REVIEW: The King by Tiffany Reisz

The King by Tiffany Reisz
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

To sum it up: Cunning. Sex. Pure nerve. Only this unholy threesome can raise him to his rightful place as a rule of Manhattan's king kingdom.

Bouncing from bed to bed on the Upper East Side, Kingsley Edge is brilliant, beautiful and utterly debauched. No carnal act of chemical compound can relieve his self-destructive heartache— Only Søren, the one person he loves without limit or regret. A man he can never have, but in whose hands Kingsley is reborn to attain even greater heights of sin.

Kingsley's plan to open the ultimate BDSM club— A dungeon playground for New York's A-list— Becomes his obsession. His expertise in domination can't subdue the one man who wants to stop him. The enigmatic Reverend Fuller won't rest until King's dream is destroyed, and so the battle lines are set; it's one man's sacred mission against another's… 3 1/2


***ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review***

★★★ 3 1/2 Stars ★★★

★ FYI: This is the sixth book in Tiffany's Original Sinners series and the second book in The White Years quartet. While I have blocked spoilers within this book in my review, spoilers exist for those who haven't read up to this point in the series. With that being said...

Guys... It hurts my heart to say this, but this book was the absolute biggest let-down. To say that I was excited for Kingsley's story would be the understatement of the year. Tiffany Reisz is one of my absolute favorite authors ever and none of her books have yet to disappoint... That is, until this one. Damn, it depresses me to even let those words leave my mouth. It's only fair though that I give you all my honest feedback so alas, I must continue on...

Boring.

I think it's safe to say that that's as accurate as it gets when it comes to describing this story and how I felt about it. I was honest to God just bored to tears. I fell head-over-heels in love with The Saint , and to be fair I don't think any book could have topped that one- It was perfection at it's finest, ladies and gentleman. Perhaps that's why I felt so devastated when this one turned out to be such a disappointment. However, I think a lot of that had to do with the lack of Eleanor's presence in my opinion. Before going on, I need to give a little word of warning here: If you're expecting Eleanor to play a major role in this book, then you're going to be extremely disappointed- She may have made maybe one or two very short appearances and that was it. In all fairness though, my own personal expectations is what probably made this book such a let-down for me. Based on all other books involved in this series, I had just assumed that this story revolved around Søren, Kingsley and Eleanor's relationship and how it all began. What I got instead was a story strictly based on Kinglsey's obsession with opening up the ultimate BDSM club.

I mean, where the fuck was the romance? Sure, we got some detailed glimpses and scenes of Kingsley's relationship with Søren... And we also got to see him have some interesting relationships/sex with many others as well; Some who even ended up holding a special place in his heart, but none that I gave a shit about if I'm being perfectly honest here. This book just wasn't the same without the infamous Nora being present. I missed the trio together and without that, I just felt such a deep loss of connection with everything and everyone else involved.

Oh, and another word of warning: There's quite a bit of M/M action going on throughout this book as well. Not that that kind of things turns me off or anything... It just isn't my cup of tea, which in turn put a damper on my over-all feelings for the book. So was this book complete shit? Far from it. It would be impossible for any book revolving around these characters to be an absolute dud. I've grown to love everyone involved in this series throughout the years and each and every character has held a special place in my heart. It's just... This story lacked romance and instead focused on history-- Not my cup of tea either.

Over-all though, The King fills in a lot of blanks for fans of The Original Sinners series. We get further insight into Kinglsey and Søren's relationship, especially their time spent together at St. Ignatius as well as receiving a very lengthy story behind how The 8th Circle came about... And by lengthy story, I basically mean the whole fucking book. As a die-hard fan of this entire series, it was a definite plus to get some major insight into the ever-present mysteriousness of "The King" and how he came about. Unfortunately though, I just expected something completely different from this story which only ended up backfiring on me instead.