I only recently discovered Emma Cole through her book No Good Deed, and I have to admit it hooked me in such a way that I've had a hard time waiting until I could read the conclusion of the story with No Bad Deed, a conclusion I was able to enjoy with some anticipation thanks to an ARC she kindly provided me with days before publication. I am an avid reader of dark books. I am hugely drawn to "bad" characters, with little or no moral compass, and who are also not ashamed of who they are or what they do as a way of life. It could be said that the more trigger warnings the book contains, the more power of attraction it has over me. We all search for something when we read or when we write, perhaps we all have an alter ego inside that we need to feed to keep our sanity on the outside. I find that nourishment in books like these two by Emma Cole that I discovered by chance.
Although it may not be politically correct, I like characters in dark books to take drugs, I like them to enjoy them, to stop being good guys and give in to temptation, or, as in the case of Eden, to use them for their own intimate and personal purposes. That's why Eden has fascinated me as a character, because she has suffered, she has suffered a lot, and she has remade herself. She has struggled and sought her way away from the more orthodox morality; she seeks to build a life to go on living and move forward. She defends her way of thinking, her way of living, her idea of sex and love, which is the result of the evolution of the girl she once was, and which is being developed through her many scars.
The sex scenes are highly addictive, and the last part of the second book kept me up until the wee hours of the morning.
All in all, Emma Cole has done a great job with this Bad Habits duology. Congratulations.