4 stars
I loved this book. If it had been slightly longer and perhaps had a more complicated storyline, it could have been an easy 5 stars.
The best part about it is that there weren’t any cliches. I loved how we got introduced to the main characters separately and they both were pretty great. Sloan was what I wish most heroines would be, truly a strong, intelligent and focused person. And Ivan, he was the boss but not in all aspects of his life, there was a good balance and no power plays beyond the stuff that happened when they met. It was such an equal and healthy relationship, that I’m actually surprised.
There was a scene at about the 35% mark (when he catches her trying to kill him and employs some very questionable methods of interrogation) where I thought everything was gonna go down the drain and the book was gonna be ruined for me. I don’t enjoy unnecessary ”domination and punishment” scenes. I genuinely think that 90% of the romance books with such scenes don’t need them, adding them in feels almost perfunctory at this point and in most cases it ruins the book for me no matter how good the rest of the story is. That being said, this wasn’t bad, it kinda worked in that scenario but only because Sloan was such a badass and I truly felt like no one and I mean no one can make her bend to their will or make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. It almost felt like she was playing the game because she enjoyed it. But like I said, this is a one in a million scenario for me. Usually these scenes do not fit in - and I would absolutely love it if authors didn’t feel like they need to put one in their story. I think if you write your male characters well enough - that dominant energy that many authors try to write, will be obvious in the personality, actions and words of the male MC and therefore there will be no need to cheap tricks.
Back to this book: I loved it and I can’t wait to read the next one.