A stranger online. Dark hair and even darker eyes that knew my dirty desires before I did. A fantasy that should never be spoken. But he pulled the confession from me. And now he’s coming for me.Rough. Dirty. Dangerous.It’s supposed to be one night to get me off and make me forget.He’ll make me his and I’ll pretend I don’t want him to.I’ll run and he’ll chase. Because I asked him for this.I …
Because I asked him for this.
I begged him for this.
Tonight, in the darkness, he’s the hunter.
And I’m the bait.
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I’m a new reader of Jade West, admittedly because I’m often disappointed by all the hype – that was so not the case this time! New reader, and definitely a new fan. I will commence with the cyber-stalking momentarily, first my review…
Abigail Summers is crazy effed up – seriously. She doesn’t even deny it. She’s fully aware that her needs, desires, fantasies, are borderline psychotic in their insanity. After suffering a horrendous, emotionally and physically gutting experience, she’s run to a new town, new job, to start a new life. Yet, she’s not living. She’s merely going through the motions, skimming the surface without any desire to sink below the surface, because nothing makes her feel alive anymore. Nothing, except for the monster who haunts her dreams. The one she’s been running from most of her life. The one she stopped hoping to escape, and yearns to finally feel the terror of being caught, of being ripped to shreds…anything to feel alive again. Her dreams never let her get that far, so she takes the chance of finding her monster for real by confessing her fantasy with a new online profile. It was crazy stupid, she knows that, and the first 20 or so responses she gets only confirms it. Then, Phoenix Burning replies.
Leo Scott is still burning, scars itching, trapped in that inferno in every possible way. He’s stuck in the aftermath of a real life nightmare that cost him the woman he loved, the brother he used to know, and nearly the business they’d all built together. For over a year, he’d done nothing but focus on the latter, putting all of his blood, sweat and time into rebuilding Scott Brothers from the ashes. His son won’t talk, his sister won’t listen, and his brother won’t stop seeking vengeance. Every day, seven days a week, it’s the same routine. He runs…and never gets anywhere. Because, the guilt won’t let him. Because, the one night he chose not to chase Mariana, was the night he couldn’t run fast enough to save her…to save any of them. When he reads the girl’s online profile, reads her fantasy, he swears it could’ve been Mariana’s ghost who’d penned it and the monster he’d long since buried wakes up with a vengeance. Bait wants the chase, wants what comes after, and Leo’s monster is more than willing to make her nightmares come true.
Maybe then, they can both start feeling alive again.
We all get preconceived notions about a book by its blurb or cover, and let me tell you – they won’t do you any good with Bait. This book was INTENSE. It will lure you in, captivate you and then it will make you squirm, sweat, your heart will race, you will be sublimely uncomfortable, start questioning your own mind and you’ll love every freaking minute of it. The pacing was perfect, allowing the reader to really get in, get deep into each character before their world’s actually collide – and that was such a thrill for me.
This book is not a quickie. I wasn’t able to read it all in one sitting, but had to walk away, give myself a moment to breathe and absorb, before rushing back to find out what happened next. The emotions of each character are full, heady, dripping off the pages – Leo’s are more vibrant and in your face than Abigail’s, but only because he’s dealing with other people who were just as affected by his tragic past as he is.
I won’t add spoilers, just know that this book has everything you could ever want. Drama, suspense, dark, heart-pounding and enticing erotica, the PIERCINGS, OMG – gripping emotions, family turmoil, realistic character development, tragedy, friendships, heart – it will make you feel insane and happy to be there – and then, when you think it couldn’t get any better, it will still manage to surprise you.
Read it!
This is an Honest Review of a book that I purchased. I was not given any kind of compensation from the author in exchange for it, to include an ARC.
Blimey! What did I just read!
Everything I thought I’d get when I went into this book was wrong. It was so much more! Dark material and not for the faint of heart, but the characters burrowed right inside me.
Terrific
I like dark books and I cannot lie. I need to go read some sweet romances now to cleanse the my palette or I’ll end up all the way down the filth pipe and never come back.
