Diamonds Are Forever

The Complete Trilogy (Books 1, 2 & 3) (Diamonds are Forever Trilogy, Book 4)

By: Charmaine Pauls

Narrated by: Adara Stevens, Lee Turner Smith

Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

A Dark Mafia Romance

Men like us, we see things.
We do things, things that make us unfeeling.

That's the price of power and money, of living la belle vie and running the French mafia. Then she came along like a pretty wildflower pushing through the cracks on a dirty pavement - fragile yet resilient, a breath of beauty among the filth. She was supposed to be just another job, a nameless person I was to pluck from her life and hand to my brother, nothing but a pawn in the gamble of our diamond business.

There's a psychological label for men like us.
We lack empathy and guilt.
We do things to have what we want, things that make flowers wilt.

* Diamonds in the Dust is Book 1 of the Diamonds are Forever Trilogy and ends on a cliffhanger. Diamonds in the Rough (Book 2) and Diamonds are Forever (Book 3) conclude the trilogy.

Other novels in the Diamond Magnate collection:

Stand-Alone Novel
Beauty in the Broken

Diamonds are Forever Trilogy
Diamonds in the Dust (Book 1)
Diamonds in the Rough (Book 2)
Diamonds Are Forever (Book 3)

©2020 Charmaine Pauls (P)2020 Charmaine Pauls

Awesome and intriguing

Enjoyed the complete story and plan to replay it again.
Didn’t like the narrator’s voice for the male character was awful. You can still follow the story when you think it’s Sebastian York reading it.
Enjoyed!

horrible female narrator

The female narrator's voice for Maxim was horrible. He didn't sound like a sexy, dark, possessive alpha male but more like a creepy old hag/guy with no teeth. The guy narrator was awesome.

The heroine was super annoying because of all the whining about the relationship being only about sex and not about true love. She played a part in the situation being that way.

As for Maxim, I can't say because of the female narrator's voice for Maxum . He sounded more like a mad scientist sexual creeper. I can't believe she was used to read all three books. The male narrator could have read the book on his own. Why did they have the other narrator? She really ruined the listen for me.

Enjoyable

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Just enough of everything that kept me interested. I do not regret buying this audiobook.

Amazing!

This series wrecked me! From feeling heartbroken for her then shockingly feeling heartbroken for him! and everything in between.

Exceptionally written

The story pulled me in from beginning to end!😊
The narrators both were on point as each characters came to life. I will reread this book again again..I understand in the story, and saw each character each had an obsessions. With the behavioral needs, which can be viewed as love depends on your own perception!! but I feel a obsession can be in a manner of seft control and love too! Also I was happy to see Maximum defended Zoey honor. Book was enjoyable kept me up all night to finish reading entire series..Best Regards 🙃

Dark romance.

The female reader read like a crazy woman. Over exaggerated EVERY sentence. She had zero French accent. She did a very poor job reading the male parts. The male reader was awesome and could have read the entire book. The story is dark as you would expect a mafia romance to be. The ending doesn’t disappoint.

Disappointing. Weak heroine.

Okay, I reviewed this as I went. I had to review each book on its own before starting the next, because the series is such a Rollercoaster of rage. Be warned, I experienced rage for at least 95% of the entire audiobook.

BOOK 1- 3*
After reading Beauty in Stolen series I was so ready to dive into this. After being so blown away with the heroine in the last one and the fact that Paul wrote a strong and sexually experienced heroine who didn't allow H to steamroll her, I'm grossly disappointed with this.

The h here is the antithesis of the h from Beauty in Stolen series. As soon as I heard this woman in her 20's is still a virgin who's never even kissed a man or seen one naked, I nearly DNFd right there. Wish I would have. She was decent, but her gratitude toward her kidnapper for not handing her over to his brother to rape and abuse her only so he could rape (because there was for sure 200% 1 blatant rape scene between H/h) enraged me. Especially when HE TOOK HER TO BEGIN WITH. I could understand that gratitude, even in spite of what he did if he say, rescued her from another or even intercepted her before his brother could, but that's not what happened here. He put her in a sh*t situation and offered her a "choice" between sh*tty or sh*ttier and she's like "omg you're such a hero for keeping me so YOU can rape and abuse me to prevent your brother from abusing and raping me! My true love." I desperately wish she would've help him accountable for that or even just said it to him in response to one of the 100 times he was going on about her grateful she should he. His "lessons" were ridiculous and unprovoked when you weigh what he did to the reason he claims to have executed the lesson/punishment for.

