3.5 stars
The blurb is a little misleading. Brief synopsis:
Charlotte (FMC, 27) has a very normal, predictable, safe life, with a good job and friends and boyfriend of five years. When she finds out he's been cheating on her - specifically, that he's been having kinky sex with other women while being strictly vanilla with her and never expressing a desire for more - she dumps him and decides she wants to be more adventurous for once in her life. Her friend talks her into accompanying her to Masquerade, an underground kink club. There, she meets a stranger (everyone is anonymous) who gives her, let's say, a very memorable evening.
Unbeknownst to her, said stranger is Ivan (MMC, 29?), the illegitimate son of a Russian Bratva boss who happens to be an excellent hacker. From the moment he sees Charlotte in the club, he wants her, and after their evening together he decides to use his skills to figure out who she is so he can meet her IRL, which he does, presenting himself as a mostly-normal rich guy who's just super into her while covertly stalking her.
At the same time, Charlotte's evening at Masquerade awoke desires and fantasies she didn't know she had. She finds a chat site on the dark web where strangers share fantasies with one another. Here she incounters "Venom," who is more than eager to help her explore her newfound desires. Of course, "Venom" is really Ivan again.
As the novel progresses, Ivan becomes increasingly obsessed with Charlotte, both wanting a future with her and deeply aware that his precarious position in the Bratva as well as his series of lies and privacy invasions means he won't be able to have one. If that weren't enough, he's also leaking information to the feds about his father's recent foray into human trafficking, unwilling to stand by while innocent women are exploited.
So that's ... a lot. James' strength as a writer is in building tension between characters who have amazing chemistry but whose life circumstances are against them being together. And it seems like this setup should blow her other books out of the water in that regard, but something about the way this didn't *quite* do it for me. There's plenty of tension, but it's less angst and excitement and more "oh s*** this is going to get really bad, isn't it?" which makes for a somewhat more stressful reading experience than I usually enjoy. But if that does it for you, this will be right up your alley!
I think this book could have benefited from a more thorough editing process. While it's mostly pretty polished, there's a smattering of very obvious errors - mostly essential words missing from clauses rather than misuse or typos - that interrupt the reading experience, although there aren't so many of them that the book is unreadable. Just more than I've seen in other works I've read by this author.
This book does end on a cliffhanger, and despite my critiques, I'm invested enough in the story that I do plan to read the sequel which completes the narrative.