RAVAGE (Scarred Souls #3) by Tillie Cole-a review
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date august 16, 2016
Is finding one’s true love worth committing the greatest sacrifice of all?
Taken as a teen, prisoner 194 was stripped of his name and freewill, meticulously honed to be a ruthless machine. Even as he tries to fight his captors hold on him he knows that obedience is the only way to save his sister, who is the one person that keeps him from turning into a monster.
As a young girl Zoya Kostava barely escaped the brutal attack that killed her entire family. Now twenty five she lives in secrecy. That is until she hears her brother also survived and is living with their greatest enemy.
Zoya risks her safety and anonymity to find the brother she thought dead and is captured by a beautiful, brutal man. A man who both captivates and scares her, in him she sees a soul as lost as her own.
They both have so much to lose will they be able to save each other…and survive.
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REVIEW: RAVAGE is the third installment in Tillie Cole’s contemporary, adult SCARRED SOULS dark, erotic, romance series focusing on the Russian Mafia, the Georgian Bratva criminal underground, cage fighting and blood pits, and two families torn apart by power and greed. This is enslaved killer 194 (aka Valentin Belrov), and New York Russian mafia princess Zoya Kostava. RAVAGE can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty but I recommend reading the series in order for cohesion and back story.
WARNING: RAVAGE contains graphic violence and sexual imagery that may be disturbing for some readers.
Told from several first person points of view including Zoya and Valentin, RAVAGE is a graphically violent story of one man’s struggle to remember his past and survive to live another day. 194 is a killer with no idenity; a warrior trained to torture and maim, a scarred and brutally savage killing machine, and a man determined to free himself from bondage to save his sister from a similar fate. At twelve years old, Valentin and his younger sister Inessa were taken from an orphanage, and their fate and future became part of a series of illegal, underground drug tests towards building the ultimate fighting machine and obedient soldier. 194’s latest target assignment is Zaal Kostava, the head of New York’s Russian mafia and there is nothing he can do when designer drugs used to keep him under control turn the once loving young man into a monster with no heart. But 194 finds himself falling for his latest captive- a woman long thought dead with connections to Zaal Kostava, and a woman that begins to tame the beast within. Zoya Kostava will become 194’s prisoner; his target of torture and abuse; and the woman with whom Valentin will fall in love. There is a Stockholm Syndrome feel to the relationship and rescue.
RAVAGE is a heartbreaking and tragic story of Beauty and the Beast, and Anastasia Romanov; a tale of torment, aggression and exploitation; a distressing look at power and control. The brutality and violence is fierce; our heroine will become the victim of a drug-controlled monster but a woman who continues to fight to remain alive. 194 is a broken and mutilated killing machine who is desperate to hold onto his humanity and his memories of who and what he was before he became the monster of his own nightmares.
Once again, the world building focuses on the imprisonment, torture and training of young boys; the men and monsters they will become; and the people who destroyed their lives. As the series progresses, each of our story line heroes sets into motion a string of events that will ultimately free both their bodies and their souls finding love and a happily ever after in the arms of a woman that calms the dark and damaged beast. The premise is disturbing and dark; the characters are tragic and intense; the romance is controversial and dramatic-sometimes monster deserve a happily ever after.
Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Raze
Reap
Ravage
Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley.
Reviewed by Sandy
