Giving In - Book #2 in the Surrender Trilogy by Maya Banks - 2 STARS

Giving In by Maya Banks

Two disappointing Stars

Blurb - Kylie sees the way Jensen looks at her. The dark promise in his eyes. That rough edge of dominance she knows he possesses. But dominance is the one thing that frightens her above all else. She and her brother barely survived a childhood steeped in violence and abuse. She could never give up total control and submit to a man. Especially a man like Jensen. Could she?

Jensen sees the shadows in Kylie’s eyes. Knows he has to tread very carefully or risk losing any chance he has with her. All he wants is the opportunity to show her that dominance doesn’t equal pain, bondage or discipline. That emotional surrender is the most powerful of all and that to submit—fully to him—will fulfil the aching void in her heart in a way nothing else ever will.

Giving in is book # 2 in the Surrender trilogy, now I’ve read a lot of Maya Banks books and although I found book #1 Letting Go a bit disappointing I thought that Giving In sounded really good and I was looking forward to reading it.

Unfortunately I’ve found it very underwhelming!!

The Good Bits....

·         Kylie is definitely endearing to have gone through so much and survived is very admirable.

·         Chessy she seems lovely and I’m intrigued to see what happens with her and Tate.

The Bad bits....

·         This book was a bit boring!

·         I didn’t feel particularly involved in the story.

·         Where was the Maya Banks smut!!!!

Now I’ve been a huge fan of Maya Banks in the past her Sweet Series was smut tastic!!

But the last couple of books of hers that I have read have been a bit lacklustre.

The blurb for this book sounds great but it’s not really a true representation of the story.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not knocking the storyline, what both Kylie and Jenson went through as children was incredibly traumatic and awful and if this were sold as a story of love overcoming the odds and surviving  in two broken and hurt people then this would be great.

This book is well written and angsty but it is being sold as a book about submission and it’s not, now if you know this author and have read the other book in the series that would be what I was expecting.

This book talk’s alot about emotional submission but in this story the “submission” (said with condescending finger quotes) is really just complete trust in both each other and their relationship. Now I don’t mean to be funny but I’ve been married for 8 years I trust my husband completely, but I wouldn’t describe myself as being in an emotionally submissive relationship lol.

The sex in this book is moving because of the trust involved, but it’s not sexy or titivating.

I felt a connection between Jenson & Kylie but it wasn’t sparks and desperation to devour each other it was more of a slow burn.

On occasion Jenson slipped into Alpha mode and I loved those bits but they were few and far between.

This whole book was a bit of an odd one; if he was a true Dom I doubt he would have been able to repress that side of his nature and not come to resent it. One minute Kylie was having a complete meltdown at him simply touching her the next minute she is tying him to her bed and giving him a blowjob WTF!

I think if I had read this book not expecting a Maya Banks Sexfest I would have really liked it, but because I had a preconceive idea of what I was going to read I’m pretty unimpressed.