Carnal Urges
by J.T. Geissinger
Carnal (adjective):
1) Relating to the pleasures of the body
2) Given to sensual indulgence
3) The man who kidnapped me
The devil has blue eyes, an Irish accent, and a hatred for me that runs deep.
He blames me for starting a war. Consorting with his enemies. Getting his men killed. Though I’m innocent on all charges, he wants his pound of flesh. With an eye on revenge, he makes me his captive.
But as we’ll both soon discover, there are more powerful urges than that for revenge.
When the devil meets his match but she’s his sworn enemy, that’s when the real war begins.
Spice Level: 4.5/6 | Story Score: 7/10 | Rating: 4/5 |
I dove into this one immediately after finishing Ruthless Creatures because I loved it so much. I also saw this one on a TikTok that propelled this series into my “read now” column.
This story had an entirely different feel from the first one for me. While they were both mafia centered with dominant men, they came from a different place and the men handled their women differently. Kage was supposed to kill Nat and fell in love immediately - then he won her over with dirty and sweet promises and delicious filthy sex. Declan kidnapped Sloane with the intent to use her to get information about his nemesis and then was genuinely annoyed by her for way too long, lol, until he decided to make it an enemies to lovers deal. With all that being said: for my trope list, I used “dominant alpha”- because if Kage was bad, Declan was dominant.
Sloane was interesting for me. I don’t find utterly confident women in books often - let alone mafia ones. Nat sure wasn’t. But in walks Sloane with her “I’m hot shit” attitude, I can’t say I loved it, but I definitely didn’t hate it. I appreciated that she wasn’t a wilting flower, falling apart all the time. Sloane’s love for Nat was my favorite quality about her - easy.
Declan was…well, he was dominant. Did I say that already? He was more dominant than I prefer - but I’ve countless other responses of him being their favorite. Other than that though, I felt like he tried to extend his hand to Sloane several times which was brave and he sometimes said some good things. I loved that he wanted to hear how much Sloane liked him…over and over. I felt like it gave him a piece of humanity that saved his character for me.
-SPOILERS-
I understand that Sloane was a former cutter so she had a preference for using pain as a release, but the amount of spanking (by hand, belt, and other) was too much for me. There is a LOT of spanking in this book. I didn’t feel like it was abusive at all, because like I said, Sloane was for it. The quantity of it and the frequency was just more than I enjoyed.
Similarly - Sloane had her hands tied together way too damn often. Seemingly for no reason other than he wanted her to give up control. I felt like she was doing that anyway. Sloane was definitely a brat in the BDSM sort of way, but again, it was just more than my preference.
I also didn’t appreciate the ways he always exerted his dominance. I’ve already read a book since this one so my brain has already moved on, but I remember him making her sit at his feet at the dining table so that he could feed her. She said it felt humiliating and I agreed with her sentiment. He tried saying that he was worshiping her, but that’s not how it felt for me. I’m familiar with the concept of “if you give up your control, I’ll give you whatever you want and worship you” but a couple of his actions missed that mark for me.
None of this is to say ‘don’t read this book’ because overall, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the twist they tried to take.
HOWEVER! My advice: skip the fucking epilogue. Those few pages felt like they ruined things I loved about the first book especially, but also about the series so far in general. They made Kage basically go back on his word to Nat and that is not something I can even deal with. I’m so upset about that epilogue that I’ve walked away from this series to return at a later date where hopefully I won’t remember those final pages. Ugh.
Book 2 in the Queens & Monsters series | 356 Pages | Trope Challenge: Dominant Alpha Hero |
“You’re safe with me. You can let your guard down. I’ll catch you if you need to fall.” That hurts like a knife plunged into my heart. I turn my head, suck in a hard breath, and close my eyes. He puts his mouth near my ear and whispers, “You can’t hide from me. I see you. I see all the strange and wonderful things you are, little lion.”
- Declan, Carnal Urges by J.T. Geissinger
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