Reviewer: Ames Fever (Breathless, #2) by Maya Banks
Series: Breathless #2
Also in this series: Rush (Breathless, #1), Burn (Breathless, #3), Rush (Breathless, #1), Fever (Breathless, #2), Burn (Breathless, #3)
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: April 2, 2013
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Erotica
Pages: 416
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Series Rating:
Jace, Ash, and Gabe: three of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the country. They’re accustomed to getting anything they want. Anything at all. For Jace, it’s a woman whose allure takes him completely by surprise...
Jace Crestwell, Ash McIntyre, and Gabe Hamilton have been best friends and successful business partners for years. They’re powerful, they’re imposing, they’re irresistibly sexy, and Jace and Ash share everything—including their women.
When they meet Bethany, Jace begins to feel things he’s never experienced before: jealousy, and a powerful obsession that threatens him, overwhelms him—and excites him beyond control.
Jace isn’t sharing Bethany—with anyone. He’s determined to be the only man in her life, and it’s jeopardizing a lifelong friendship with Ash. Bethany will be his and his alone. Even if it means turning his back on his best friend.
Jace Crestwell, Ash McIntyre, and Gabe Hamilton have been best friends and successful business partners for years. They’re powerful, they’re imposing, they’re irresistibly sexy, and Jace and Ash share everything—including their women.
When they meet Bethany, Jace begins to feel things he’s never experienced before: jealousy, and a powerful obsession that threatens him, overwhelms him—and excites him beyond control.
Jace isn’t sharing Bethany—with anyone. He’s determined to be the only man in her life, and it’s jeopardizing a lifelong friendship with Ash. Bethany will be his and his alone. Even if it means turning his back on his best friend.
I’m not going to lie, I had serious issues with Fever.
Jace and Ash are best friends and are known for enjoying a woman together. So when Ash notices Jace checking out one of the wait staff at Mia and Gabe’s engagement party, he decides to proposition her, something Jace specifically asks him not to do. Jace is drawn to the woman and when Ash talks about sharing her, he doesn’t know why but he does not like it. Ash doesn’t listen to Jace and goes after the woman.
Bethany, the waitress in discussion, needs this job. She gets to eat the leftovers and it gives her some much needed money. Right away the reader gets that Bethany is homeless. And to top it off, she’s practically supporting her ‘brother.’
Jace and Ash are rich (not quite the way the summary described them as the most powerful men in the country, that’s a bit of an exaggeration) and Bethany is the exact opposite. But they don’t know that.
So Ash goes to Bethany to ask her if she wants to fool around. She’s not interested until Jace shows up to get Ash to back off. When she realizes that it’s a threesome Ash is proposing and that Jace is part of the deal, she’s intrigued. She says she’ll do it if they feed her. They think nothing of it and off they go.
And this is where I had some serious problems. There’s definitely a power imbalance here. Jace and Ash are in this to get off. And their dialog between the two of them while they’re engaged in sex with Bethany proves that. On page 27 of the pdf copy I had (from Netgalley) Jace says “Her pussy is mine.” I know we’re supposed to see that as some romantic thing, that he doesn’t want to share her with Ash on some level but I did not take it that way at all. I was frankly disgusted that they would refer to Bethany in terms of body parts while she was right there. She’s a flesh and blood woman with feelings who deserves more respect than to be broken down into body parts to be fought over.
Contrast that with Bethany’s reasons for the threesome. Yeah she’s attracted to Jace (and Ash but more Jace) but she wants a warm place to stay for the night and a meal. Survival.
I was put off by the whole scenario. But hey, Jace is smitten with Bethany and her tiny body and how vulnerable she looks, so this is a romance! I kept reading despite being very uncomfortable with that whole scene. So during the morning, Bethany sneaks off and Jace spends the next two weeks looking for her. He finds out pretty quick that she is homeless which makes him more determined to find her.
Once he finds her, he takes over her life, almost completely (Bethany still tries to do some stuff on her own that always results in Jace freaking the hell out). And this whole scenario rubbed me the wrong way too.
Jace is a control freak. And really, who else but a homeless woman who has to rely on him for everything could make him happy? Seriously. He wants to control every aspect of her life and he does. He has found his perfect woman.
“But if having her own apartment gave her a semblance of power and at least the guise of having a choice, then he could deal. Because he knew she had neither power nor choice. She was his. Belonged to him. That didn’t change because she had the appearance of independence.” (p. 155)
That whole paragraph sums up Jace and his feeling of ownership towards Bethany. He totally loves her right? How infuriating and patronizing and condescending!
I like an alpha hero but this was too much. I was not comfortable with this story at all. I could go on but I’m going to leave it there. I did not like the inequality between Bethany and Jace.
1 out of 5
Breathless
That sounds hella creepy.