Freedom: Call of the Wild - Book One is one of those books that starts out good but has serious problems.
Let’s start with the good!
I liked the characters. Anna and Cristofer were both awesome - I liked her POV, and I liked him as the love interest. She was a bit self-insert-y (the author’s bio is very similar to the character), but there’s nothing wrong with that - who doesn’t insert some of themselves into their characters?
Also, there were dogs. Cute dogs.
Seriously, you cannot go wrong with cute dogs.
Also on the good side, I loved the setting - I felt like I was really getting a feel for that part of Spain.
And the sex was great. Yay hot sex!
Unfortunately, now we’ve got to go to the bad.
It could’ve used a proofreader - the comma usage in particular was a bit off, though the writing in itself was good.
Lack of condom usage/the pill/discussion of safe sex. But this one is personal; I know some people don’t want condoms in their smut, and that’s fair. So while I won’t knock down stars for this, I will notice it.
And the worst problem.
The book was part of a larger story and ended on a cliffhanger. If it had ended right after the sex, it would’ve been fine.
But nope.
No, Simone Leigh is one of those authors who believes in giving part of a book away for free so that you can pay frankly obscene prices for the next parts, which are really all part of one of the same story.
This was a twenty-three-page short story which ended on a cliffhanger, and each of the next parts costs $2.99.
That’s $2.99. Each. For “books” which average 25 pages each - which means the total length was maybe 125 pages.
Seriously, authors, don’t do this. $2.99 is fine for a 125-page book. It is not fine for 1/5 of that. And especially not when each is part of the same story.
Yeah, you can get away with it for a real series, with different couples or at least complete stories, but not for “books” that really should’ve just been chapters in a single larger work.
Frankly, when I see this sort of bait-and-switch, I’m not going to buy the later books. I’m going to read part one and then quit.
Because I actually enjoyed it until it ventured into cliffhanger-territory, I’m not giving it one star, but if you do read this, I suggest stopping after the sex and ignoring the entire cliffhanger section.
Two stars, and I’m being generous.
You can get this “book” for free on Amazon.
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