Look, I like a short smutty novella just as much as the next person, but this one is weird. To be fair, I'm not always a fan of the insta-love trope to begin with, and I still chose to read that, so it's partially my fault. But on the other hand, this isn't even really insta-love. I don't really know how to quantify it. I don't think I would even consider it to be like...a lust-at-first-sight thing either. She walks into an apartment (the penthouse, obviously) to clean it, and essentially gets sexually assaulted immediately.
Which, again, I have no problem with fictional depictions of triggering/upsetting material, that's not the problem here. The problem here is that the whole "concept" of this novella makes the main character seem like an idiot. She doesn't seem to realize what's happening to her, these men know nothing about her, she knows nothing about them, nothing really even happens in this book.
They have some good (questionable, because it seems to last about seven minutes) sex, and then they confess their "dark secret" (which is, to be fair, genuinely pretty fucking dark) and then they live happily ever after?
Aside from the sex, we don't even really know what they like about her, or what she likes about them? There is a shocking lack of information in this book, despite being like 90ish pages.
In fairness to the author, I do realize that for the most part, short novellas like this really only exist to be a quick sexy read. I know this. I understand this. While they're not usually my favorites, I still like them and have a fun time reading them, getting swept away in a fun spicy read for a little bit that doesn't feel like a big commitment to a book. I get it.
But I would like them to have a little bit more depth than this. I don't even mind the whole "innocent girl falls for the big bad serial killer" thing. That's fun, and I've seen it done really well in the past. But the reason that trope usually works so well is because there's so much "good" that underpins the character and their choices.
This book has none of that. There's no "we only kill bad people," or even "we kill indiscriminately but we are kind and gentle and big old softies with you, our one true love." We simply do not see enough about any of these characters, (especially Brie) to understand why this is seemingly no problem for her and everything is gravy.
I just don't get it???