I think I’d like it down there.
I think the filth pipe is my friend.
Okay. So…first off…this is consensual non consent. That’s a hard little nugget to wrap your brain around and 100% not everyone’s cup of tea. There are people who probably believe there’s no such thing as consensual non consent (whoever decided how to spell that word needs to go eat some rotten eggs), and they should stay far away from this book, because I don’t think it will ever work for them.
But for me…Jade West…wow…Jade West manages it.
I am officially Ms. West’s newest superfan.
Abigail is a sad husk of a woman, deliberately isolated in her own pain, dreaming of a monster in the night to help her embrace the darkness she hides with self loathing and shame. She dreams of running, and being chased, hunted, caught. She wants it. So she goes online and posts a picture of herself with a message describing her desires.
Amidst the dick pics and the gross pick up lines and the perverts, one message comes through. Phoenix Rising. He claims to be the monster in the night. They plan it. Sort of. It’s nebulous. He offers safe words. He makes her spend two weeks proving she really wants this. He gives her outs. Lots of them. She wants none of them. All she wants is to run from him, to be caught, and to experience non con sex.
He’s a monster, but he’s not. He’s got his own wounds in the form of a dead ex burnt in a mysterious fire, an ex who reminds me a little of Rebecca from her eponymous book. Wild, seductive, crazy, suffering from demons of her own, who loved to run and needed Leo (Phoenix) to chase her. Now she’s dead and he’s a monster with no one to chase. Until Abi.
These are two batshit crazy fucked up people…but man they’re the kinda crazy that just explodes off the page. Just one night. Or so they think. The author has other plans for them.
It’s like…this is one of the craziest books I think I’ve ever read but I was completely there for it. There’s an unexpected sweetness as these two broken strangers realize they’re not going to be able to walk away. The light up each other’s lives. Abi comes back to life and so does he. They offer one another something truly unique. The monster is something that comes out to play but the underlying connection is so much sweeter.
There’s some stuff I maybe could have done without. The dick piercings just sounded so painful…and apparently his penis was so big that it like really hurt her every time. Like barely able to walk hurt. So I don’t know…I was just picturing blood and misery, but Abi liked it, so whatever. I also…the word shunt is like…everywhere.
I give this a wild and resounding 5 stars though, for some of the most beautiful language surrounding kisses and romance and their love connection I’ve ever come across. Borderline poetry and an absolute dirty pleasure to read. Loved just about every second of it.
“To Scandinavian pine kitchens, 42-inch plasma screen TVs, grey Ford Fusions, and the idiot who placed them above the life growing inside me. This one’s for you asshole.”
With Jade West starting off with the dedication above, I wondered just how baring Bait was going to be. And baring it was.
Jade West is absolutely bloody brilliant. Unique, raw and always honest to a flaw, both with characters and emotions. With the above dedication, I was already flayed and ready to take yet another unique journey with her.
“I know how the story ends if two fucked up souls play at life together. I know how the story ends when two people’s demons hold hands.”
From the outset, both Abigail and Phoenix (Leo) are reeling from their own personal losses and trudging through their lives on a treadmill of a dreary sort of automatic. It is only when they find each other online on a hook up site that a small spark of hope and a little bit of colour starts to seep into each of their existences. From their very first correspondences one can see two jagged pieces that together might very well fit to make a whole. Abigail is looking for her ‘monster’ in the dark and Phoenix is tempted to provide it and release the demon that has long been leashed. Abigail is convinced this one night will be her reset button and give her what she’s always dreamed of. Phoenix gets to relive something he has long since buried inside. Both agree to one night only – one chase, one seemingly random anonymous encounter.
“You won’t know me, and you’ll pretend you don’t want to. You’ll tell me you don’t want it, and I’ll pretend I don’t care. It’ll be rough. Really rough. You’ll never know my name and you’ll never see me again. One wild night where anything goes.”
