The second instalment of the Liberating Deceit series which swiftly picks up where book one left us.
Dates read: 25/04/24 to 04/05/24
Word to describe: histrionic
Star rating:⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Dark Romance, Adult Fiction
As always I believe readers should take the time to consider the trigger warnings associated with books prior to reading. Please view my shorthand list of trigger warnings and conclude whether this book is for you.
Trigger warnings: abduction, attempted rape and sexual assault, prostitution, sex slavery, violence towards women, mentions of guns and other weapons, death, mention of suicide, and male aggression.
Okay, lets get into this. After reading the first book Caging Liberty and its cruel cliff-hanger I proceeded to buy the remaining of the trilogy on my Kobo Libra. The first book had me hooked - the characters, the awful yet compelling plot line and the growing suspicion about every character on the island almost gave book one a touch of psychological thriller vibes.
Taming Liberty held none of the charm that the first book had. From dramatic scenes that seemed to be forgotten instantly to randomly thrown in plot lines (the visit to the waterfall with the other men and their sex slaves?) it just felt all a bit out of touch and too much. Yet, if you haven't already been able to tell I am a sucker for trashy written books so, naturally, I still read the whole thing and very guiltily enjoyed the drama.
Liberty is still a kidnapping victim and being held against her will by her sex master Angel ( I know the irony of his name still does not escape me), and now she is leaning more onto the side of sub-servitude because spoiler for book one she killed another slave. Angel came to her rescue and now she is in his debt - albeit a sexual debt now that he has also claimed her as his personal sex slave to avoid island rules having her killed in retaliation. Liberty is glad to be away from the island and stored in Angel's home like a bored 1950's housewife. Sat on his bed in lingerie waiting for her would be criminal to come home.
Every few weeks Angel leaves on "business" and Liberty is reminded that she is actually a victim of sex slavery and she is not in fact in love with Angel (despite how well Stockholm syndrome has been working out for her). She also conveniently remembers about her friend who is now a victim of more than just sexual abuse. The one thing about Liberty that really winds me up is that in the first book she is wrote as this powerful fighter who wants freedom and will do at nothing to free herself and the other girls and then in this book she just kind of accepts her fate and become mousy. Her entire personality is wiped clean and she just becomes Angel's girl.
All of the following scenes when you think of Liberty in this way make sense. The boat trip, the hiking, the casual drinks with Angel's sex master friends, and her need to prove to the other girls that she has superiority for being Angel's bitch.
The vibes in this one were just weird. At first I was into the storyline and I wanted to see where exactly this was going. Were the girls going to be freed? Was Angel really an awful guy just caught up in a bad situation? Do the criminals get there suffering? But absolutely nothing gets resolved, and with one book left you would expect something to happen.
Yes, at the end of the book Liberty is now free after being brought to the real world again and then subsequently kidnapped again and escaping again (kind of seeing a pattern here). But I can already tell exactly where this is going. So let me break down book three so you don't have to suffer through it like I undoubtedly will in the future. Liberty will find her way back to Angel where they will profess their undying love to each other in a totally healthy and not at all call the police kind of way. And then somehow Liberty will convince Angel to kill his business partner and free all the women and they will live happily ever after. Or die. Both work.
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