Thorns of Malice
By: Maggie Cole
Book Series/Duet: Wilted Kingdom Duet
Book # in Series: 2 of 2
Genre: Erotica
Publisher: Pulse Press Inc
Publication Date: February 7th, 2024
My Rating: ✮✮
My Reading Format: Arc received for an honest review
Synopsis:
From International bestselling author Maggie Cole comes the mind-blowing conclusion of the Wilted Kingdom dark romance duet.
For ten years she’s been under my skin and out of my grasp.
The last time I saw her, I decimated her and everything she valued.
Not a day passes that I don’t crave one more dose of her.
And Ivy Ford’s everything I remember.
Beautiful. Graceful. Seemingly innocent.
I wish that were the case.
There’s only one reason she’s reinserted herself into my life.
Revenge.
It’s nothing new in my world except for one thing.
Ivy learned from the best.
Me.
It’s clear there’s no longer anything naive about her.
She’s an uncontrollable stalk of poison spreading all over me.
Thorns of Malice is book two of the Wilted Kingdom duet. It’s a dark college bully romance between the rich kid and the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Dax and Ivy’s story begins in Book one of the Wilted Kingdom duet, Seeds of Malice. See author website for trigger warnings.
Thorns of Malice by Maggie Cole is the final book in the Wilted Kingdom Duet. This novel is told from both Ivy and Dax’s point of view.
After a tragedy and a recollection occurs in Ivy Ford, she decides she needs to get the ultimate revenge on the Carrington family, mainly Dax and Avery. They took more from her than her reputation, they also took her free will… She won’t be happy until she sees them pay the ultimate price.
Dax Carrington is doing everything in his power to make things right when it comes to Ivy Ford, even though it’s been years since he last set his sights on the woman who stole his heart. The gult is too much, and he needs to do right by her, even if it’s the last thing he does…
And due to spoilers that is where I’m going to end this portion of my review.
My Thoughts:
Due to this being a duet, I’m going to cut my thought section a little bit short this time around. I spent a day reading, or thumbing through, the second book in Maggie Cole’s Wilted Kingdom Duet, Thorns of Malice and I have to say, I saw the premise of this one at the beginning. I saw Ivy finally growing a backbone and standing up for herself.. But somewhere between that moment, and the end… the mission got lost in translation. I felt the connection and chemistry could have been there between Dax and Ivy, but it was outshined by all the sexy time scenes in this novel. UGH! I needed more dialogue and less scrumping….
I also felt like I understood Dax’s mission in this novel. I felt his guilt and I felt the fact that he saw his errors in his past and he set out to do something to fix what he had a helping hand in doing. So yes, I’m saying I actually liked Dax a teeny tiny bit in this novel…
As for Ivy…. I had a hard time trying to understand her through this novel. Maybe it was her sex addiction I didn’t like. When you are talking about a mental health illness such as this one, in a novel, I like there to be more detail and dialogue concerning that illness instead of her having sex and us thinking this is normal. I don’t know, I felt like the sex addiction turned into a much bigger part of her story than her father, the leaked sex tape, and her immense need for revenge. And trust me when I say, I wanted Ivy to come out as the VICTOR in this novel. I wanted to see Avery, Bobby, Lilley, and Dax go down for all that they did to her. I wanted more for this woman and her character. I wanted the ultimate revenge… and sadly, that didn’t happen. I gave this novel 2 stars for these moments. I needed a lot more than just sexy time moments to really understand this character and her struggles.
Overall, It took some time for me to learn, I should just DNF novels I’m not feeling. And from here on out, I’ll be doing just that. As I said in my last review, Maggie Cole seems to be a really great story teller, but the content in this duet gave me the ultimate ICK moments. Maybe one day I’ll try reading a different novel from this author to see if I vibe better with her other work. But for right now, I’m going to move on.
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Peace Love and Happy Reading,