There can can be no more. Just this once to anesthetize their inner pains. The pain from both having loved hard and lost harder. Each still struggling with how to cope with the tragedies that have befallen their lives. This one night planned is the first spark, first glimmer of feeling that either has experienced.
“I smile at how two random strangers can be a million degrees of fucked up and still feel so right.”
However despite their self-imposed emotional isolations, it becomes obvious that it is impossible for either to accept their experience as the ‘one off’ they initially set it out to be. Once the adrenaline of that night dies down, their lives both return to grey and the hunger produced by that initial spark finds them needing to reconnect over and over. Drawn to one another. To experience more. And with each encounter, each need and each truth exposed, Life starts to bleed back into their lives again.
“She isn’t the desperate soul I met online. She sparkles, shines, she’s lively and full of life.”
The closer they come to each other, the more they find themselves confronting their own personal demons, the remnants of their pasts that still weigh them down, the conflicts they have been denying and avoiding, the circle of family and friends who have become estranged or whose interactions run on autopilot.
In the end, Bait is a guttural and visceral, beautifully raw and flawed tale of love, absolution, family and the belief that for every for one person out there in the world exists their other broken half, ready to be found and fixed into a shining whole
Wow! An amazingly dark read with a great ending.
I’ve only read a couple “dark” stories and I didn’t really think I would enjoy them as much as I have, but I love them! Abigail and Leo have both been through pretty horrible events and they each thought they were broken. And maybe they were broken but together they are whole.
I put This directly into my favorite book list!!! This is a fabulous book with deep interesting twisted characters. Nothing is black and white… It is all shades of grey. I can’t wait to read more by the author. Lots of unexpected turns in the plot.
“Hell, the world has jumped an inch on its axis somewhere.” – Leo
“I feel a tiny shift in the universe.” – Abagail
There is such a recklessness in this story which is so compelling. Once you hear even a snippet of what this story is about you cannot “not” read it. Once you are involved even a chapter or two into the story, you cannot look away. These characters are so deliciously dirty, filthy and ever so perverse in the most tantalizing way. Ahhh…Don’t be so quick to judge because underneath the sexual charades is a moving story about recovering from the fallout of wrong relationships and damaged souls that is inspiring and fulfilling to the “HEA – addicted” romance reader.
Our heroine, Abagail is living half of a life. She has run away from all that she knew to lick her wounds after being so cruelly used and mistreated by a former lover…a former married lover. She was just young enough and gullible enough to believe the lies of a bored married man. She was left having paid dearly for this costly mistake. Now she only craves anonymous rough sex. When she feels the adrenaline of fear, uncertainty and pain, she feels “alive” for a moment. She needs to be hunted by a “monster”, taken and used sexually to truly feel alive.
Out of desperation and really not expecting a serious reply, she expresses her desires in an online forum. Then to her surprise, there he is:
“A shiver dances along my spine. Maybe this man, this online stranger, really could be my monster. My saviour.”
Our hero, Leo is suffering himself from horrific trauma. The words he reads remind him of the woman he lost…”The words hit me in the gut. Hard.” Her plea to feel alive again through being the “Bait” to his predator awaken a slumbering beast inside Leo/Phoenix. As well as, from the beginning he is feeling an attraction and concern for his “Bait”. He pictures her to be like a black swan from her obscured online photo.
“I wonder what happened to the black swan that took the life from her . I wonder why she needs this.”
And so begins the dance between predator and prey. Leo is every dark monster for which Abagail wishes. What was supposed to be only one night continues into a stalking-type anonymous relationship (with permission) of course. It is dark and dirty and some very very hot reading. Leo possesses an unforgettable asset that leaves the reader faint in imagining it! (Think tiny barbells in the most desirable location.) The reader is almost just as surprised every time Leo shows up to debauch Abagail as is Abagail herself.
In the process of their erotic games, Abagail and Leo begin to fall for each other one step at a time. Each forward step is beautifully written and given the moment in the read appropriate to the lover’s revelation. There was a lovely foreshadowing of what was happening between the two MC’s by the author before they ever physically meet…with Leo, “the world jumped an inch on its axis somewhere” and about the same time Abagail, felt “a tiny shift in the universe.”
