Thursday, April 10, 2014

BLOG TOUR - REVIEW & GIVEAWAY - NUMBER THIRTEEN by BELLA JEWEL - ADULT DARK ROMANCE


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Title: Number Thirteen

Author: Bella Jewel

Release Date: March 19, 2014

Genre: Dark Romance

**AUTHOR NOTE - This is NOT a BDSM Romance**




Synopsis


By: Bella Jewel
Published By: Bella Jewel
Released ; Available Now
Details: Kindle for honest review, 238 Pages

RATING: 3.5 DARK STARS!

Blurb: Goodreads

We're thirteen girls, captive, slave to our master. A master we've never seen. Obedience will become all we know in our shallow existence. It is the only emotion we're permitted to feel. When we're bad, we're punished. When we're good, we're rewarded. Our scars run deep. Yet we survive, because we have to... because HE teaches us to. All of us are special, we feel it with everything we are. He has us for a reason, but it's a reason we don't know. We've never seen his face, but we know that something deeply broken lies beneath the darkness. With every touch, with every punishment, we know it. Then something changed. He showed me who he truly is. Now I want him. I'll go against everything I know to be with him.

A monster.

My monster.

Loving him is a sin, but a sinner I am. I won't stop until I see every part of him. Even the parts he keeps locked deep down inside.

I am Number Thirteen, and this is my story. No one said it was pretty, or right, but it's mine. 




BOOK REVIEW by Michelle:

I am a HUGE fan of Bella’s, MC Sinners series. I totally dig the way she wrote that series and all its characters. Brilliant creative smexi scenes with a bunch of lads that I adored.

I will read anything Bella writes because I respect her as an author and writer.

Number Thirteen , in all honesty and this is a hard review for me to write, didn’t connect with me as well as her MC Sinners series.

But I still very much enjoyed it.

I understand what Bella was writing about. I read dark romance. I understand dark romance comes with its quirky, dark characters and the things they get up to which can be challenging to read.

A dark romance writer really can take the reader down a very dark road of twisted passion and darkness. Aleatha Romig and Pepper Winters, are two dark romance writers I am a huge fan of.

I am going to give you some of my honest thoughts that are just my one opinion out of a sea of reviews.

I had trouble understanding William’s character. I don’t quite understand how William got from being thirteen and terrifyingly bullied to his role of savior and his methods and how he dealt with the girls. There felt like a gap in his background that I felt lost in. I do understand his father is a dick and favored Benjamin and gave William no love, encouragement and made life difficult for him.

Ben got the better ride in life. He was the prized son.

I was bullied terribly from about eleven years of age, two brothers used to biatch slap me, spit on me on the way to school. They used to wait for me, I would take another route, one of only two to my school, they would be waiting to follow me. They preyed on me. It never escalated from that, but it was a horrible thing to know was coming my way every morning. I understand being bullied. It sucks. It's unnecessary. 

William is a character that I personally had trouble understanding how he could authorize lashings and have the girls chained up in his basement. I liked to call it the dungeon. After what happened to him as a kid.

I had to ask myself why there was even a place where the girls can be chained up and punished when this was his first time ‘saving’ any girls. It felt like he had his basement fitted out prior, to punish them, if need be. It sounded like William had never ‘saved’ any girls before this batch of girls.

He wants to save them, but he issues these punishments and tattoos them, essentially taking more from them. I understand what I was told about breaking them, to start over...but??

Tattooing a girl on the hand with a number and not calling her by her name is taking more from her. Give her a lanyard with her number on it. She is now branded for life.

I had trouble balancing out William's commands with what he felt he was doing for the girls in his own mind. 

William has his oddity with petting and having a girl sit in his lap. That just adds to his character. Weird, but adds to his character.

A girl is , by all sound effects in the book, shot dead for being a screamer or at least snuffed out. Not a word heard from her again. No explanation.

The girls could all ask William one question, but nobody thinks to ask about this poor girl.

Now if that wasn’t in the book, I could probably understand William, more. But that scene sat with me the whole book and didn’t really validate William’s need not to hurt anyone. I didn't feel like that poor girl was 'saved'.

I felt like I didn’t see William the way Bella wanted me to see him.

Which could be my own dang fault.

I feel quite bad that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. I did enjoy it. I read it in one sitting but I had trouble believing in William and his purpose for these girls.

I felt like I didn't accept William the way Bella wants me to. 

I wanted to.

The guards did William’s bidding, but the girls self respect was further taken from them. I was confused by this. The more we read about William, the more this confused me, because he is a good guy, with very odd methods of persuasion. Considering what he knows about their past.

He hates bullying. But chaining a girl up and lashing her. From where I am sitting that isn’t kind behavior. I know he eventually learns, but he is a grown man of an unidentifiable age.

Lashings or being hit by a belt was ruled out of schools years ago, but William finds this preferable to getting the girls a female professional to talk to, while they are awake.

Sometimes William’s actions felt random.

I understand William thinks of himself as a monster, because of his imperfection and what was taken from him, but it is a big leap to where he is at now.

I thought.

I do feel uncomfortable writing this review as I don't want it to come across wrong. I am just writing my personal thoughts that I noted when reading. I don't author bash and I don't book bash. I am struggling a bit with this review as I LOVE Australian authors and I love to review and promote them. I want to love every book.

I really like Benjamin’s character, I felt a bit sorry for him as he is trying to keep the family glued together, he was always up beat and had a cheeky side to him. He knows nothing of his brother’s behavior behind closed doors. But he is trying to keep a family together that is struggling to stay connected.

I wouldn't want to be around William's father , either.

I did find five fairly pronounced flaws in the plot. I won’t list them, they may have been fixed. If Bella wants to ask me about them, I am happy to chat with her. I did re-read them and recheck to make sure I wasn't getting it wrong.

I had questions. Was justice ever served out on the kids that inflicted so much pain on William when he was a teenager? I have other questions but I don’t want to steer into negativity with my review.

I did enjoy this book. William became a law unto his own, who at the bottom of it all, really did want to help save, these girls, he just has a very different way of helping them that I found a little hard to grasp sometimes.

I look forward to more works from Bella.



Michelle





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About the Author




Bella Jewel is an Aussie girl through and through. She spent her life in Western Australia, growing up in many different areas of the state. She now currently lives in Perth with her husband, children and mass amounts of pets. She's crazy, fun, outgoing and friendly. Writing is her passion, she started at the young age of 18 but finally got the courage up to publish, and her first novel Hell's Knights was released in August 2013.



3 comments:

  1. I'd read this, you know I love mind fuck stories like this one. Thanks for the intro!

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh it's intriguing, I just love the cover and the little excerpt. thanks!

    ReplyDelete

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