited, and turned on in a really, really disturbing way. There is so much wrong in here, and yet it is all so much right. I wish I could give this book at least 1000 stars, because that's how many it deserves.

Saphyre does everything she can to fight against the Emperians, so when she gets caught and hauled before the King of the Manticores, she knows that she's still going to fight, no matter what. And wow, what a ride she takes us on.

This isn't a book filled with sweetness, light, niceness, and rainbow glitter farts. This is a dark book filled with pain, torture, hatred, vengeance, and that's just in the first chapter. There is a lot of pain here, but there is also a lot of pleasure. There is a metric fuckton of hatred, and as much as I would like to say that there is love there too, I'm not quite sure that I can go that far. Addiction, yes, dependency, yeah, desire and lust, definitely. Affection? Yeah, I think so, just not quite love.

There are so many secrets and so many things that happen. I can't wait for the next books in the series to see how things play out. ( )

“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”

This book was banned by Amazon on release. The authors edited it to remove the most extreme content, re-titled it and commissioned new cover art, and it was again banned by Amazon upon release.

I don't usually start a series until it is complete, but under the circumstances I wanted to support the authors (who seem like nice people) and to see what all the fuss is about.

This is the first volume in a planned series of six. It is short and it ends with a bang in a "happy for now" scenario, setting up the story to come.

This is a "dark romance". It isn't the grimmest thing I've read this year but there is a lot of sex, much of it "non-consensual" and scenes of torture and public humiliation of the main character. She gets through it, and it felt "right" for the world the authors have created, but you should not read this book if such triggers are going to offend you.

I'm keen to see where the story goes, though I probably won't read any more of it until I have the complete series. I definitely feel that what hasn't killed Saphyre has made her stronger for what comes next.

I thought is was apt to open this review with a quote from George Orwell's "1984", given the undercurrent (well, over-current really) of torture in this story, and the interference of "Big Brother" Amazon in its publication. ( )