Title :              Darkest Before Dawn

Author :           Stevie J. Cole

Series :            n/a

Release date :   September 19th 2016

Rating :           4 Stars

 

 

Blurb : Sixty-four days in captivity. Sixty-four days to lose yourself—or find yourself. I’m Ava Donovan. I was abducted at the age of nineteen. I’m told I’m a survivor, but the truth is, I only survived because he saved me. Even when he kept me locked in that room—he saved me. Constantly wondering when and how you will die, that does something to you. To your mind. But what do you do when it does something to your heart? What do you do when the man holding you captive seems just as broken as you are, when his mere presence becomes a comfort you crave—when you love him even though you shouldn’t? You smile and tell yourself it’s okay because love has no morals.Sixty-four days in captivity gave me a love most people will never have and my freedom took it all away.

 

Review : The last weeks have been real ups and downs on my reading journey – I couldn’t pinpoint what kind of genre I wanted to read and than I really had a string of books that really let my overthink my politics on not posting reviews of 1 star books. (I rarely post those).

 

I knew I needed something different so the book “Darkest Before Dawn” by Stevie J. Cole came just right. Its been a long time now that I read something dark and an even longer time since I read something dark that actually remained dark and not by some miracle became fluffy and sugary towards the end.

 

And again this book is even there a little different because it has sufficient closure for the reader (yes I refrain on purpose from telling if it has a HEA/HFN or not – because all of that is part of the journey) From what I saw on the authors profile this is not her first journey into darker territories but I feel she is one of those authors that will have developed a style that is always getting better and better with each book she wrote.

 

So I strongly suspect that I might not like her older books – bot because they are not good but because she simply became better. I am just saying this for other readers consideration that – just in case they also consider to read older books from her- they should read the older ones first.

 

This book walks a fine line between human trafficking, kidnapping, the Stockholm syndrome, BDSM and LOVE. Love knows no boundaries and how should a person that has never been in a certain situation be able to judge fair on others.

 

The leading characters a no knights in shining armor. Actually probably not even decent citizens when considered through the eyes of the law – but it is what it is and the author did a great job telling their story.

 

I admit parts I understood – others I can only pretend to understand as I have never been faced with such a situation. But the author brought them as near to the reader as possible and explained their reasoning as best as she could.

 

In the end there were some words that only proved that point to me. So I think we should always try to see both sides of a story.

 

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