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Caged

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Mariyah Hayworth is always getting in some sort of trouble. A simple visit to see her brother in prison turns out to be the beginning of nightmare for Mariyah. Zak Michaels, the top dog at the maximum security prison sees her and wants her. He was one not to be messed with, he could make anybody's life a living hell. Turns out Zak wanted Mariyah to visit him once a week, if she refused he would hurt her brother. To Mariyah's dismay it was not your ordinary visit. Zak had visitation privileges, where he had access to a room for an hour a week and this is where Mariyah was to meet him. Mariyah was quick to discover what his intentions were, but could she refuse him and her brother at risk? This is a adults only book, it contains material of sex and submission and violence. It is recommended for readers 18 years and over.

275 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 4, 2015

21 people are currently reading
210 people want to read

About the author

E.L. Beth

122 books247 followers
I began writing dark erotica in 2014. I found that it really irritated me how authors bring down their male leads and make love stories sappy. I continually began to feel unfulfilled with reading. So I wrote a book how I like to read it. I find that although my stories are full on and seem a bit much, so many of my readers have connected to them. I try to tone it down ever so often in my books, but I find I write better the harder the material I write about.

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/ELBeth76

Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/...

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/author/el-...

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/E.Lbethbooks

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5 stars
62 (33%)
4 stars
41 (22%)
3 stars
42 (22%)
2 stars
20 (10%)
1 star
20 (10%)
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
Profile Image for Athena Que Será, Será.
956 reviews70 followers
Read
January 7, 2026
This is E.L. Beth's work... please watch out for TWs. DO NOT READ THIS if you are sensitive to domestic violence, cheating and sexual assault.
Tags: abuse, age-gaaap, betrayal, bully, catches-him-in-the-act, caveman, cheating-hero, cheating-mafia-romance, cheating-on-ow, cruel-cruel-hero, dark-romance, doormat_heroine, editing-needed, enemies-to-lovers, forced-seduction-dubcon-noncon, hero-did-prison-time, hero-hurts-heroine, hero-rapist, heroine-is-ow, heroine-leaves, mafia-cartel-romance, manwhore-philanderer, mean-mean-girls-women, no-grovelling, obsession, older-hero-younger-heroine, over-the-years, ow-drama, poor-heroine, possessive-mine-mine-mine, prison-penitentiary-romance, psychos-in-love, rape-survivor, read, revenge, rich-hero, rich-hero-poor-heroine, thriller-stockholm-creepy, unlikable-hero, unlikable-heroine, weak-heroine
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for CharlieB.
119 reviews
April 16, 2016
WTF did I just read? My mind is boggled. This is like a modern day bodice ripper.
To be fair...I was warned about E.L. Beth's Books. That her hero's were mean SOB's without redemption. This book was like a horrible accident that I just couldn't look away from. Triggers galore people!!
The hero was horrible/mean/prick....the heroine was TSTL and yet I continued to read it. I have reading issues. :(
Profile Image for 'Q' aka CoCo.
569 reviews62 followers
January 3, 2017
Mariyah is an idiot. There's no getting around that. She's immature and even has she has the thought I should really shut up, she continues saying stupid things that make her situation worse. Her brother, Caleb, has looked out for her their entire lives, yet she ignores his advice which makes their situation worse. Once Zak enters the picture, he's upfront with how things are between the two of them, but she invents a relationship in her head, and still acts like an immature idiot.
The saving grace here? Zak.
He's a complete jerk, but I loved him. I love him because he wasn't the kind of guy to pretend, blindsiding the girl with his infidelity or abuse. No, he told her if she kept talking he'd smack her. He told her she was nothing special and of course he had other women. And he followed through.
He humiliates her repeatedly, and she doesn't understand why she's aroused by it. I thought it was sexy as hell too so no judgment here. What I will judge is how stupid she is and the complete lack of editing in this book. So, three and half stars.
Profile Image for Lidia's Romance.
668 reviews334 followers
January 8, 2023
2.5 Stars

I started this book about mid December and finally finished it. Mostly because I'm on a reading slump, but also, this book wasn't very good (and not only because of the editing issues).

