This ones hard to rate for all kinds of reasons. Its free which gives it brownie points for a start and huge and pretty in depth. Its also written very well, better in fact than a lot of books I've paid for. BUT having invested a lot of time in reading it as a WIP, this book made me frustrated and annoyed. I think its a case study in what happens when an author falls too much in love with one of her own characters.Basically this is the story of a dominant sex god schoolboy who always triumphs and an emotionally weak older (by 10 years) body guard who exists on the page purely to worship him. The rest is window dressingOn the one hand, kudos for trying to create a character with flaws - great big massive flaws in Luca's case - but unlike say Captive Prince, the author doesnt have the nerve to let us make up our own minds as we go through the book. Or else she just loves her own creation too much to take the risk. We're told all the time that nothing he does, however unpleasant, is this characters fault. He's given excuses by the score.When we meet him, Luca is brilliant academically, he's superb at sport, he speaks multiple languages fluently, he can analyse other people characters and weaknesses like a top psychologist and most of all he is, at just turned 18, a magical, gloating sex magnet who can seduce any man in the world into bed, gay or straight; old or young, powerful men who should be impossible to manipulate have been putty his hands, led around by his magical arse- no one can resist. He is in fact an Irresistible Power Bottom who makes all his victims and lovers fall in with love him and worship him so much that they destroy their lives to have him. That is driven home by the POV of the other MC Ryder who throws his own principles as Luca's lead bodyguard out the window. In fact, in just the first few pages Luca says some provocative things, walks in front of him twitching his magical arse and Ryder's stoic character is gone. He is from that point Luca's uncritical worshipper, trying to hold back the inevitable to give the story some USTWe discover that Luca as matter of course makes it a game to seduce 'powerful' men and then expose them and destroy them. People are in jail or dead after his affairs, families are destroyed. But we're told by "the good characters" aka the authors voice, relentlessly that nothing is Luca's fault. ALL the time. he may have seduced them, played on their weaknesses and then destroyed many many lives but apparently it was entirely the responsibility of the men he seduced, who should have resisted him, not his own for seducing them, even though the author never misses a chance to write Luca as a force of nature who can NOT be resisted. even by straight men. As Ryder's rapid disintegration into slavish devotion, and the effortless seduction of a straight boy Luca sets his sights on prove. Luca is basically sex pollen in human form. The carnage Luca has left behind is a major plot point and the author shows us multiple examples of the cruelty he's used because I assume she needs it to explain some motivations but we are constantly told by Ryder and the other enabling characters that he's just a child. It is therefore the fault of the adults for failing to resist this irresistible kid.Which is ENTIRELY fair enough if you stick with that idea - adults having sex with teenage boys (16-18) is abuse and they deserve any punishment however horrible for it. EXCEPT in this book, Luca is only a child when theres responsibility to be taken for his own actions. He's NOT a child in the multiple sex scenes that involve him with other characters or when his mother questions his sex life, or in the central romance. Then we are not supposed to see him as a child, but a powerful, gifted adult manipulator who loves sex and power and were supposed to love seeing him get fucked by anyone and everyone as he controls them. And most especially we're supposed to forget he's a child when the author is setting up a HFN (not imo a HEA at all) with a 28 year old man- the slavish Ryder. One of the most common lines spoken to Luca usually after yet another revelation of appalling things he's done, is 'its not your fault'. It becomes comical after a while. No one is allowed to judge Luca for long without terrible punishment from the author. And no one is entitled to dole out vengeance in the book except Luca and his mother.Luca's main get out of jail free card though is 'anxiety' - the author has given him a disorder that demands he uses and fucks other men to feel powerful and get them to defer to him, infidelity or not - to feel less worried. Nice if you can get it. Apparently Luca needs to control his anxiety by exercising power sexually over other men and destroying them when he feel like it. So thats okay then. He sees a shrink who helps him enough to enable him to get into a relationship with Ryder and get full control of him and indeed everyone around him, but he's not allowed to 'get over it' because then he'd have lost an important excuse for fucking around. And it would never pay to have the readers feel Ryder is anything but lucky to be hanging on by his fingernails to this phenomenon of nature.Ryder meanwhile is a cypher, in the book purely to channel the authors worship of Luca. He's a grown man reduced to putty by insta-lust for a boy, principles out the window. he is there to provide a big man with a very big cock Luca can use to satisfy his size and