Review: Mafia Captive by Kitty Thomas

Book: Mafia Captive

Author: Kitty Thomas

Dark Erotic Romance, BDSM

Review copy provided by author in exchange for an honest review.

Anyone notice a dark erotica theme happening here? Yeah me too. I need to read something with rainbows and unicorns next. 

Blurb:

Faith Jacobson was in the wrong place at the wrong time. After witnessing a mob hit, she’s only moments from death when Angelo Raspallo decides to give his brother an unlikely gift.

Leo has avoided involvement with the family business, but it doesn't make him a saint. He’s troubled and ashamed by his darker sexual desires, one of which is to own a slave. But when his brother throws Faith at his feet, repainting the scenario to make Leo the hero rescuing her from certain death, his moral fortitude will be tested. If Faith were kinky, it would be easy to live out his fantasy, but she’s not—not even a little bit. Even the mildest spanking sparks terror in her that Leo can’t bear.

The gift soon becomes a burden as he fights with himself over how to handle the addition to his home. He could release her, but his brother doesn't do loose ends. The only thing keeping her out of the bottom of the harbor is Leo’s mercy. She’s like a beautiful piece of art he keeps in a glass case but can never touch. Is possessing her enough?

Author’s Note: Mafia Captive has more of a love theme than many other Kitty titles, though the work is still quite psychologically dark. Readers may also notice a “new adult” flavor as Faith is just out of college and trying to find her place in the world when she is thrust into Leo’s life and home.

Mafia Captive held me captive from page one through to the end. I could not put this book down. Kitty Thomas understands how to engage her audience and keep their attention. She also knows how to accomplish a good mind fuck. I did not expect this book to be a mind fuck, but the twist at the end and the prologue... it really messes with your head. I will say no more on that subject, you will have to read the book to know what I'm talking about. 

"To own a human being was the driving need that underscored everything else."

Faith is a young innocent who ends up being held captive by Leo through a series of unfortunate events. She witnessed Angelo off someone in an alley and instead of killing her, he decides to gift her to his brother, Leo. Both Faith and Leo are very interesting characters and there's quite a dichotomy going on with both of them. Faith, on the surface, appears weak because of her innocence, youth, and never ending fear. Underneath all that fear and angst, however, is an intellect and inner strength that surprises everyone, including herself. 

"Leo had hoped the reminder of his sin would keep him on the straight and narrow, but there were too many roads that wound around him, all leading into Hell."

We're all familiar with the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." That's Leo in a nutshell. He makes decisions with the intention of causing the least amount of pain and damage and (you guessed it!) ends up causing a hell of a lot of pain and damage. Including to himself. He takes Faith from Angelo to save her life, but essentially puts her in a glass cage. Then he proceeds to make a lot of other bad decisions that I will not disclose, because it'll spoil it. I think you get the point, though... one bad decision leads to another and that leads to pain. But as flawed as Leo is and as many bad decisions as he makes, I couldn't hate him. His intentions were good. He was ultimately good. I did get the urge to slap him around, but I got cured of that pretty quickly. He's too good at devising punishments, and not just for others, but for himself, as well.

"Did a personal judgement on the value of one set of chemical reactions over another make one empirically better or more real than the rest?"

The source of most of the angst for both Leo and Faith is the sex - Leo is a Dominant and Sadist and will not compromise on that with his sexual partners. Faith is not a masochist and is terrified of what Leo might do to her. Throughout the book, we go through Faith's journey of self discovery where she learns what is important to her and what she is willing to sacrifice to have what she wants. And Leo's constant inner battle of right and wrong, guilt and pleasure, trying to be merciful while getting his needs met.

"Pleasure toys are for pleasure."

While the sex was a prevalent theme (source of the angst and most of the issues), this was not a sex heavy book. There was lots of drama and emotional upheavals and a great portrayal of the psychological journey that both Leo and Faith took throughout the book. The story flow was great and, as always, Kitty Thomas' writing was very good. I have a minor complaint about a scene at the end where Leo and Faith experience a pivotal moment together that is very significant for their relationship - I really wished that there would have been more detail there. I would have wanted it to be a slightly bigger deal, but that did not take away from my overall enjoyment of the book.  

