Book Review
Title: The Dare by Harley Laroux
Genre: Dark, Erotic
Rating: 4.5 Stars
I didn’t know anything about The Dare before getting into it other than we are following Jessica, a girl who isn’t very nice and her favourite victim, Manson and a game of truth or dare gone very wrong. This is labelled as a dark romance so check all the trigger and content warnings before picking up this book. For a short erotic novella The Dare definitely starts off strong as it introduces us to the characters, their history and begins to develop the sexual attraction between them while maintaining the dark undertones. We learn that Jessica and Manson have history together from high school, Jessica was the popular girl while Manson was the weird kid everyone picked on. After breaking up with her boyfriend, Kyle, Jessica ends up kissing Manson and when Kyle finds out he goes to beat Manson up. While Jessica does warn him she does nothing to stop the events from happening which eventually leads to Manson pulling a knife on Kyle and attempting to stab him getting him kicked out of school.
Obviously both Jessica and Manson have been invited to Daniel’s party and Jessica tries to ignore Manson but after he challenges her to a game of beer pong she can’t back down. Daniel decides to make this game more interesting by adding dare cups where the person has to do dares or drink and they start off simple but eventually develop a sexual undertone. Manson is winning and with the final cup he gives Jessica the chance to win but if she loses she has to be his slave for the entire night following any order he gives her. Jessica obviously loses and her pride won’t allow her to back down from the dare even though Manson has given her a way out because she feels guilty over what happened in high school even though she would never tell Manson that.
The rest of this book is one extended scene between Manson and Jessica as she constantly pushes his buttons with her bratty behaviour and he dishes out some wonderfully creative punishments even utilizing her fear of clowns. I really liked how Manson withheld sex until Jessica had fully submitted to him and despite the dubious consent elements Manson does constantly check in with Jessica and checks if she wants to use her safe word. Even when he gags and restrains her, he gives her a signal she can use instead of her safe word as she is unable to speak. Ultimately, The Dare was a beautifully hot read and the ending was slightly HEA but it does leave an opening for Laroux to return to this couple which I would love to see and I will definitely be checking more out from this author.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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