Publication Date: December 6, 2016
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance Erotic Suspense
Series: The Endgame #1 (Not a standalone series)
~Synopsis~
The price of survival…Gabriel Miller swept into my life like a storm. He tore down my father with cold retribution, leaving him penniless in a hospital bed. I quit my private all-girl’s college to take care of the only family I have left.
There’s one way to save our house, one thing I have left of value.
My virginity.
A forbidden auction…
Gabriel appears at every turn. He seems to take pleasure in watching me fall. Other times he’s the only kindness in a brutal underworld.
Except he’s playing a deeper game than I know. Every move brings us together, every secret rips us apart. And when the final piece is played, only one of us can be left standing.
THE PAWN is a full-length contemporary novel from New York Times bestselling author Skye Warren about revenge and seduction in the game of love.
~Book Review~
3 Meh, It’s Just Okay Stars
Avery James, 20, is in dire straits. (She seems to have a flair for the dramatic so that description seems fitting 😉) Gabriel Miller is the very dark knight
who comes to her rescue. Or does he?
The book description pretty much gives you the plot. Girl is desperate. Girl seeks out
help from the bad guys. Girl meets man. There’s an auction. Girl gives up
virginity. Man is holding all the cards.
This is a hard one to rate because
there are literary aspects to the story that have merit and to some degree it
keeps you guessing right up to the very end. But then the end is part of the difficulty
in rating. I really wish authors would be more upfront when not providing a
complete story. Because essentially that’s what a cliffhanger end makes it—only part of the story. So it’s hard to
rate on that fact alone. But there were other literary issues I struggled with.
As indicated by the title, the theme of a game/chess
game is strong as well as mythology, which the heroine majored in. These
aspects make the story fuller to some degree while at the same time bogging it
down in places. Overall though, my biggest difficulty lied in connecting with
both of the main characters.
Told solely from
Avery’s first person POV, I can understand to some degree why Gabriel was
difficult to connect with. For one, I’m sure it’s intended that way to keep a
certain mystery about him. But also Avery herself doesn’t really understand
him. Avery, and I think this was my big issue with her, is really naïve, really
inexperienced, and not entirely in a likable way. Honestly, I felt like she was
a character out a Dicken’s novel. She was
just that destitute, that impoverished, and the people around her that apathetic to
her suffering despite her innocence in it all. And I, myself, had trouble in certain
places garnering sympathy for her. It felt like the novel really was set in the
1800’s the way a girl’s virginity was revered as well as bought and sold. Seeing as how I assume it is set in 2016, Avery
needed to move to another town, get a job, gain some independence, and quit
looking for the good in people who probably don't deserve it.
I suspect the story is headed in a
romantic direction at some point, albeit a dark one. But from this segment of
the story, there really isn’t any romance despite Avery’s attempts, much like a
young foolish girl, to romanticize their encounters. It’s definitely more of a dark and erotic suspense. There is dubious
consent and a prostitution-like way that their sexual interactions occur. You’ll
definitely want to check any feminist beliefs at the door because this story is
centered around the premise that a helpless girl needs a man, even a corrupt
unsavory one, to save her from the more unsavory males in society.
The continuation of this saga releases in January 2017 with The Knight.
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