Review: Dark Dealings by Kim Knox

There are monsters in the city. And one of them is her...
Ava Kalle's empty soul devours magic. And her hunger is deadly. She's sharp, quick and can live in shadow, making her work as a spy for the Mages a natural choice. She lives on the fringes of society and likes it that way.
When the man she loves takes another woman for his mate, the darkness in her heart unravels and she'll do anything to get him back. She makes a dangerous deal with a fire elemental, Heyerdar, who has a vested interest in agreeing: together they'll use forbidden magic, harnessing their sexual energy to drive the couple apart.

But soon their pact pushes them both into a dark sexual obsession. One that Ava may not be able to control...

My Review:

Before I begin my review, let me begin telling you my journey with this book and Jimmy Fallon. I first encountered Dark Dealings on NetGalley where the cover blew me away and I just had to read it. Well wouldn’t you know it, the publisher (or whoever is responsible for putting it on NetGalley) didn’t think along the same lines I did. I was told my blog wasn’t a good fit for their book.

LOL I thought it was a joke or I thought perhaps I had done something wrong, so I sent in the request again. And AGAIN I was told the same thing!

So I had to go out and get a copy! And though I didn’t absolutely love this book, I didn’t hate it, either. So, you were totally off, “publisher!” LOL

The world building in Dark Dealings is awesome and very creative, albeit sometimes a bit confusing. You really have to concentrate, be on your toes, and not be distracted by all the sexual tension and your desire to skim ahead to get to the sexxxy scenes LOL – which of course you can guess I had problems with.

Okay, so Ava lives among magical beings – mages – even though she is a Thief – a race of beings who “eat” magic. Ava, though, is housetrained and is kept around as a sort of pet/slave to Reist, one of the top mages. Ava not only respects Reist, as he is a fair and just man, she’s also in love with him.

They have a very close relationship, though Reist never crosses the line. Then one day, Reist shows up with his lover, Fallon, (and for the life of me I couldn’t keep Jimmy Fallon out of my mind every time I read that name. But don’t let that confuse you, Fallon is a girl LOL) flaunting her in Ava’s face.

But the relationship doesn’t start smoothly, Reist takes his new lover from another magical being, an elemental named Heyerdar.

Heyerdar is all sorts of sexxy and even sunbathes every morning in the nude *fans self* Heyerdar – who is higher in the totem pole than Reist and is second in command to the Emperor – is pissed that his lover leaves him. But he doesn’t do a whole lot to get her back, and I think he somehow thought she’d crawl back to his sexxiness. But when she doesn’t, Heyerdar begins to think of a way to get Fallon back.

Ava, likewise, wants to find a way to separate Reist from Fallon as she wants Reist for herself, even though she knows their relationship can never be. She would find comfort in at least having Reist to herself and not sharing him with anyone.

But when murdered mages start showing up all over the city, Heyerdar is sent to investigate and he picks Ava as his aide. As they begin to talk, they tell each other of their plan and together they hatch a scheme to separate the new lovers.

But in between the murder mystery, something develops between Ava and Heyerdar. Will Ava go on with her plan, or will she decide to set her eyes on who she has in front of her?

Dark Dealings features a LOT of plot, murder mystery, politics (you name it) with umm . . . well it’s made out to be erotica, but it’s more like sexual content to me. After all that sexual tension, I was expecting out-of-this-world-swinging-from-the-chandelier sex. So when I didn’t get that, I felt a bit let down. 

I’m not sure if it’s the beginning of a series, but I can’t imagine that Kim Knox created this amazing world to leave it at just one book. Anyhoo, there was a lot of backstory to read through. There weren’t information dumps you had to trudge through, but you know me, Fellow Readers! I’m too impatient to get to the sweet stuff LOL

In either case, I still enjoyed reading this book. So there, “publisher,” you just got served! Dark Dealings totally was a good fit for my blog. 

 

Dark Dealings features:

• magic
• ménage themes*
• m/f/m
• kidnapping
• m/f
• strong sexual content
• oral sex
• paranormal romance
• magic
• exhibitionism
• sexual tension

 

*a ménage is mentioned, but not explicitly shown.  

 

Rating: 3 Kisses