domination kink, who magically suits Luca's sexual needs by being a submissive top and will provide Luca with the blind worship and stability' he needs. More than that the whole story rests on believing that Ryder, who's behaving exactly the same way as Luca's much condemned victims, having sex with a schoolboy he's supposed to be protecting - isn't to blame, the way the others were for falling for Luca, because this is the central romance. Ryder is required to also despise the men who went before him and have no sympathy for them for not resisting Luca even though he does the exact same himself. Its beyond infuriating.The message of the book is that being good at sex is what counts. Being irresistibly sexy and 'challenging' is the main thing you can want in a partner. Ryders boyfriend is put in as a deliberate contrast to Luca - he's sweet, chubby, a fantastic human being but he's not a sex god, in fact he's just a normal man, therefore of course we're supposed to cheer when he's dumped for an 18 year old who's fucked and ruined a hundred men. Of COURSE that suggests a solid future all round. Who wants someone you can rely on or trust not to fuck around or put you first? No you need an out of control, sex obsessed, mindlessly self centred teenager to settle down with.But then, we see it proved that there isn't a solid future for the MCs though the author wimps out from accepting the implications of the relationship she written herself. Its not happy ever after for Ryder - its a matter of surrendering his principles and his own needs again to hang on. In the 19 added stories written to accompany the book, we find Ryder's emotional slavery is complete. He is a monogamist who fears Luca's infidelity but Luca cheats on him. This we are told again is to control Luca's anxiety - again the excuse - not that he's a horny arrogant kid who cant keep it in his pants when he wants to prove he can dominate someone new - and nothing is more important to him than himself. No - he fucks around because of a condition that gives him everything he wants when he wants it. FabulousUnlike Ryder who we see is falling victim to the authors pretty clear view that he should count himself lucky to be allowed to breathe the same air as Luca. So we have Ryder capitulating like an invertebrate after the author shows us his pain and how important monogamy is to him. Instead of having Luca realise that Ryder is the most important thing to him, the author shows us yet again that Ryder puts Luca first (of course, as it should be given Luca's magnificence) but Ryder of not Luca's priority. Control and power and the freedom to fuck are the most important things to Luca, and STILL - no one must ever blame him. Ryder we see should think himself blessed Luca is even prepared to follow a few rules to keep the cheating down to a bearable level.Ryder who is in an agony of pain and jealousy instead of trying to ensure Luca doesnt do it again, knows his place. He understands' Luca's anxiety because he is after all there t serve and his own needs are secondary. He is so desperate to hang on to this sublime free spirit (gag) that he gives Luca permission to fuck strangers when he feels the need to feel 'powerful' and orders him to lie to him about it. And we're supposed to see this horrible capitulation as Ryder being reasonable - a monogamist accepting his partners infidelity and refusing to be unfaithful himself - thats a HEA?In which universe would that work for anyone but Luca? Imagine Ryder's constant jealousy, the fear and insecurity that Luca could be screwing around on him any time. But Ryder doesnt matter in these books as anything but a plot device - he exists to give Luca everything he wants - in this case an open relationship thats only open on one side because Ryder is too monogamous to want anyone else. So I read hundreds of thousands of words to get to that??? I got the feeling for the author it is a HEA because Luca has his human dog at home and remains the out of control sex god as well- non monogamy is the new black in this book. Luca is all that matters and Ryder's pain and insecurity are seen as fair tribute for getting such access to Luca's general magnificence. So a hugely frustrating book because of the potential it had, which for me was destroyed by its internal contradictions and imbalances. If the author wanted to give Luca the kind of history and flaws she did, she should have stuck to her guns and had him face punishment and find redemption. Instead she gloried in his sins then excused him every inch of the way. The result of that for this reader was huge frustration. I came out of the book feeling sorriest for Ryder's boyfriend Andy and Luca's mother. I absolutely detested Luca, and came to despise Ryder the doormat. This is an excellent book, and I can't believe that it hasn't been published. It has well thought out characters and conversations that you can actually imagine happening. I also loved the fact that it took most of the book before the two main character even got together (with a wonderful long drawn out psychological game/hunt :-)The author commented that in order to be published they would need to edit the book and reduce the word count somewhat. Although it is true that the book has a large word count it never felt bulky, and I never skipped sections (so I imagine the editing task will not be easy!)All in all a thoroughly enjoyable holiday read for me. Oh and it's free!!!
