Saturday 4 May 2019

Review: The Dom Who Loved Me - Lexi Blake

A routine mission…

Sean Taggart is hunting a deadly terrorist, and his only lead is the lovely Grace Hawthorne. She's the executive assistant for an employment agency Sean suspects is a front for illegal activities. To get the truth, he is going to have to get very close to Grace, a task he is all too eager to undertake when he discovers her deliciously submissive nature.

…turns into a dangerous seduction.

Soon, Grace Hawthorne is living a double life. By day, she is the widowed mother of two college-aged sons. By night, she submits to Sean's every dark desire. She's living out her wildest fantasies of pleasure—intimate acts of trust she's only read about. As passion engulfs her, a murderer strikes, and Grace learns that Sean has a deeply hidden agenda. Will Sean choose his mission and break her heart or be the Master of her dreams?

Masters and Mercenaries Series:
The Dom Who Loved Me
The Men with the Golden Cuffs
A Dom is Forever
On Her Master's Secret Service
Sanctum (Novella)
Love and Let Die
Unconditional (Novella)
Dungeon Royal
Dungeon Games (Novella)
A View to a Thrill
Cherished (Novella)
You Only Love Twice
Sweet Child O' Mine (Short Story)
Luscious (Novella) (Topped book 1)
Adored (Novella)
Master No
Just One Taste (Novella) (Topped book 2)
From Sanctum With Love
Devoted (Novella)
Dominance Never Dies
Submission is Not Enough
Master Bits & Mercenary Bites: The Secret Recipes of Topped (Short Story Collection & Recipe Book) (Topped book 2.5)
Perfectly Paired (Novella) (Topped book 3)
For His Eyes Only
Arranged (Novella)
Love Another Day
Master Bits and Mercenary Bites: Girls Night (Short Story Collection & Recipe Book) (Topped book 3.5)
At Your Service (Novella) (Topped book 4)
Nobody Does it Better
Close Cover (Part of the Masters and Mercenaries Crossover Collection)
Protected (Novella)
Lost Hearts (Memento Mori) (Originally published as Memento Mori) (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten Series book 1)
Lost and Found (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten Series book 2)
Enchanted (Novella)
Lost in You (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten Series book 3)
Long Lost (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten Series book 4)
No Love lost (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten Series book 5)

Masters and Mercenaries Crossover Collection:
Close Cover - Lexi Blake
Justify Me - J. Kenner
Say You Won't Let Go - Corinne Michaels
His to Protect - Carly Phillips
Rescuing Sadie - Susan Stoker
Her Guardian Angel - Larissa Ione

Visit Lexi Blake's website for more information

Review:
Anyone who follows my blog or is friends with me on Goodreads can't fail to have noticed that I've become a huge fan of Lexi Blake over the last year or so and I'm really enjoying working my way through her extensive backlist. I've been looking forward to starting the Masters and Mercenaries series for ages and have already met quite a few of the characters as they've made appearances in her other books. So I was excited to start the Dom Who Loved Me and overall I did enjoy the story but I did have a few issues with it that meant I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the Bliss or Texas Sirens books.

To start with the positives I have to say I really loved Grace, she's an older heroine (something we don't see enough of in my opinion) who was widowed young and is now living alone for the first time after her two sons have left to go to college. Grace is a people pleaser who always goes out of her way to make sure everyone around her have what they need. Before all her energy went into looking after her sons and now she mainly focuses on her job and trying to anticipate the needs of her alcoholic boss. I thought Grace was a great character and I really enjoyed seeing the boost in her confidence that came from starting a relationship with Sean.

When it comes to Sean I have more mixed feelings, in some ways I really liked him but there were other things that drove me absolutely crazy. Firstly was the fact that he met Grace when he was there to put both her and her boss under surveillance. McKay/Taggart Security Services are hunting a terrorist and they have reason to believe that the company Grace works for is somehow involved so several members of the team go undercover as both employees and clients while they try to figure out what is going on. I don't have an issue with that but I did find it uncomfortable that Sean gains Grace's trust specifically because he wants to spy on her, perhaps that wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't immediately pursued a relationship with her, if they'd become friends through the investigation but not taken it any further until he was sure of her innocence I'd probably have felt better about it.

The fact that he takes advantage of her trust (even going so far as bugging her house, making a copy of the key she gave him for his friends to use to get inside her property and even drugging her so they could hack into her laptop!) while at the same time starting a D/s relationship with her just made things creepy, trust is the cornerstone of any kind of BDSM relationship and I didn't appreciate Sean completely ignoring that. Then, after abandoning her with no notice he ended up treating her terribly for no good reason which annoyed me even more. I thought the scenes after Grace found out the truth were totally unrealistic and I couldn't believe that she didn't use her safe word and walk away from him. To be honest I'd have liked the story a whole lot more if she'd done exactly that and he'd had to work at earning her forgiveness.

That really makes it sound like I hated this book but that couldn't be further from the truth, like I said I did really like Grace and I even thought her and Sean were well matched both in and out of the bedroom. I liked that she was strong enough to challenge him when she needed to even if that did go a little awry towards the end of the book. I also thought they had a lot of potential as a couple and their chemistry was fantastic. One thing I really loved was getting to know the other members of Sean's team and I'm really excited to continue the series, especially Adam and Jacob's story which, luckily for me, is up next! This series definitely has the potential to become one of my favourites, we already have a group of fantastic characters and Lexi Blake excels at mixing a hint of suspense and danger in with really hot romances.

Source: Purchased

Other Reviews:
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

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