New Release Review | MASTERED by Maya Banks

Mastered by Maya Banks
Adult Romance Published December 29, 2015
BerkeleyAuthor's website  |  Goodreads  |  Buy the Book on Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

What he wants, he takes with no remorse or guilt.

She stood out in his club like a gem, unspoiled and untouched. A lamb among wolves, she clearly didn’t belong. Drawn to her innocence he watched as she was surrounded by men who saw what he did—but no one but him could touch her. He summoned her to his private quarters. He sensed her fear. He also recognized the desire in her eyes. And he knew she wouldn’t leave before he possessed her. She had no need to know his secrets. Not until he had her under his complete and utter control.

What he wants, she isn’t sure she can give him.

The moment he told her want he wanted, she couldn’t resist. Instinct told her to run, but her heart said stay and walk the fine line between pleasure and pain. Though she wasn’t sure she could ever completely surrender, the primal part of her wanted to try, even knowing this man could break her in ways she never imagined. Because once he possessed her, he owned her and it would be too late to turn back. She can only pray that he doesn’t destroy her in the end.

My Thoughts...

I will say right off that this was not my favorite of Maya Banks' books.  I wasn't bad, but my favorite series of hers is the Breathless Trilogy and this is nowhere near as good as those books are.  I almost hate to say this but the more I read the more I am finding it true....the whole dom/sub, "I own you", rich man/poor woman thing may have been semi-okay for a while, but I think, as a reader, that I am over it.  It's been overdone at this point and I think that this book, in particular, has a good enough underlying story that it would have been a better story without it.  

Evangeline is a young woman who quit school, got a GED and has been working like a crazy woman to send money home to help her parents for several years now.  She was humiliated by a man and is out for one night to prove that she's better than how he treated her.  Impulse is a club where she stands out like a sore thumb...she knows she doesn't belong, but when Drake sees her all he wants is for her to belong to him.  Drake started out poor, but has worked his way to being (apparently) one of the richest men in New York City and lets be honest, we all know what he is!  He may own clubs, and big fancy buildings, but he's a mobster and Evangeline has no clue, in fact she barely even wonders about it most of the time.

This story ends on a cliffhanger similar to the one in Fifty Shades of Grey and that's what will keep me reading this story.  That and the fact that I loved all the men that surrounded Drake, especially Silas and Maddox.  This is where I have some issues...I didn't especially care for either Drake or Evangeline, but I LOVED the minor characters and really would like to read more about them.  Drake is abrasive and demanding and I usually like male leads, but I didn't really get a good feeling about him throughout the whole book.  There wasn't anything about him that I would pick out that I really connected with.  The same goes for Evangeline, she was in her head all the time, overthinking things, making assumptions, changing her mind on a whim and I never got a sense that she was grounded or really knew what she wanted.  But then you have a character like Silas who is all mysterious and I connected more with him in the little time he was in the picture than I did the 2 leads.  

The bulk of the story takes place over the course of just a couple of days which is moving WAY too quickly for what happens in the story.  It's wholly unbelievable and there were some issues that could have been worked out with better editing possibly.  There needed to be more backstory or something to make parts of the story work more smoothly.  There was just something missing for me and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was.  This does have a handful of sex scenes, but there weren't up to par with her previous work.  They were awkward and, in my opinion, not as sexy as they were intended to be.  She took Evangeline to places where no inexperienced woman would be comfortable going with a man she just met days before.

I do want to read the rest of the series because I want to see how it works itself out, but like I said Maya Banks has better series out there for sure.  If you haven't read any of her work I don't suggest starting with this one. 

XOXO, Shelly

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*