Title: Unraveled
Author: Lorelei James
Publisher/Year: Penguin Group 3/3/2015
Length: 372 pages
Series: Mastered #3
Overview
In this sizzling continuation of the Mastered series by New York Times bestselling author Lorelei James, a man will find the domination he’s always craved…
Shiori Hirano and Knox Lofgren are left to run the martial arts program at Black Arts while Ronin Black travels. On the surface, the two highest ranked belts appear to cooperate—but in private, they butt heads constantly, despite the undeniable attraction between them. Soon their power exchanges start to make for a sweltering dynamic in the bedroom…
At first Knox is shocked to be living out his submissive desires, but Shiori sets out to prove that embracing his true sexual nature doesn’t make him a weak man. But even while their sexual relationship grants him a power and fulfillment he finds surprising, there’s no training regimen for the fight that comes with loving a strong woman…
My Thoughts
Oh how i do so LOVE this series. What we have here is not just an amazing continuation with some of our favorite characters, but we get a roller coaster ride at that. It’s a lesson of deciding hwo you want to be, if that’s something that you can do around others, and how can you do it to make you happy.
If you’ll all remember, we met and fell in love with Shiori when she came to the US in a sense to get away from her family since she’s been working for their company for so long. She also wanted to find herself a bit, and in stepping in to help out at the Dojo, she’s able to do a bit of both. While she’s doing that, she’s still juggling her life that she’s trying to get away from, and enjoying the spark of chemistry that she has with Knox, with whom there’s this perpetual love hate relationship. I have to say that it’s quite clear that there’s going to be something amazing between them, but what those boundaries are, that’s to be seen.
And then take a step over to the world of Knox. We’ve gotten to know just a bit about him throughout the other installments in this series, and it’s about time that we get to see him come to the forefront. It’s been clear throughout that he’s somewhat of a unique character. He’s got these alpha tendencies yet i think that there’s more to it than that, and thankfully Shiori and some others are able to help him come to see that. We learn a bit of his back story and about what makes him who he is, along with what really brought him to Black Arts and that makes us love him so much more.
So where the 2 of these guys meet – it’s explosive and in a good way. We don’t just get to see the romance blossom between them but we continue to see the animosity and fight that they have bring them even closer and that’s something that i feel is so necessary in this story and genre. It’s what makes it even hotter when we see them decide to take a risk with each other.
What makes this story so much better than i expected is that there’s a power struggle, and that’s something that i feel like we don’t often see. It’s not so much a topping from the bottom, but a means to an end. Shiori clearly is the alpha, but Knox is struggling to understand what that means for himself. The other bit is that everything that they are doing is in secret since they can’t let the others that they work with find out and they especially can’t let Ronin find out – since you know that he’s the over bearing big brother and boss man.
As we go on this journey, we get some amazing scening, and because of their unique dynamic, it’s even hotter. Lorelei James knows how to write these characters and scenes in a way that makes you really feel the passion come off the pages. And just when you think that things are getting to a safe place, we get that twist. Someone runs, someone almost dies and Big Brother comes back into the picture. If that’s not enough, life will change forever for one of them, and we just have to see how they choose to deal.
So, if you haven’t gotten the point yet, i LOVED that we got such a dynamic third installment and i can’t wait to see who’s next on the list since there are a lot of folks that we can get absorbed into. on that note – Enjoy!