What did I think?
The Bastard's Bride was executed much better. The main male character is almost a replica of Bastard's. I'm assuming all of this author's MMCs will be the same--sociopathic. The lack of redemption doesn't bother me, but the lack of grovel definitely does. The MFC is subjected to lots of abuse, and for the most part, she's dense, lead by her UNFORTUNATE Body Betraying Syndrome and her undying love for the MMC. I don't even know what she loves about him. This goes beyond Stockholm Syndrome. And I doubt what he feels is love. It's a sick obsession. Anyway, I got what I needed from this book.

Note: She has a miscarriage because of him and they never once discuss it; they just continue on as if it never happened. She didn't want to talk about it and he goes on abusing her. Tragic.

Warning: These books are not for everyone most.
Profile Image for blueberry.
136 reviews77 followers
July 24, 2022
1,5 ⭐

This book was the definition of a train wreck. You can't help to watch even if you don't want to.

Plot, writing, pacing: all over the place

This book had everything :

🟥 non con/ straight up r*pe
🟥 Cheating Hero who beats up the h constantly
🟥 Miscarriage
🟥 Doormat/dumb heroine

Safety readers: avoid it at all costs.

+0,5 ⭐ only because some part of me wanted to finish it, maybe call it morbid curiosity.
Profile Image for Jena .
2,313 reviews2 followers
avoid
May 5, 2022
Cheater H
Profile Image for Book Nook Kitten.
690 reviews14 followers
January 23, 2026
Up front, the writing is terrible, including very basic mistakes the author should have caught if she had bothered to do a single read through after typing it, including,'he' when it should be'she', 'her' instead of 'he'. She clearly didn't care to check for mistakes before publishing, completely unprofessional. Much of the plot was unbelievable even for fiction, the dialogue was too proper making it robotic sounding and some of the dialogue was so bad it made me cringe.

As for the story, it's a cheating domestic abuser for a H, Zak Michaels, an inmate in the prison the female lead's brother has been sentenced to, who forces her into visiting him once weekly for sex or he'll hurt or even kill her brother. The author writes the sex scenes as completely unpleasant and violent, example, "it feels like he's causes her insides to tear", not what I want to read.

But believe it or not, the H wasn't even the biggest issue I had with the book, it was the too stupid to live, selfish, immature heroine. She gets her brother sent to prison, attacked by a prison guard, beaten badly by the H, all because she's so stupid, immature and selfish she keeps mouthing off to men she knows can and do hurt her brother because of her. Then she gets him beaten and nearly killed again, after selfishly leaving him to work himself to exhaustion and get in more danger because he's trying to save her.

Caleb needed to run and leave her to Zak. She was horrible, annoying and unlikable to read to the end. The author has her insanely and stupidly declaring she has fallen in love with Zak after only seeing him for one hour once a week for 5 weeks. Which is bad enough but he sleeps during one of the visits, ends another visit early, hits her, yes, he strikes her across her face, he sexually hurts her, and then he beats the shit out of her innocent brother. But she falls in loves with him. Seriously, it's awful stuff.

It all moves too fast with that, with only around 20% of the book is set in the prison. It's then followed by 15% of painfully boring reading that is just the h whining about her poor woe me self pity and crying to hernewly freed brother and ger trainer, the H isn't even in this large chunk of the book. Had to skip that, it's so boring, but unfortunately there's even more of it later in the book. The author should have cut all that and put more into scenes between the H & h.

But obviously I gave 3 stars, because I love dark romance, it's my favourite genre, and I have to admit I like how cold Zak was, I liked that he demanded he was her number one priority, I liked how the heroine went toe to toe with him, driving the big bad guy to frustration, and how the second half reveals his development, so some redemption. It doesn't excuse his abuse of her, and so it is hard to like this author's books. But 3 stars for the parts I did like.

