what a dark and beautifully twisted book ... absolutely loved every minute of it ... cannot wait to read more by Jack Stevens

Sean is a young up-and-coming professor who has everything he could dream of. The job, the men, the life. But when a lover goes missing, Sean is thrown into a secret world of questions and creatures of nightmare..
Thai book seemed more interested in sex than story. The lead character was obnoxious. I didn’t really enjoy it . Sorry

This wasnt for me. The story didn't grab me and there were far too many sex scenes which I though were boring. So not one for me.

I gotta be completely honest when I say that this wasn't for me. The premise of this sounded so awesome to me because I love a good paranormal story and this one screamed that, plus a ton of action and mystery, but it was honestly more sex than anything else and while I don't mind reading that I just felt like the plot is a minor point in this and the sex is the main thing and I wished, for myself, that it would have been the other way around. I'm not saying it's bad or anything. Some people like that and some people don't. It's totally personal preference and this has nothing to do with the book or the author. It's honestly just personal preference. I just didn't vibe with this book.

I was attracted by the blurb but the book was not what I expected and it fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I've struggled for the last few minutes trying to decide what star rating to give Dark Master and how to talk about it. The problem I had with the book was that, from the blurb, I had anticipated an action-packed dark fantasy tale. However, this was one of those occasions where smut trumped plot. The sex scenes were well written, so I had zero issue with them in and of themselves, outside the context of the story, but they did account for a good two thirds of the book's content. The 'plot' didn't really start to appear at all until halfway through, and when it did it felt rushed, so by the end, I was left with many unanswered questions about the two organisations, Farjeon, what powers the 'vampires' actually had etc. The idea behind the story was good, and all the characters had potential, so, in my opinion, what this book needed was to be nearly twice the length. By all means keep the sex scenes, but develop the plot and the characters in greater depth. Then it would have made an excellent story. I am going to give this book 2.5 stars; however, I will round up to a 3, rather than down to a 2, because the potential was there, even if it wasn't fully realised, and if you are a reader who doesn't mind the occasional story where sex trumps plot, then you'll likely find something to enjoy here. As a final warning, though, some of the scenes in this book are rather dub-con, so keep that in mind if that's something that would affect you.

I received this book as an eARC from Netgalley. All opinions are my own!
I would consider this book more like 2.5 stars.

Sean is a young up-and-coming professor who has everything he could dream of. The job, the men, the life. But when a lover goes missing, Sean is thrown into a secret world of questions and creatures of nightmare.

From the description of this book, I thought it was going to be dark academia with fantasy elements. I would very loosely say that this applies. But I would consider this book essentially smut with a side of plot, and that was something that greatly disappointed me. It took about half of the book before any sort of plot with the secret society started to form. Before that, all Sean was doing was sleeping with men and worrying about the drama that comes with relationships of any kind.

When it came to the actual plot, I was pretty confused as to what was going on for the majority of the book. I ended up essentially skimming the book because I was so confused and nothing was helping me understand.

I have to say that I was really excited bout this book at first, but I was left disappointed in the end.

I want to start this off by declaring that Richard is an absolute asshole. Who only thinks with his dick. Literally. Like nearly every chapter at the start he was bedding another guy.
As for the book itself I'm not sure how I feel about it. I thought it was alright. It could have been better, but it was alright for what it was

3 stars (not because of poor writing but because it’s just not fully to my tastes)

A very creative take on vampires with an a**hole-ish yet charming MC as narrator. The writing is good, the story is well constructed & intellectually engaged me, yet I’m not 100% certain I enjoyed the overall reading experience? Probably it’s just not to my tastes. This is a dark story involving torture & lots of non- & dubiously consensual sex (see my copious thoughts on this below). Neither is gratuitous or glamorized (& I mean both things are there for narrative reasons), but imvho this book is not for everyone.

[What I liked:]

•Lots of points for creativity. There are so many tired vampire/undead tropes that result in many unmemorable books in this genre, & I think this writer told a decently fresh story.

•I appreciate what this book set out to do; I did get something out of reading it, & I don’t regret having read it. First off, I appreciate the nuanced way difficult topics such as non-con/dub-con & abusive relationship dynamics were handled. And also I appreciate how no character in this is purely good, innocent, or evil (minus a few pretty solidly evil ones).

•Sean is a great character with a strong voice. Is he a vain, oblivious, aimless, & self-centered jerk? Pretty much. Does he have a satisfying character growth arc? To some extent. Did I appreciate his flawed human nature & cynical wit, & did I empathize with his hang ups & uncertainties? Heck yes. He made for a great MC, imo.

•Farjeon is a fascinating, twisted, sometimes sympathetic, & layered character. I loved Rufus, his relationship with Sean especially. Taylor could have used more character development, but was likable enough. There are like zero women characters who aren’t bit-part afterthoughts (& only two of those), but I can’t really complain since this story is about a gay man at an all-men’s college.

•The uncertainty about which characters you can trust, what exactly is going on, who’s being manipulative, what everyone’s (besides the MC’s) motivations are, how things will turn out, & the turmoil of everyone’s fluctuating emotional conflicts & struggles with guilt, is well done. It kept me in a state of uneasy doubt up til the end, along with Sean. I could really feel & engage with his emotional journey.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•I’m still a bit confused about what happened to Richard when he died/transformed; what caused it? The possibly-magical stone? How & why? I would’ve liked more explanation about that.

•The ending was a bit too vague for my tastes. I mean it’s all hinted at, it’s so subtle, & I’m 80% sure I understood what Sean’s decision was & maybe 60% why he chose it, but I wish I knew for sure.

•I’m still not clear on Aegis, it’s origins & motivations as an organization, who founded it & who’s involved, how it found out about St. Thad’s, etc. I think fleshing that out a bit more would’ve added to the story.

•Okay, I will now attempt to address the large amounts of dub-con & non-con sex. This very long bullet point is more of an in-depth content warning than a quibble with the quality of the writing. There is plenty of consensual sex in this book. There is also plenty of questionably or clearly not-okay sex. It made me all sorts of uncomfortable, which was rather the point I guess.

Tbf, the writer made it clear that characters knew it wasn’t consensual or wasn’t consensual enough, so he wasn’t presenting dub-con & r*pe as romantic or normalized, which is good & important. And I get why it was included. A lot of this book deals with manipulation & unhealthy power dynamics, & manipulative sex is part of that, thematically, in a central way to the story.

So what specifically was dub-con/non-con? There are some scenes of straight up r*pe by someone who’s basically a serial killer. There are some scenes of pure torture & sexual abuse by a professional torturer. But for the most part as far as the dub-con is concerned, it mainly involved scenes where sexual interaction started off mutually consensual but then crossed the line into manipulation, or sometimes straight up abuse.

This took different forms: pressuring someone into acts they are uncomfortable with; taking one’s own pleasure at the expense of one’s partner’s pain or serious bodily/psychological harm; withholding info from a partner that would influence their decision to consent, if known; coercing someone into witnessing disturbing sex acts; & using manipulation—perhaps even legit mind control—to coerce someone into sex they are clearly conflicted about having. Some pretty f*cked up stuff, all in all. So basically, proceed at your own risk & discretion.

I’d be very interested to hear other readers’ perspectives on this aspect of the book. I readily acknowledge my own interpretation of this content is shaped by my personal experiences with sex, sexual assault, abusive relationship dynamics, etc.

CW: murder, extreme physical & psychological torture, sexual assault, dub-con, external & internalized homophobia, body image issues, abusive relationship dynamics of various sorts, power/status imbalances in romantic & sexual relationships, r*pe

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]