Spoilers Ahead
I feel like I must have read a different book than all these 4 and 5 star reviewers seem to have read. The only thing that really got "Exposed" in this book was Nigel, and it definitely wasn't sexy. What happened to all our alpha male Untouchables who now seem very comfortable with each other seeing their spouses nude, tied up spread eagle to end tables, etc? Have they all become best friends with Chastity? Parts definitely read more like SGR than the original Hunted or Empire High Series. I was seriously waiting for the glass key bowl at their ridiculous sex club prom! a ball pit and slides in formal gowns? Is it prom or a kid party?. I have to wonder if most Mattlyn fans were just so starved for some Mattlyn together content, they skimmed most of the "need a trigger warning" Nigel scenes. Brooklyn has lived in a bubble, in hiding from people that want to hurt her for 16 years, yet we are supposed to believe she was more worried about Nigel liking her than the fact he snuck into her house with a machete to cut up roses? Not "What the hell are you doing in my home!?" But "maybe Jacob poked him with a stick, I hope he will still like me? Give me a break! It's obvious this author is NOT a Mom... This book has definitely found my hard limit, and it's naked toddlers placed in situations surrounded by sexual innuendo.
I was always team #Mattlyn, although I did like Miller, their relationship came off pretty stockholme syndrome and even inappropriate. Brooklyn was only 16 to Miller's 22. The problem is we were told the story of this "written in the stars" love in Runaway, yet within 6 weeks, she's basically engaged and their Son is telling Matt he loves him and Matt is talking adoption. It's just too much, too soon, and therefore, completely takes away from Miller and Brooklyn's love story. I know many found Miller's letter to be very emotional, but I just had a hard time buying he would want her with Matt. He hated Matt and had absolutely no respect for who he was as a person. Since that letter is the excuse to make the short timeline all ok, it just cheapens all of it for me... Brooklyn and Miller's love story seems tarnished when his "wife" and Son are able to move on to another man six weeks after watching him blow up and burn. As much as I have waited and WAITED for #Mattlyn, the timeline makes it fall flat. I know she needed to rush it to make it fit with the spoiler in Tanner's novella for TSSP, but why? She didn't need to have them married. People would have still bought the book just to read Matt had "started" dating his soul mate. I'm also in the minority that really disliked Nigel's behavior in this book. It was creepy and totally unneeded. He isn't a 4 year old boy, he's some kind of Paranormal sexual predator, skulking around watching people have sex, drugging Matt so he can bathe him and laying around with his trunk out in front of naked toddlers. I don't know why all of her books are beginning to sound the same, and now Tanner and Nigel have been added to the Hunted series as well... I personally cringed when Brooklyn was kidnapped naked, tied up, and groped... Hasn't she been through enough? This, TSSP, and definitely the SGR books seem to have been written by another author. I have also read a scene very similar to the paint scene in another author's book.
In this author's quest to continue writing her "spiciest book ever" I feel she doesn't understand when a hard f@#k is the way to go and when the scene calls for a more reverent, sexual experience and this also detracts from their love story imo.
This series has turned into such a hot mess and seems to have completed deveated in tone from the original, Hunted, Men of Manhattan, and first 3 books of Empire High.
I LOVED Brooklyn, and now it's hard to really like her much. I can overlook a lot, especially with the trauma the poor girl has constantly been through! But I just feel there is no way the girl from the first 3 books would be so careless with her son. Even the "cuppycakes" became annoying.. Baths with strange men talking about their "trunk" telling him to speak to his Mom in "the most sensual language" (and Jacob knew he meant French) just no.
Pros: Mattlyn and Brooklyn are finally together even though it doesn't make a lott of sense to happen in 1 week with everything that happened in the other books.
Kennedy had to give up.
Cons: missing trigger warning for sexual assaul. Yes, it's assault when someone roofies you, so they can get you naked in the bath against your will.
Nigel's disgusting voyeurism and inappropriate behavior in front of a naked child
Kennedy's insta romance. It was pretty clear in the first 3 books that Felix only saw her as a kind of friend. which only happened AFTER he wanted to date Brooklyn. Now we should forget that was in the books, so that 16 years later, their insta relationship after sex on the first date makes sense. Oh, and Kennedy says she never has sex on a first date. I guess Matt eating the kitty in an elevator that wasn't even really a date didn't count 🙄
Brooklyn and Matt's rushed relationship with Brooklyn being ready to completely move on 4 to 6 weeks after Miller burned up.
Brooklyn never sought medical advice as to why she kept having miscarriages and just assumed she couldn't have any more children.