Wow

Another great continuation in the Steel brothers saga. How I’d love to punch out the bad guys. The strength of Jade and Talon’s love is incredible. I cannot wait to see what happens next! ( )

Basically a direct continuation of book 1. More of the same, really. There is a decent amount of more development with the central storyline around Talon, though, really, it does so far seem to be coming together a bit too conveniently. But, I'll wait and see what happens in the next book. ( )

I adore Helen!! All of her books are fantastic. All a great read! Page Turners right from the beginning!!! Hot steamy romance!!!

You fall in love with each Steel Brother and sister and the women they end up with.... her books suck you in and you feel that you know each character personally. ( )

And I'm back for round two in this mess!

So, in the last book, Talon, the ever-polite gentleman and "hero" of this book, kicked his love interest, Jade, out of the house she'd been sharing with him and his sister (who is also Jade's best friend), even though he knows that she literally has nowhere to really go that isn't tied to him, because Jade is new to the area and the only friends she really has are all related to Talon. What a great guy and totally worthy of love!

The second book doesn't get any better. I am seriously baffled how this book has such a high rating, because Talon is a fucking asshole, and I'm going to say it right here, right now - having a shitty childhood, no matter what kind of abuse you were subjected to, does not give you the right to be a fucking asshole to everyone as an adult. It doesn't. And before anyone says ~*~oh he was abused~*~ and you will never understand his ~*~pain~*~, let me tell you - yeah, I actually can, and I don't use it as an excuse to be a fucking jackass like Talon does.

Anyway, Jade and Talon have entered into a destructive relationship where they can't stay away from one another, even though they both know that the best thing they could do for one another is to break up for good and stay far, far away from each other for the rest of their lives. And all this in barely a month, even though Jade, at the beginning of book one, had just been jilted at the altar by her (now ex) fiance. I'm not saying that the girl can't move on, especially since Colin is ALSO a jackass (she seems to attract them), but this tru wuv romance that Talon and Jade have going on just screams "HORRIBLE REBOUND RELATIONSHIP MISTAKE" to me.

Apparently the author wants to pretend that Jade is a "strong woman" or whatever, but Jade's actions never portray her as strong, independent, or anything. The most "independent" thing she does is get her own apartment, but as soon as Talon says that he's coming to stay with her, she backs down fast and meekly allows him to do whatever he wants. She's also violating the ethics of her profession almost every day, in multiple ways, and I know she keeps thinking to herself, oh well I need this job and Larry (her boss) is making her do these ethically bankrupt things. That's not how ethics work in real life. She knows she is doing wrong, and if any governmental agency decided to investigate them, she would be going down just as fast as Larry, if not more so. But she just brushes it off as, oh, she wants to help Talon so she'll get him a good deal. Shady as fuck!

Talon is a grade-A alphahole. Jade sees a tattoo on her mother's new fiance's arm, a phoenix, and immediately wants the exact same design as a man she barely knows because she's such an original snowflake. LOL What a tool. Anyway, the reader already knows that Talon was raped by a man with that same tattoo and it's probably the same guy. But Talon, of course, has told Jade NOTHING about his past and why he's so fucked up, even though it impacts both of their lives a great deal. He just says that he forbids her to get a tattoo, and in particular, that tattoo - then goes to the tattoo shop and pays the artists there off so they won't tattoo Jade.

Yeah, you read that correctly.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Granted, Jade does throw a small fit about it, but the author writes it as such that I believe she wants us to sympathize with Talon. Nope, no fucking way. There is no fucking way in HELL that I would ever allow anyone to forbid me to do ANYTHING. And even though Jade does, as I said, protest a bit, she sure doesn't do anything to buck his wishes, either.

Jesus, how does ANYONE view this guy as a romantic hero? He's a fucking dick.

Oh, but it gets better, because we soon all see how messed up this relationship and Jade is because of it. Talon has a flashback when he's staying over at Jade's apartment, in which he finds the guy with the phoenix tattoo and starts to choke him. He wakes up, after Jade claws the shit out of his arms, and realizes that he's been choking Jade this entire time.

And Jade's response? "I know you'd never hurt me."

WTF?! She wakes up with a man on top of her strangling her and her VERY FIRST THOUGHT is to say that she knows that he'd never hurt her? Oh honey, no, that is not how it works, and that is how you put yourself in a VERY dangerous and volatile relationship. She's not making him get help, not trying to set boundaries to ensure her own physical safety - she'd put her own safety on the back burner just to keep this magical Talon in her life - and that is when YOU KNOW that this relationship is beyond unhealthy.

Even TALON, who is an asshat, thinks this is total bullshit. EVEN TALON THINKS THIS IS WRONG. And if you know that Talon thinks it's wrong, it has to be so fucking wrong that no one in the world (except Jade, apparently) can try to justify this wrong.

And that is how fucking MESSED UP this relationship is, and I just look at all of these four and five star reviews on Goodreads and I am puzzled beyond all shit, because I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how anyone can think these books are "romantic." Jade and Talon's relationship is not romantic. You would not want this kind of relationship in your real life. And I say that as someone who loves fucked up shit - but, at the same time, I will admit the entire time how fucked up and unhealthy the relationship is.

Also, I fucking hate it when authors end with a huge cliffhanger at the end of every book. It feels like a cheap ploy to keep people reading, and that is exactly what it is in these books. The bummer is, the whole "mystery" could have been intriguing if it was well-written. You don't need all of the ridiculous sex scenes and Talon being a grade-A asshole to make the book interesting - but apparently, that is the direction the author chose for this series, and that's disappointing.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to read the third book, so I am sure that I will have tons of more ranting to come in the near future about this series. ( )

This is a series of 9 books ( )