Miles Whiteshaw knew Willow Reid was it for him since they met. But just as he was on the verge of making his move his brother, Knox, swept her up so that he could win a bet. Now, Knox, having publicly dumped her, Willow is free for the taking and this time, Miles isn't taking any chances with making sure she's his.

Did I mostly leave reading this book with fuzzy feelings? Yes. Did I like this book? Well, that's more complicated.

This book was odd, it felt like it didn't really know what type of story it wanted to tell and decided to just mash everything up and it didn't quite work. Parts of this I adored, parts I absolutely hated and other parts I feel rather conflicted about it. Part of the problem is the main characters and part is the plot.

Miles was a mess. He was too nice in some parts, too brutal in others. He was never consistent enough for me to feel like his character was sincere. If the obsessive nature of his personality holds true then it seems unlikely he wouldn't have fought for Willow to start with. He was friends with her. He liked her. And then he let his brother sweep her up and date her for a year. If he cared about her free will and choice, none of the rest of it would've followed and if he didn't, then none of the rest of it would've followed. It just didn't ring true. Or make sense. Especially the likelihood of his brother screwing him over like that - or him not fighting his brother. The flashbacks to their friendship before she started dating Knox were sweet and that didn't ring true either. Or the rest of it didn't. It just wasn't consistent.

Willow was a mess as well but in other ways. To be honest, I just didn't like her all that much. She was whiny and selfish and never really matures from that. Her backstory regarding her parents and sister is all over the shop. I think it would've been stronger without her parents apparently loving her but abandoning her. It just didn't work. She felt like a privileged brat whining about not getting all the attention she wanted. But it could just be that I didn't like her. I just didn't feel her distant parents that still come to visit and do things like pay for her best friend to visit some summer camp were unloving enough to justify her messed up emotions, behaviour there after and her supposed inability to love or ever have felt love. It probably didn't help that her love for Miles felt very wishy washy. I can get behind feeling love but not understanding it but this was not that. Fair enough if she's not all in with Miles at the start (dark bully romance and all that) but by the end I want to see both of the love interests feeling it and it just didn't seem like she really did.

Which brings me to my next few points. The rape. I can be onboard with brutal sex and non consensual role play. But this was an absolute disaster. For many reasons and not just because the consent issues and boundaries were never addressed. Miles had been all about control until that point and then he gives in? Willow only makes a few half hearted attempts to fight? She isn't enjoying herself but she doesn't want it to stop? It wasn't consistent and it was rather sickening with the constant comments about violation. It was hard to see how she could fall in love with him after that? If she had already loved him and forgiven him maybe. But not without having that basis. I don't know this was just all over the place.

As for the murder plot, that was even stranger. Miles just snaps and kills someone when he never has? To teach Willow a weird and controlling lesson? I don't know. It was bizarre. The only thing weirder was the continuation of it with the dead man's brother showing up. I mean good on all the guys pitching in to help cover it up or whatever the hell they think they did but it was just strange. And speaking of other weird things - Willow gets kicked off the dance team and then it's never mentioned again. She doesn't bother to join a class or something? The random point of view changes were weird as well. They were alright. Didn't really add anything but more questions. To be fair though, I haven't read either of the first two books. As far as I can tell, I didn't need to in order to understand the story. I was considering reading the first two but I don't know if I can be bothered. I do know I have no interest in reading Jacob's story - I'm not very keen on second chance romances.

Which brings me to my rating. I finished the book more or less loving Miles and his relationship with Willow - even if I still didn't actually like Willow. But there were too many problems to rate this book very highly. So I've gone middle of the road. 3 stars. ( )