Audition

Book reviews

19 Feb

Written By Anzhelika Li

You shouldn’t be a goddamn coward in love…

⭐⭐⭐

1. AUDITION by Skye Warren

SYNOPSIS

Blood and sweat. Bethany Lewis danced her way out of poverty. She’s a world-class athlete... with a debt to pay.

Joshua North always gets what he wants. And the mercenary wants Bethany in his bed. He wants her beautiful little body bent to his will.

She doesn’t surrender to his kiss.

He doesn’t back down from a challenge.

It’s going to be a sensual fight... to the death.

BOOK REVIEW

Audition is a spin-off of the North Security Series. It can absolutely be read as a standalone (that’s what I did anyway). However, sometimes, I found myself slightly confused over certain issues covered but at the same time glossed over in the book (a much bigger impact is promised if the North Security series is read first, at least based on what I’ve been told by the fellow readers). And that made it somewhat hard to truly connect with the main characters.

It was my very first encounter with Skye Warren, which was quite pleasant, I must admit. Josh’s and Bethany’s story covered both the past and the present of their tumultuous relationship and was told from two POVs. The revisits to the past were helpful in terms of giving a perspective on their thoughts and feelings, which were the roots of everything else. But the disbalance between the time coverages was significant. The beginning was exciting and attention-grabbing, while the middle was annoyingly dragging, and the ending was simply rushed. I absolutely loved the nature of the romance, and the couple seemed unique and fresh. Unfortunately, their story felt not enough, not fully discovered…

This woman will never stop fighting. It’s the truly twisted part of me that finds her a turn-on. I don’t want her surrender.

Bethany Lewis was a beautiful character with a strong but still fragile spirit, fighting what she believed was right with her inability to change the situation she was forced into. She was a determined ballerina with a penchant for a mysterious ‘bad boy’.

It’s not the violence that scares him. It never has been. It’s the certainty that he’ll lose me, that he’ll lose everyone. He’d rather walk away before it happens. He’s the bravest man I know, but in this, in love, he’s still a goddamn coward.

Joshua North was a complete asshole he never denied being, protecting the fragile remnants of his darkened heart by stubbornly displaying sharp thorns to scare everybody away, especially those he loved the most. He was the ‘bad boy’ with a tendency to balance between corrupting temptation and torturous self-denial.

Beth and Josh believed to be ‘doomed’ from the very beginning (although I didn’t really see any legit reason except for an age-gap in the start). There was always something threateningly sensual about their sort of forced proximity. Something that felt impossibly wrong but exceptionally good at the same time. Their chemistry was a mixture of danger and melodrama. Undeniable and uncontainable physical attraction entwined with a fine line of precious feelings hidden behind the high walls of Josh’s wild nature and Beth’s stubbornness. I can say with no hesitation whatsoever that the romance was the most solid aspect of the entire book.

Overall, Audition was not bad at all but definitely underdeveloped. The plot was all over the place, the premise evoked complex emotions with simplicity, and the dialogues were meaningful and believable, but the major conflict was so insignificant and rushed that I was like ‘What’s the point again?’…

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t deny the possibility of not fully loving the book because I haven’t read the original series, but just in general, this story was truly incomplete. I don’t know… I guess you should try to find out yourself if you agree with me or not.