Slade by Sienna Valentine

I read the blurb on the book and wasn’t exactly sure where the author was going to make this stand out from the crowd.

But she wiggled her magic fingers and produced a book that I have to say that in general I was pleasantly surprised by.

The whole step sibling scenario is prevalent at the moment but this author took her very own twist on that relationship.

She dished up the relationship very early on, only to almost expect you to then completely disregard it.

Slade was not a good guy growing up and his step family dynamic as particularly complicated, and the situation with his step sister Iris at that time was more as an act of spite rather than an act of attraction.

His father being the man that he felt deserved his ire and Iris being his weapon of choice.

When he left home to study medicine, I think he fully expected to leave every single aspect of his youth behind him and that was the case for many years but unfortunate circumstances mean that they cannot stay strangers forever.

Iris needs Slade and she is prepared to put their less than stellar past behind them in order to garner his help to help save her brother, but is Slade able to do the same?

Slade has never eluded to being a saint in any shape or form and he has continued to revel in his manwhoring ways since leaving home, a leopard never changing its spots as they say but is Iris’s belief that he is the only person that she can turn to for help in her time of need, enough for him to side-line his attitude for a little while?

The whole is fairly fast paced and it brought to bear the fact that as an adult turning your back on the past and the actions that you may regret is not always as easy as closing the door on that chapter.

Life has a way of forcing you to see it for what it is… a learning curve.

The chemistry between Iris and Slade was sizzling but the pain of the past was also prevalent. They had a lot of growing up to do.

I was angry with Iris for the way she continued to allow Slade to belittle her much of the time. I got that Slade had issues but by not taking him to task she was only perpetuating his ego. When he eventually gives us a glimpse behind his shield and lets us see why he is the man he is, I begun to understand more but it didn’t excuse him.

I liked the story, I will say that, but there were aspects that just didn’t hang right with me.

The family dynamic was complicated in some respects and I didn’t think it needed to be.

The language used at times was almost inappropriate (in my opinion) , it was uncomfortable reading the two of them refer to each other in familial terms when they were sexually involved.

I also thought that some of the text wasn’t what I would have anticipated or indeed considered grammatically correct but I’m not the author and therefore it was only a personal preference.

In a genre that is already flooded with books that embrace this subject matter, the book certainly didn’t follow the standard format, it brought something different to the page and shook it up a bit- I just wish that shake could have been followed by a swift kick up the butt!