Consequences isn’t a romance in any sense of the word. This is about a psychotic individual bent on revenge who targets a young,
vivacious woman and destroys her just because he can. Anthony Rawlings is one f’ed
up bastard. He’s the monster in the closet, the deranged villain who on the
outside is a very appealing package. He’s rich, handsome powerful and
respected. He has many traits a romantic hero has. But right from the
start we’re show how unstable Tony is. He's a sexual predator who gets off
on the pain of others-specifically Claire Nichols, a twenty-something unemployed
television meteorologist who is up to her eyeballs in debt.
When Consequences opens, Claire has been violated and raped. She locked in a beautiful room at the mercy of
Tony. Claire met Tony at the restaurant she works at. She is confused but
pleased that this older man, who apparently has money, would take an interested
in her. She tells him of her job loss and he jokingly has her sign a napkin and
dates it where she says she’ll do anything to work off her $200,000 debt.
Claire is clueless to the fact that Tony takes this as a binding contract and expects
her to work off her debt through him because he ends up paying off all her
loans and bills after he kidnaps her. Now Claire is at his mercy, and no matter
how much she fights, she can’t escape him. His staff is dedicated to him and he’s
so aggressive and abusive and overpowers her. He expects Claire to accept her
new lot in her life as his companion, or rather a slave who must do his every
bidding. Tony has planned everything perfectly where she has no choice to obey.
She’ll do what he wants and open to his every whim while she tries to figure
out a way to save herself.
Claire is given free reign of Tony’s massive
property and estate. As long as she obeys him and does what he wants, he’ll
give her more freedoms. He even allows her to accompany him to events and
parties, as long as she behaves. Again Claire has no choice because even if she
was able to get away from Tony he might track her down and hurt her loves ones,
such as her sister and her husband, the only family she has. But there is
another side to Tony who is a very giving lover and very generous with clothes,
jewelry and other materialistic things Claire has only dreamed about. Soon
Claire thinks she is falling for Tony, but always must keep in mind that he
makes the rules and expects her to obey him or will punish her for her mistakes.
But Tony is frustrated because he feels Claire is always hiding a piece of
herself from him and he expects her to give herself fully to him regardless of
his abuse and rage.
Finally Tony goes too far in a jealous rage and the
aftermath is what changes him. He promises never to hurt Claire again and
through a new type of courtship, Claire welcomes this new side to Tony who wants
to offer her the world, and for her to forgive him for his brutality. She accepts
him, body and soul, and to a new life that has become a
true fairy tale. But this fairy tale has major cracks, and it’s all part of Tony’s
final plan where Claire is just collateral damage because of something that has
eaten away at Tony for years. The consequences of those individuals and events from
both Tony and Claire’s past are the reason these two were destined to meet, or
rather because of Tony’s diabolical actions.
Consequences is all about the cause and effect of
people. There are major consequences because of Tony. He’s the reason for
everything that happens to Claire. Claire has no choices because Tony takes
everything away from her because he feels he has the right. Aleatha makes an
interesting case of Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to Claire and why she
would end up falling for Tony and accepting his abuse. Tony is uber-powerful
and master manipulator. Claire never stood a chance with him.
The first half of the book kept me riveted, but then
it spirals out of control in this never ending drama and non-stop introspective
from Claire who acts immature and naïve at times. She’s very angry and hurt at
first, as well as scared, and does try to fight, but I felt she succumbed too
quickly and her falling for Tony felt fake. Also Althea makes the mistake of
jumping into Tony’s POV as if to try and explain why he acts the way he does.
That's a big no-no because it ruins the entire thriller element that’s slowly
building, which when all is said and done, never delivers. The overall plot
became tedious. I felt Aleatha got to a point where she needed to end
things but didn’t know how and decided to throw what should be a whopper of a
shock to finish things off, but the steps to get there weren't planned effectively. Things just didn't add up for me with this ending.
Consequences had so much going for it. The
first 100 pages are excellent reading but then things falter majorly with an ending
that left me cold not because of the twist and the ruination of a young woman
by a sick man, but that overall lack of execution to make sense of Tony's delusions.
Final Grade: C
4 comments:
I agree that it could have been a tighter book. We didn't need to know every single detail on every trip they take. Def could have lost some pages.
But I found the build-up/foreshadowing to be fascinating. I could see what Tony was doing - not what he ultimately does at the end - that came as a shock...but I could see how he not only brainwashed the heroine, but manipulated (for lack of a better word) her friends and family.
I NEED to know what happens next! LOL.
Mandi: If the foreshadowing was better executed, like that of Gone Girl, this book would have been awesome. The brainwashing of Claire was very well done but the reason Tony did the things he did just didn't make sense regarding the ending.
Where do you get this book? I can't seem to find it anywhere, hmm.
I got it on Amazon for $3.03 http://www.amazon.com/Consequences-ebook/dp/B005IP26DG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350550897&sr=8-1&keywords=consequences I think that's the only place where it's sold digitally.
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