Blog Tour Review: Illicit Desire – Tina Donahue

Pleasure that destroys all thought. Love that shatters all barriers.

Outlawed Realm, Book 2

Once a sex slave marked for termination, Lukan was miraculously liberated from E4’s Pleasure Palace, where E2’s fine, upstanding rulers secretly indulge their cravings for every imaginable vice. But freedom is not enough.

He left his heart behind with Arez. Within her fragrant, heated caress, he knew everything denied him. Rapture, contentment, tenderness…and love. Desperate to have her back in his arms, he embarks on a dangerous mission to deliver his untamed temptress from the certain death she does not know awaits her.

Within her velvet cage Arez knew only carnal submission and loneliness—until Lukan. But he has disappeared, and she senses something different in the way the supreme ruler is using her. Then, as if Lukan felt her longing for his strong arms and fevered kisses, he is there to sweep her from this twilight dimension to another.

But true freedom lies just out of his grasp. To reach the last portal—and their destiny—Lukan and Arez must first outwit an army of predators that hunt them. Human, subhuman…and monsters.

Series:  Outlaw Realm #2
Release Date:  September 25, 2012
Publisher:  Samhain Publishing
Source:  Lit Connect
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

Lukan and Arez are genetically created sex slaves who’s sole purpose to the pleasure the ruling parties on E4 in the Pleasure Palace.  While Lukan was saved from termination by his creators, he was forced to leave Arez behind to become the soul property of Supreme Ruler, Vakar.  Determined to save Arez from whatever sadistic games Vakar plays, he risks his life to re-enter the Pleasure Palace and free the woman he loves.

Lukan and Arez were interesting characters.  Given how they came to be, it was interesting to see their interactions with one another after they escaped the Pleasure Palace and Lukan tried to teach Arez about items he brought with him from the other realm and what life will be like for them.

I’m not a huge Sci Fi romance reader, but the blurb for this made me think that maybe I’d like it.  Unfortunately, the story didn’t capture my interest and while I thought some of the characters were interesting, I didn’t really care if they were able to accomplish what they set out to do or be who they wanted to be.  Given my feelings, I’m not going to rate the book.  I don’t think it would be fair to the author or the book to rate something that I normally would have DNF’d.