Book Review
Title: Desperate Measures (Wicked Villains Book 1) by Katee Robert
Genre: Retelling, Romance, Erotic
Rating: *****
I have read the first four books in this series previously but I have decided to re-read them before reading the final two books and the collection of short stories. Desperate Measures is an Aladdin retelling following the relationship between Jasmine and Jafar. We are introduced to Jasmine as she learns she has essentially been sold by her father to ensure his power and he strikes her for her comments. That night Jafar comes into her room and she begs him to save her only to learn that he has taken her father’s position and everything that belonged to her father now belongs to him including her. Jafar does give her a chance to escape and she fails but throughout all of this and their first sexual encounter we know that Jasmine has a safe word she can use to make Jafar stop and she doesn’t use it as she wants this just as much as Jafar does but she is also aware that she has traded one prison for another. Honestly coming back into the world of Carver City and all its politics and illegal doings was amazing as Desperate Measures is a great start to the series.
As Jafar takes Jasmine back to his penthouse we learn of the other man she was supposed to be sold to, Ali. According to Jafar, Ali is worse than him because they are certain lines Jafar will not cross that Ali would happily trample and he knows that Ali will not stop until he can reclaim Jasmine and if he can’t reclaim her then he will kill her which is why he is pressuring his men to find and capture Ali before any harm can come to Jasmine. Jafar has also laid out rules for her which she refuses to follow because she can pretend that Jafar is forcing her to do all these things but he refuses to reward or tolerate her disobedience and even though Jasmine uses her safe word she doesn’t like the way using it made her feel especially since she wasn’t 100% sure she wanted to use it in the first place. We get to see some more interactions between Jasmine and Jafar but they are small because Jafar is still working on trying to contain Ali while Jasmine is trying to figure out her place in the world after being caged by her father for her whole life. She and Jafar also make some progress on their dynamic before making their first trip to the Underworld and I can’t wait to see Jasmine’s wide eyed wonder all over again because it is devastatingly cute especially since the only other character I’ve meet in the series so far that is as innocent as Jasmine is here is Hercules.
Seeing Jasmine at the club was interesting and we get to see her come to realisation that because of her very sheltered upbringing she doesn’t have the necessary skills to survive on her own even if Jafar gives her access to her trust fund. While we get to see some amazing interactions at the club and get to see some characters that will star in the later books like Hades, Meg and Hook the real star of this section is when Ali arrives and accosts Jasmine. He tells Jasmine that he intends to rescue her and kisses her leading her to be physically sick which Jafar interrupts as he has done something wrong which he hasn’t. After Jasmine explains they pay a visit to Hades as Ali has membership to the club, while this isn’t against the rules entering someone else’s room without permission is and Ali is going to have his membership revoked while is only going to make him more determined to get his hands on Jasmine. We are also beginning to see a slow transition of Jasmine and Jafar’s relationship into something more substantial that either of them imagined it would be. Jafar has taken up the search for Ali personally meaning he isn’t going to be around for a few days which Jasmine is excited and disappointed about in equal measure and we see her struggling a little to understand and accept her role with Jafar because she has always imagined so much more for herself forgetting that this relationship with Jafar could be so much more than she has ever imagined.
As the situation with Ali causes more tension between Jasmine and Jafar, things get even more complicated. When Tink arrives that afternoon for her styling appointment with Jasmine, Meg comes along too and offers her a way out of the cage she is living in which Jasmine does consider but also knows nothing is given for free so she requests time to think about it and she has a week. As I am re-reading this I know what happens next and that makes the threesome scene between Meg, Jasmine and Jafar feel a little icky and it really changed my opinion on Meg as a character because she essentially screws Jasmine over in this book and does the same with Hercules in the next book and basically faces absolutely no consequences for treating people this way. Honestly, I would have preferred Learn My Lesson to be the romance between only Hades and Hercules and I would have loved it. Witnessing the final showdown with Ali and watching Jasmine really come into her own power was delightful and my favourite part by far was watching Jafar realise that he can’t keep her caged forever and that was never his plan in the first place. Watching him go to his knees before Jasmine because he’d rather sacrifice his pride than the woman he loved really reminded me of what I loved about this series.
I also read the three short stories following Jasmine and Jafar from the Wicked Villains Shorts. They were Meg’s apology, The Winter Solstice and The Proposal. Meg’s Apology was ok, it would have been better if the sexual element was removed and it was about Meg coming to Jasmine to apologise for her actions because she felt they were wrong which Meg didn’t do, she genuinely thought it was ok because all the blame could be shifted to Hades despite the fact Jasmine considered her a friend. The Winter Solstice and The Proposal were amazing snippets of the life Jasmine and Jafar share after the end of Desperate Measures and this was delightful to see especially when she proposes to him because she has finally realised that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. Overall, Desperate Measures was a delightful start to the series and it was a joy to re-read however, I have decided to skip over Learn My Lesson because I really disliked Meg as a character and I am also skipping A Worthy Opponent. I am not skipping book 3 because I disliked it but it just wasn’t my favourite book in the series so far.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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