ENTHRALL (Enthrall, #1) by Vanessa Fewings

Enthrall by Vanessa Fewings
My rating: 2 of 5 stars


ARC provided by Author for an honest review

I want to thank my goodreads buddy RomanceBookVixen for buddy reading this with me.

Let me start by saying that this review won't be as detailed as it was going to be because as I was finishing it, I lost everything I'd been typing. Therefore, here is the shorthand version of what I previously wrote.

Also, I want to say that I respect all writers for putting themselves out there and putting out their vision. This one just didn't quiet work for me.

The book was confused as to what it wanted to be. Mia works in a BDSM clinic, Enthrall to get money to help with medical bills for her stepmother who raised her. I call it a clinic because it's not a club, but there's very little BDSM that actually happens in the book. Enthrall could be more mysterious or enticing, but that doesn't happen in the book. The author tried with the Chrysalis house, but that didn't really work either. Mia wonders for a moment what goes on, but she's more caught up in falling for Richard.

Mia has a lot of baggage from being an orphan, but she bonds right away with the group of people she works with, yet we barely get to know them as characters. She and Richard spend almost no time together other than when he fires her or when she exposes herself to him to get her job back, which was an interesting part of the story, but wasn't elaborated on. The next thing we know they are in love. All of Richard's issues, for which he hasn't been able to move on from for the past six years are miraculously gone.

Richard and Cameron's relationship is a little too close, for which even Mia is confused about, but seems to get over quickly. Bailey, Tara, Scarlet, Penny and Lotte are just peripheral characters like furniture in a room. Their storylines are either just dropped when the main characters become more involved or they are just around for an extra person in the moment. I know really nothing about any of them.

Mia hasn't been anywhere in the world other than Charlotte, where she was born, and Los Angeles, where she was raised. Yet, she calls an elevator a "lift" and an ass an "arse." She also seems to know or speak French as well as be able to tell where someone who's speaking Italian is from in Italy. How is this possible?

She's so naive that the people she works with are able to set her up in ways that they think are helping her, but this is a girl who has had to almost raise herself. How can she be so innocent when she's had such a rough life?

I like the idea of the story, but it just seemed like the author came up with more and more story plots as time went on to try to throw in drama. There was a moment from NOTTING HILL, there were several pop culture events used in the story and it just didn't flow well.

There's more that I was either confused about or didn't work for me, but as I said before this is the shorter version of the review I had written.

Another goodreads friend, Indy, wrote a review where I thought she was in my head. So I'm adding the link here: Indy's Review

Now I didn't hate it and there were moments that I thought were either sweet or funny or could have gone somewhere and maybe all will be revealed in the next installment. I sure hope so.

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