DadReadsRomance

My first (and Potentially Last) Dark Romance

Content Warning this review contains references to the sexual assault, rape, kidnapping, human trafficking, and domestic abuse that take place in this book.

Medium Used: Paperback. Thank You to my 2021 Reddit Secret Santa (RIP) for getting this book for me.

Ratings Out of 5

Overall Rating: 💜💜💜💜

Sweetness Level: 🍫🍫🍫🍫

Steam Heat Level: ⛓🔒🔥

FMC Likability: 💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽

MMC Likability: ✝✝✝✝

Plot Engagement: 🔫🔫🔫🔫

At least one bad dad (pass/fail): 💯

Spoiler Free Review

Deliver is a contemporary Dark Romance about the abduction of Joshua Carter by Liv Reed. Liv is a professional deliverer, she captures targets that meet the client's conditions and spends 10 weeks breaking them into the perfect sex slave. We quickly learn that she does this in order to protect the two people she loves the most from her employer. The story is told from a dual perspective.

As I said in my last review, I do not find kidnapping endearing. The tone around abduction in this book is different than A Promise of Fire because the kidnapping here serves to create suspenseful and dramatic instead of comedic. Regardless, it was very hard for me to get through the beginning of this book. I generally read romance to relax and relieve stress which is why I did not read any dark romance until I was gifted this book (and subsequently did not revisit the genre until 3 years later). At about page 80 or so I had to read the last couple lines of the book just to make sure it was going to be an HEA. About 40 pages later I still considered not finishing the book because it was just sooooo dark compared to what I am used to. I kept progressing because I knew in my heart it was objectively good story telling. It was compelling, tense, and I cared about the MCs deeply. I am glad I stuck it out because the second half of the book hit many beats that I loved. That being said it was emotionally straining and I'm not sure I'll be going back to the genre anytime soon (guess I was right).

What I liked about this book:

• Characters had interesting growth and compelling motivations.
• While the book dealt with a lot of awful themes I never felt like any of the awful actions were being glorified in problematic ways.
• The Villains in this story were creepy and scary in a good way.
• Great use of dual perspective and the way Pam Godwin described Josh and Liv's inner thoughts about each other made me gush.

What I did not like about this book:

• I do not hold this against the book in my ratings but the dark themes in this book are not normally my jam.
• Some of the steamy scenes had dubious consent and non-consent (i.e. rape for those less familiar with online romance book community jargon). I prefer this kind of content to be fade to black.
• An antagonist's full motivations go a little under explained in my opinion but my understanding is this is due to it being explored more in a future book in the series.

Spoilers Review

What I liked Spoilers

Click to reveal spoilers

• The more that was revealed about Liv's past the more I wanted to forgive her sins but I was not expecting the twist at the end with the freedom fighters. This lighted the book so much for me. I nearly cried.
• The scene with the buyer was so intense. Josh and Liv both wanting to suffer to protect the other. As dark as everything was I just felt so much for Josh and Liv's love on how hard all of that was for them.
• The scene when they are driving back from the police station in his parents car. A delightful balance of heat with sweet.
• When Liv meets Livana and she likes singing as much as her. Oh it was too perfect!
• The evil human trafficker was a cop. It is always 10/10 when any media shows that cops can be evil corrupt jerks in my humble opinion 👍.
• I just thought the overall story structure and call backs were thought through. Like Josh's mom's gun coming back. Van's weird hair stuff and the mannequin. The Liv-54-LIV-0054 thing was cute.

What I did not like Spoilers

Click to reveal spoilers

• The murdering of the buyer's wife made me a little sad. I was kind of hopeful they were going to find a way to save her.
• The reveal that Mr. E was living a modest lifestyle left more questions than answers for me. Like why go to all this trouble? I know the sequel focuses on Van so maybe this is explored more but I felt like the character made less sense at the end of the story than in the middle where he was just an evil rich dick.
• Was it necessary to double down on the evil dads there at the end?😜

Who Should Read This Book?

Any fans of Romance that don't mind the content warnings and aren't turned off by my review should give this book a shot. Even though I stepped away from Dark Romance for a long while after reading it I still am very happy for the experience. I will say 3 years after reading this book I went back to the Dark Romance genre with S.T. Abby's Mindf*ck Series (my review) and it is now one of my all time favorite book series so I guess in the end I am a Dark Romance Fan. I do not think I would have been able to bring myself to try the Mindf*ck series (which has significantly more graphic violence) if I had not read Deliver first.

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(This Review was originally published on Reddit in 2022.)