As the relationship moves from the dark into the daylight, the story behind Leo’s loss turns into a heart-stopping suspense surrounding issues with Leo’s young son, his brother and sister and the family business. All the turmoil beginning with one woman, the mother of his son. This is some edge of you seat…cannot turn the pages fast enough reading. Real and true love is brilliantly on display in these scenes.
Most satisfying is the lovely Epilogue to the story…so bright and dazzling with the promise of new beginnings, you almost wonder, “Did I just read the most erotic darkly terrifyingly exciting story?”
Yes and the future looks bright…Although the “monster” still needs come out and play in the dark.
Omf. Dude. This book. I loved it. I loved how it was written. I loved the twisted, emotional plot. I loved the dark, damaged characters. I loved the twists and the angst and the heat and the pain. And it was just super sexy, too.
If you like dark romance, check this out. It was so good.
DARKNESS CONSUMES…
BAIT is a Dark Romance were Fantasies are Brought to Life by a most Delectable Alpha Male to a Delicate Dark Swan.
She seeks a Monster to catch her… and oh, does his Monster ever do.
I loved every dark second of this read.
Loved this book! Abagail and Leo were both phoenix’s rising from the ashes. Both had something tragic happen to them and they found each through an online chat room with their own kind of kink. This book was crazy and fun but also full of heartache. I love the way Jade West writes and I’m on a mission to read all of her books. They’re so good!
Alrighty – first things first…this is loaded with kink, rape fantasy kink and there were steamy scenes in public. So if you have sensitivities to this, either tread somewhere else or lightly.
I love Jade West’s writing a little more with each book I read. This one impressed me with how the story progressed, how Abigail (Bait) and Leo (Phoenix) developed and came together. Both characters are scarred and broken but they heal one another without realizing it. Jade threw in just the right amount of suspense that kept my interest perked at what was going on outside Abigail and Leo’s growing relationship. Jade definitely has a talent with writing kinky romance and I will be diving into more of her works
I binged this book in a day. The broken, damaged characters pulled at me in the most beautiful way. The author was able to take a dark, controversial kink and make it not only erotic but romantic. Leo was dark, fascinating, and scary in such an addictive manner–I adored his character. Abagail was an incredibly likable lead lady with such fire, determination, and soul. If you enjoy dark romance, you’ll love this book!
OMG. This book flipped me upside down, inside out and left me for dead. My jaw still drops every time I think of this book. Fabulously twisted. I can’t even.
It was different. Some messed up characters, crazy really.
Anyway, h has been used and tossed aside. H has been through a rough/crazy family situation. The two met online and act out a “rape” fantasy a few times. They have to overcome a lot of obstacles.
Needless to say they come to like each other and have a HFN ending.
Hands down my favorite Jade West book to date!! It was dark and twisted and hot….. I didn’t ever want it to end. Abigail logged onto a website looking for a monster to help with her pain, she got so much more that she could have ever imagined when Leo aka Pheonix burning sent her that very first message. But will one night with the monster in the dark really be enough? And what about the monster himself? Once the secrets are revealed things will never be the same…..for any of them.
Run for your life!
Wow! This book was amazing on so many levels. It gave me all the feels. I adored Leo, I mean who wouldn’t love a tortured tattooed god? I couldn’t put it down.
A much needed game of cat and mouse to make one feel alive.
A fun read… Great for a rainy afternoon!
Bait by Jade West is dark, dirty and delicious read.
Leo & Abigail, are two lost tortured souls who come together, both have their own secrets and need to trust in each other.
This is a freaking excellent read. I’ve been totally captivated from beginning to end.
Leo & Abigail have provided me with much needed and welcomed escapism whilst waiting numerous hours at our local hospital. I have been totally captivated by ‘Bait’ – a cracking book, brilliant storyline and characters.
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