"It had been forged in the fires of betrayal and redemption, of suffering and pleasure and secret moments below ground."

If I could choose one quote to summarize this book, this one would be it. There were all these things in the story, and more. Usually, when I finish a romance, I get the warm fuzzies. It's romantic and lovely and happily ever after. But this is Kitty Thomas, so, of course, I was left with many conflicting emotions at the end. I'll list them, but I won't tell you why I felt them, because (same as above) spoilers. I was relieved and happy and vindicated. Queasy, sad, and somewhat regretful. And, possibly, most importantly, hopeful.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Kitty Thomas never does simple, straight forward erotica. You have to think and feel things in order to enjoy her books. It's dark and conflicted, with a heavy dose of struggles. But it's also hopeful and realistic, with a splash of love. If you want a fulfilling reading experience, you know, a roller coaster that takes you through all possible emotions on the spectrum - go read Mafia Captive. 

Purchase Link:

amazon

In the mood for something dark? Read Big Sky by Kitty Thomas (Review)

I've been on a Kitty Thomas kick for a few weeks now. I read everything she's written, with the exception of the bulk of Guilty Pleasures... as I explained in a previous post I just couldn't get through that one. I'm looking forward to Brian's story though. Kitty promised that we're going to love him. And I believe her. I'm also very excited for Mafia Captive that is going to be released within the next week!! So so excited!

UPDATE: Mafia Captive has (obviously) been out for a while now and my review can be found HERE.

I just finished Big Sky and it's so twisted and dark and has some taboos that I can't help but find hot. It's just so dirty and wrong, yet so right within the story. Here's my review:

Book: Big Sky

Author: Kitty Thomas

Dark Erotic Romance, BDSM



Blurb:


Veronica Cason lives in a small apartment with no clear view of the sky. It’s uncertain which might crush her first: her debt or the buildings squeezed in so tight that they surround her like ominous sentinels. She can’t breathe in the city. Her success is a lie, and her debt is coming to collect her—unless someone else gets there first.

When a stranger offers her a job at a ranch, it feels like salvation, but it could also mean her death if his motives aren’t pure. Which door has the tiger behind it? The claustrophobia of the city or ranch life under an open sky?

If you enjoy non consent fantasies then you will LOVE Big Sky and really anything else that Kitty Thomas puts out. The quality of the writing is excellent. As soon as I started reading I felt like I stepped right into Veronica's life and into her head, though I didn't always like what I found there. And at certain parts of the story, I really wanted to step into her body. Alas, I had to settle for reading about the deliciously degrading, scary, painful, and super pleasurable things Luke did to her and made her do... Without giving anything away, there was one taboo fetish that some people might find weird, but was super sexy all the same. Probably because it was taboo and weird and degrading.

There was lots of conflict, both external and internal as Veronica struggled to make sense of her life, her situation, and her feelings. Luke is a complicated character. There are times when you just don't know what to think of him. Is he good? Is he evil? Is he crazy? He fit some stereotypes of all three and it was easy to both love and hate him. Or maybe it was hard to love him and hard to hate him. Is there a difference? Either way, it was very easy to fear him in a wet-your-pants kind of way and sometimes in a soak-your-panties kind of way! Yes, there's a difference. ;-)

I highly recommend this book if you are open to being taken to a darker place and enjoy some really twisted taboo scenarios.

Purchase Link:

amazon

Erotica too Dark? What is too Dark?

I made a comment yesterday regarding Kitty Thomas' books - that some of her writing is "too dark" for me. I'd like to clarify what I meant. I read most of Kitty Thomas' work and the prevalent theme is dubious consent, powerful males, and women in precarious situations without any viable options for an out. Now, most of it is romance erotica, so ultimately there's a HEA and the heroine learns to love her situation and the hero and blah blah blah. It's fantasy. I'm cool with that. I loved Comfort Food, enjoyed most of Tender Mercies (the death of the original slave was a little disturbing and not well explained.. I have questions about that whole situation [this is not a spoiler cause this is in the blurb], but the rest was GREAT if you like slavery fantasies), The Auction was really good. I'll do more in-depth reviews on those at some point, but just know that if you're into dubious consent then the above titles are good choices.

