Extortion by Amelia Wilde

 This was cute which was a tonal shift from book one, which I found to be more dark. I guess it's understandable that a dark romance has to progress and there has to be give and take between the characters for love to form, but I wasn't really expecting things to develop between them the way they did in this book. It didn't really feel like it made sense for their characters, and I also felt like the plot gave this book the slip.

Some brief thoughts:

Finally, we see some of the sadism that was teased in the previous book. Some readers seemed to find it off-putting but it's pretty tame. However, I guess if you don't like clamps or semi-graphic anal, you might not like the sex scenes in this book. YMMV.

There is no cheating. The hero is a bit of a humiliator and a couple times he threatens to make her blow other men, but it seems pretty clear that he's jealous and possessive and would never even entertain doing that for realsies. Some readers seemed to take his words at face value because I saw all these warnings about cheating. I read the book anyway. There's no cheating.

This book, like the last book, ends on a cliffhanger that threatens the couple's happiness. The first book isn't really HEA or HFN. This one is a bitter HFN, in my opinion. I'm not sure I'll continue. I was interested in this series because of the blackmail component and I'd hoped that there would be more angst and forbidden love between the couple. But I adored the scene where she gets sick and he takes care of her. That trope will never not be appealing to me.

Amelia Wilde is still a great writer and I'm excited to check out some of her other books, though.

2.5 to 3 out of 5 stars