I even read a few other books by the author, Skyes Heart, Fallen, Jake's story, Bastards bride and Blacks Brothers series. But while they did have a good premise idea and gave a background reason for the men being as cold and demanding as they were, unfortunately the books had the same problems with poor writing and the H's were even more violent. Like Joshua in the Blacks Brothers Forbidden Fruit book, there was no softening or redeeming of him.

After trying the free sample chapters for a few more of her books ended up giving up on EL Beth's books because the author just publishes the same story over and over and over. If you've read one of this author's books then you've really read them all. The reason I only tried the free sample chapters is because the author's books are also expensive at £5 per ebook. But even if they were free on KU, I don't want to read what is the just same story repeated again and again in different books by the author.

Just a note, I do like a good prioner based book, I read any I can find, even prison planet scifi. My favourites of those are Hold by Claire Kent and Guardian Prison Planet by Emmy Chandler. With real-life based stories there aren't many options for male prisoners to access women, a sister/ wife visiting another inmate, or a female working at the prison. The author herself has a second book were the heroine is the lawyer of the inmate, Aquitted.

But outside of that premise that is understandable to have in books by different author's, I did think the heroine here is the same as Jamie Begley's heroine in her book Predators MC Riot, published a year before this, who got her brother landed in prison after attacking a guy she had flirted with, exactly like here. The prison and billionaire elements also reminded me of books by Annika Martin, particularly her Prisoner. Amazon deleted my reviews so leaving them here, first read this book Caged in 2018.
871 reviews7 followers
October 10, 2023
well

It’s definitely not for the faint hearted. If you don’t like cheating or physical violence. Skip this one. I hate cheating and never read it but for some reason I was intrigued with this even after reading all the reviews. I gave it a try and while I didn’t like. It fit the story and the couple. I read so many reviews talking about how they hate h. She was so weak and stupid and never kept her mouth shut. But while at times she should have at the same time I found her stronger for going toe to toe w him. I think that is what’s he fell for somewhat. I didn’t find her weak. Stupid at times yes. But u could call that immaturity. A lot of people raved about the H and he did horrible things. But the poor h was stupid. Go figure.
Profile Image for Debra.
1,117 reviews49 followers
January 16, 2019
4 stars for this unedited book, Zak who meets Mariyah while visiting her brother in prison makes her come to visit him every month if she wants to keep her brother safe. Blackmailed. He is one hell of an abusive Alpha, it's his way all the way, he gets rough with the heroine and is not sorry. Mariyah loves him, beast and all, he is with other women(but no detail's are told) This book was so out there, I'm surprized I did not hate the M/C , he has a cruel side which was scary. This is a dark read and the Hero is not so nice, but it kept me turning the pages and looking for other works of this author:))
7 reviews
August 13, 2020
Ngl I've read most of her stories out of boredom in the corona lockdown and they all sound exactly the same. No plot, just same old thing over and over again. With petty arguments, unnessary drama and out of the way logic that beats common sense and a emotionally and physically abusive dude with a timid sometime faisty heroine. Repetitive to the point u would think ur reading the same story 100 times with different character names.
Profile Image for Jessica.
965 reviews15 followers
June 13, 2025
CAGED BY E.L Beth
Rating: 2 stars
Burn: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Darkness:🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
Heat: 🔥🥵
Range of Emotions: Many emotions, around why I read this, from shaking my head at some stupid MFC, the abuse she had suffered at his hands. The idiot nickname “Kid.” Cheating asshole!
Ending: end period, no room for a sequel or epilogue.
POV: Female lead

🗂 Genre: Should be Dark Romance, but I found it just to be stupid

✨ Tropes:
💋 Kinks: Belt whipping, spanking, control over the female

⚠️ Warning: The story contains themes of rape and non-consensual situations, as well as abuse directed towards the female lead—this includes physical, emotional, sexual, and mental abuse by the main male character. At one point, the male lead engages in non-consensual acts while in prison, sometimes without condoms. This leads to a miscarriage following an incident of rape. Additionally, there is a discussion of semi-cheating while in prison, and after his release, the male lead cheats on the female lead with his fiancée.