What was too dark for me was in Guilty Pleasures. I just thought that the big mind-fuck that happens there was fucked up and the emotional sadism is just not my thing... intended or not. If you're planning to read this book then don't continue to read this blog post, cause this will be one big SPOILER. You've been warned.

It wasn't any specific activity. I'm obviously cool with non-consent fantasies and hardcore BDSM and hardcore sadists... as long as there's a connection between the Hero and heroine I can deal with a whole lot of cruel-seeming treatment. The connection and ultimately, love and trust are very important. For me. Then I can enjoy it. Just take Annabel Joseph's Mercy for example - the hero - Matthew is a hardcore Dominant and Sadist and some of the things he did to Lucy can be viewed as cruel and unfair. But, for me, it was all good, cause he redeemed himself and he loved her and she loved him and it was almost a tangible thing that you could just about touch as you turned the pages.

Guilty Pleasures isn't meant to be a romance, maybe that's why I found it to be too dark for me. Here's the blurb:

Vivian Delaney leads a life of privilege, but behind closed doors she feels isolated and trapped in a gilded cage. Unable to achieve sexual pleasure with her husband, she finds herself in the capable hands of Anton, a massage therapist intent on awakening her to her full sexual potential. By any means necessary.

As their secret meetings progress, she falls farther down a rabbit hole where the line between rape and illicit affair grows increasingly blurred. Anton will accept nothing short of her complete surrender as he molds and shapes her to be sold to the highest bidder.

In the process of trying to fix her marriage by going to a sex therapist, Vivian gets entrapped in a sexual relationship with the massage therapist (Anton) through coercion and blackmail. He then escalates from just sex to more extreme BDSM activities and then adding partners or trainers and Master/slave scenarios. That, in and of itself, is fine with me. The sex and BDSM scenes were hot and well written. What threw me off was the emotional torment Vivian went through. In addition to trying to come to terms with her submissive cravings, she was dealing with guilt over cheating on her husband and realizing that she has to leave him because he cannot provide what she needs sexually. The cheating bugged me. If she would have come to terms with her needs and left her husband and then was trained as a slave and sold to a Master then fine. But it doesn't end there. Here's the spoiler - she's sold to her husband, Michael. So, ultimately, this whole debacle, the struggles, the self doubt, the guilt.... the cheating... and in the end she ends up back with him. 

I'll be honest, I skipped over a huge chunk of the middle of the book and read the last few pages. I just couldn't get myself to read it. It was too much with the subterfuge.   

If all you're looking for is some hot sex and don't care about the connection between the main protagonists then this might be a great book choice for you. But the lack of relationship building and the icky choices and lack of honesty just ruined it for me. Any trust that needs to exist in a solid relationship of any kind [for me] was totally missing from this. Vivian cheated on Michael. Was pretty much ready to end the relationship for something better. In fact, she thought she was leaving him... and it ended up being one big mind-fuck. Michael, for his part, set this whole mind-fuck situation up in the first place. He knew she what was happening and let her just struggle with it on her own.

In the last few pages, we are told why Michael went about Vivian's training in this backwards way, which might make it okay for some people. For me, though, it didn't redeem him. There were so many other ways that he could have gone about saving his marriage and getting her to submit to this sexual exploration and the training and all that... He could have done the bullying, the coercing and pressuring, even if he didn't want to be the one to train her, he could have been the one who made her accept the training... That would have made it better for me. But that's not what happened and the way he went about it just felt like a big cop-out.

A good book is supposed to make us feel, suffer along with the characters, worry for them, cry with them, yell at them when we think they're doing something wrong. I certainly worried for Vivian and yelled at Michael for fucking with her head. I doubt I'll ever read the whole book through, even though the sexy parts were very sexy and the SM was super hot. 

Conclusion - if you're just looking for hot BDSM and are cool with shady ethics then this book might get your rocks off. But if you're like me and want to see more of the actual relationship, connection, affection, and trust then it might be too dark for you too. Maybe I shouldn't talk about the shady ethics... I clearly liked Comfort Food and that was way shady. So it's really just the connection and the honesty of going through the experience at the hand of the actual end-goal Master.