Sylvia Ryan

I was given this book to read through Making Connections ARR for an honest review, thank you.



An EMP has been set off above the United States causing the failure of all technology. This part is my first disbelief. How big was this EMP? Was it only one or multiple ones and wouldn’t the government have known that missiles were headed to the US and done something about them? So this story has already leaped into the far-fetched for me because of the weak information about the EMP. If you’re looking for factual information about what is happening, don’t count on finding it in this book.

Anyway, after the EMP, everyone is now on their own as they fight for survival. Some individuals, known as survivalists, have prepared for such an event and set up survival havens in their basements. One of these people is Sarge a prison guard, former soldier and the ultimate Alpha Male who also happens to be quite the Dom. When the EMP hits, he sets out to fulfill a promise to his friend. That is to bring back his friend’s daughter, Grace to his own shelter and protect her.

Grace is a strong willed woman. Raised by her father who raised her more like a son, Grace has been severely hurt in the love department. She doesn’t trust men and shields her heart. Grace was one tough cookie physically wise, but she was also very weak when it came to emotions. She didn’t seem to know how to navigate emotional waters. I didn’t care for her that much as a character, she was too insecure. Grace is the one character that annoyed me, even more than Sarge. She was pretty messed up emotionally and her issues were beginning to grate more and more as the story went on. Grace and Sarge clash on a huge scale. Sarge wants a woman to obey him, Grace refuses, but she’s still extremely attracted to Sarge’s Dom attitude.

On one of Grace’s defiant forays away from the house, she meets Van, a National Guardsman and is immediately drawn to him as he is to her. A few more meetings and one sniper later, Van is now a member of Grace’s and Sarge’s group. Van is the sweet, gentle one of the group; he would call himself the ‘vanilla’ guy.

There’s one more male to add to the mix, Luke a friend of Sarge’s and of Grace’s father, who stops by Sarge’s house looking for Sarge. A bar owner who happens to have a master’s degree in psychology, he is the one that truly friends and listens to Grace and finds out what makes her tick. He is the smart one and mediator of the group. And he is also a Dom in the bedroom.

The author did a great job of creating four distinctive characters that were easy to picture. I had no trouble imagining what each person was like.

So what you have are three guys all in love with Grace, and Grace in love with all of them because none of them can individually satisfy all her needs. The book is really an erotic romance with the EMP event a base to use as the setting for the erotic romance.

The sex was hot! From the very beginning of the story sex was always present in some way, either through having sex, thinking about sex or talking about sex.

I think one of the best parts of the book actually wasn’t a sex scene. It was the time that Grace spent alone after she returned to her father’s home. Grace gradually succumbs to her depression, growing weaker emotionally and physically. I could really feel how Grace was losing her battle to stay alive. In the end because of this event, Grace turns into the weak, needy female that Sarge and Van wanted her to become. That was certainly a WTF? moment in the story.

There are a couple incidences that I wonder about that don’t quite make sense to me. It is mentioned that Lake Erie, where Grace goes to bath, is polluted. People are drinking the water and getting severely sick. Now my understanding is, you don’t go bathing or swimming in polluted water because you can get water in your nose, in your eyes and even your mouth though you might keep it closed. A person could still get sick from the pollution. Also Grace and Sarge later go to the lake to bath again after Grace has been shot. We’re talking about a stitched wound that hasn’t healed and can easily allow bacteria to enter to create an infection. As someone studying nursing, Grace would certainly know this. I found her behavior to bath in a polluted lake very strange indeed, and it didn’t make sense at all.

The book was easy to read and the pace stayed at a good clip. The formatting was good as was the editing.

If you’re looking to read a hot, erotic romance with the setting of technology’s collapse that leads to social collapse, then this book is for you. My main dislike is Grace, the conflicted female lead character that is emotionally weak and the lack of EMP information to make the story seem more real. I give this book 4 stars

… (plus d'informations)

The Dystopian theme of this book really spoke to me. The world building was interesting and kept my interest throughout the book.

The Good Stuff: In the near future, when an influenza pandemic breaks out killing over 90% of the world's population our governments decided it was imperative they repopulate with only "perfect" specimens. Why is this good? Well, it's not but the world building surrounding this fact was actually really good. The government tests all humans as they become of age and determine if their genetic makeup is good enough to breed. If so they are designated an upper class. However, if they find a defective genetic marker the citizen is sterilized and designated Amber. This idea is truly terrifying. In addition to the Gov looking for potential unwanted genes, if you're IQ is low, you also get the boot to Amber. I have to really hand it to the author, she sucked me in to her world and I enjoyed learning about it. I also liked how she incorporated touching and comforting into the Amber world.

The Bad Stuff: Being an erotic romance there is quite a bit of sex. Now, erotica is not a favorite genre of mine and I don't read much of it but I didn't hate the sexual aspect of this book. However, the first sex scene happens rather quickly after we learn about Jaci's testing and subsequential fall to Amber so it feels completely out of place and it felt like I ran head long into a brick wall. Just a note, Jaci is not involved in the scene. In addition, the scene was a ménages à trois m/f/m and the author makes it a point to say that both men were for the female's pleasure as being gay and having gay sex were against the law. However, this apparently doesn't include sex between two women as this happens later in the book. This inconsistency really bugged me. Jaci's character was also not a great aspect of this book as she pulls several TSTL moments in a world she really knew nothing about.

The Stuff That Could Have Been Better: The mystery surrounding who was killing the fallows (those who were sterilized by the government) could have been fantastic. Unfortunately it took a back seat to an unbelievable romance that happened over an extremely short time. When the murderer was unveiled it was interesting but felt sudden and the reasons behind the murders are never fully explained. In addition, the fact that the Amber Zone is full of genetically unacceptable people and those with lowered IQs it made it seem really weird that the apartment building Jaci was assigned to was full of open door orgies. Where's all the creepy mutants? Wish this would have been explained better.

In a Nutshell: Despite the less than satisfying stuff I really did like the world Sylvia Ryan created and will probably read more in this series.

… (plus d'informations)

Truthful I am left feeling all over the place after reading this book. Some parts for me were 2 stars, some 3 and others 4. Yet overall I was mostly just enjoying the journey.

While each book in the series can be read as a standalone, it is probably advisable to read the book in order. As this is the first book I can read by this author and this series, I was left a little lost in some parts of the story. I believe I my have enjoyed it more if I had read the other book in the series.

However all that being said I was it captivated by is world and was intrigued as to how it all worked. The main characters were also very well thought out. Their interactions with each other were different to many leading couples that I have read recently.

Being Emerald was a good read, but I am still left wanting more from these characters. I want to know how Rock and Laila how going and what the future holds for them and everyone else. I felt that the main characters needed a more complete ending and now am I left hanging for more.… (plus d'informations)