🚩 Safety Squad: Nothing is safe!

📣 Type: Adult


The characters in this story really frustrated me! The female lead was incredibly annoying; her decisions often seemed mind-bogglingly foolish, leaving me wondering how anyone could be so naive and oblivious. And the male lead? I found myself wishing he would just disappear entirely. His actions were infuriating and showed a complete lack of depth or consideration, making it hard to root for him at all. Overall, I felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction with both of their portrayals.


Profile Image for Farheen.
410 reviews2 followers
June 30, 2024
A Typical EL Beth book

Her books have this theme.

Unethical MMC, physically and mentally abusive, rapist, who beats the FMC, causes miscarriage and doesn’t have to do much groveling. Fucks the other woman in front of the FMC or at least gets a blowjob. Enjoys humiliating the FMC.

Thankfully I expected all that so I wasn’t shocked or heartbroken reading it.

I liked how they met in prison so was curious to know how it ends.

It’s a Typical EL Beth book.
Profile Image for Charlotte Bostoen.
3 reviews
December 8, 2024
DNF. There was something about the writing style that didn’t sit well with me. That, and how the story evolved. I’m sure it’s to someone’s liking, just not mine.
The storytelling was off, the characters were off, the writing was questionable.

I’m sure the novel would improve significantly with some rewriting and rereading, but that probably won’t change my mind to finally read it.

It was disappointing because I had high hopes after so many people recommended it.
20 reviews
January 3, 2023
dont bother reading.

Waste of time. Book made no sense. Repeated abuse till the end. What was the point of all the abuse towards h. Beaten to the point of miscarriage and she is more concerned about H possibly getting married to someone else. Finished the book hoping there would be some redemption but never happened.
Profile Image for Neisha † The Poet †.
1,295 reviews36 followers
March 11, 2019
Mariyah + Zak

Well these books seem to be my dirty pleasure. My only problem was Mariyah getting mad and calling Olivia a Latino bitch, and opened her “Latino mouth” . It bothered me because you’re calling her a bitch which I get but putting the Latino in front as though it’s an insult... cringe
Profile Image for Ann.
320 reviews56 followers
August 3, 2023
what did I just read 🤣

3 stars for the effort. But this is not romance. Lmao. I don’t know what is this but it isn’t it. 1 star for the idea of the story, 1 star for the writing and 1 last star for the guts to published it 🤣😂🤣
Profile Image for James Kovacs.
3 reviews1 follower
November 26, 2022
needs editing

Needs editing and spelling corrected . Plot was all over the place . It had a really great premise but no follow through . Very disappointed in this book.
134 reviews9 followers
December 26, 2016
Get a friggin editor!!

This book has everything I want in a dark romance except the terrible grammar, punctuation errors and typos. I refuse to give anything away because if I did you wouldn't buy it. Please be FOREWARNED about TRIGGERS. There is a lot of physical abuse and domestic violence in this book.

Mariyah (yup the author stuck an unnecessary "Y" in there) is your sassy mouthed heroine. She gets in trouble with Zak (who is the H) constantly.

Zak doesn't hesitate to kick Mariyah's ass which is pretty much every day in front of whoever is present.

The storyline is great. The pace is great. But the author needs to get a professional editor. They're, there and their are not interchangeable. Should have and should've mean the same thing but "should of" shows a lack of education. Same goes for "would of."

Needless to say I have been won over and will read more of her books. But for the love of your fans Ms Beth, please at least pay someone with more than a 9th grade education to at least proofread.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews

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