Michael Dunellen on Books

If you haven't read Captive in the Dark, Go read that first. And as soon as possible, even.If you haven't read Seduced in the Dark, you probably shouldn't be here either. Go. Read."I've been doing this a long time-manipulating people to get my way. That's why you think you love me. Because I've broken you down and built you back up to believe it. It wasn't an accident. Once you leave this behind..... you'll see that."I thought I had some idea where this was going to go based on reading the first book, the description of this one, and trying to discern meaning from the cover. It turned out I had no idea.Captive was about a not-very-nice man who kidnaps a girl to use in a revenge plot. Seduced is a thriller set against a backdrop of international intrigue and corruption.The BDSM angle - My opinion is that people don't get attracted to the lifestyle because of abuse. Rather some people attracted to the lifestyle have been abused. Just because you didn't realize it earlier doesn't mean that you didn't have a natural predisposition. It was kind of painful to watch Matthew suffer and James feel such guilt over what Caleb did to Olivia. Felipe and Celia would have been great role models for them all. I never really felt like Captive was a BDSM novel. This one at least had elements of one.I complained in my review of Captive about how bad Caleb was doing. I still felt that way but at least I understood why. His internal conflict was so palpable this time throughout. And there were many times I thought Olivia might be better off giving in, but she never did. I have seen some amazing female characters of late and she is right there with the best of them.The Pakistan angle - After what we learned last year about how corrupt government and military officials harbored the world's most wanted fugitive for a decade, you really couldn't be too surprised by anything that happened here. I really thought that based on her personal experience, the author made this part totally plausible.The split-timeline thing - A bit confusing at first but I actually thought it worked as a story-telling method by the end.The ending - Simply amazing. What James and Sophia have is something that Caleb and Kitten never could.My two complaintsCaleb broke my most-important rule: never leave someone alone when they are helpless. I never felt like Olivia was in that much danger - Felipe and Celia seemed to be looking out for her (not sure when they slept) - but still. I understood why he didn't want to stay, but the was incredibly dangerous.Editing: Much much better than the first book but still not perfect. Last time, I complained about the absence of commas. This time I felt like there were too many at times. Still, though, the writing was so powerful that this is really minor.I remember wondering to myself early in Captive if I really wanted to read it. If somehow you have read to this point in the review and still haven't read the first book, Go already.