Don't get me wrong; I don't hate the H. He for sure crossed the line from dubcon to flat out rape, but oddly enough I don't hate him. The h didn't hold him accountable. Conveniently, they walk in on one of his brothers victims immediately after H rapes her, so of course she's eternally grateful that he "saved her from that fate". You know, the same one he's responsible for. He was going to hand a woman over to his monster of a brother and the only thing that gave him pause was wanting to f*$k her. AGAIN, I don't hate the H. This is a dark rom and I love dark. There's such a delicate line authors must walk with dark roms and from what I've read, Paul is a pro at walking that tightrope. It's the heroines that drive me insane. Part of process of redeeming the H in a dark rom (for me anyways) is the heroine making him pay for it. We don't get that here.

Don't even get me started on his response (more accurately, lack of response) to his brothers sick behavior. The only acceptable punishment is offing the sick f&ck.

The entire premise as to why they kidnapped her to begin with was completely absurd. Not absurd in that "its unfair or not justified", but absurd in that it literally made no sens whatsoever. No logical sense at all. It's the exact opposite of how they would've gained her brothers loyalty and cooperation.
They need her brother once he's out of prison in FOUR YEARS (yes four f*cking years) to ensure their business continues to thrive and their thoughts were "I know. Kidnap his cherished sister whom he raised as a daughter. We can give her to the sicko psycho of the family who will repeatedly gang rape and beat her (likely to death). Most importantly, we will be sure to do this to her not only BEFORE he's out of prison in FOUR YEARS, but before we can even use her as leverage." WTF? It's like kidnapping someone for ransom for 4 years and killing them before you even call to demand the ransom. I have no idea how this plot hole made it through until the last draft.

BOOK 2 - 1* (would be none, if not for the great writing because THIS MOTHER F*CKER RIGHT HERE DONE CROSSED A MF LINE NO H HAS EVER CROSSED. Then after crossing that line, he obliterated the MF line. I mean it's now a broken ass Z)
This one destroyed any positive feelings I had about the 1st. I now hate the H. He is completely irredeemable. I've read some dark, dark romances, but this f**kwad takes the cakes for biggest fu**face of the century. I mean he's just a completely POS and the heroine? I want her to be shot. She's even worse for not only allowing it without defending herself in any way, but actively encouraging his f*ckery by begging him over and over and turning into a brain dead cow the minute H touches her. Smh Why do authors constantly write these female characters who go completely f*$king TSTL the instant their vaginas get wet?!??! I mean seriously. NO👏D👏IS👏THAT👏GOOD. Stop making our gender out to be complete morons the instant we have an orgasm! She just got worse and worse and worse and worse.
As if it were even possible she ramps up her level of weak and pathetic immediately into book 2. Right out of the gate, she instantly joined the group of top 10 most pathetic heroines. Her biggest concern is that she has no assurances the H won't "replace her" one day since he hate f*cked her in response to this pathetic b!tch literally begging him to love her. So after she BEGS him to love her and he does worse than just reject her, her highest priority is he'll "replace her with a younger woman ".

BOOK 3- 4*
Okay, Paul did what I thought she'd never be able to do. Redeemed both the h and H. h finally grew a back bone and H actually redeemed himself. Not because he did something redeemable as much as the fact that he's a legitimate true psychopath is really highlighted in this one.
The h finally grew a backbone (I was so pissed after book 2, I went into book 3 with a "too little too late for both h/H no matter what happens or what either does" attitude and came out with, "f*ck it. My boys a psycho/sociopath, incapable of seeing what he did and my girl was such a naive moron, she really couldn't help it (kind of) attitude. Started becoming a 5* for me. AND THEN h reverted right back to her old begging ways destroying every ounce of respect I just gained for her.
Overall it's still a solid 4* (maybe even 5 if I could bring myself to only judge ONLY this story and not allow the other 2 to cloud my judgement). I couldn't believe that there was anything at all that could make me not hate both of them. Thought there was no way any author could pull it off. Paul kind of did and even a kind of, provided how much I loathed these MCs after the first 2 books is a feat in and of itself.

Overall, I still hate them both and wanna kick them both in the damned teeth, but I can't deny, I did warm to both of them more than I ever thought possible.

Unbeleivable. I have two reviews.

Fiest of all just stick to the series.
First Review before I went on to book two: This is the first romance book I hoped the woman did not end up with the awful asshole and his terrible family.

They are all terrible awful people and I cannot stand any of him or his family.

2nd Review: I am so glad I didn't give up on this series but how could I.
Charmaine Pauls is so amazingly talented as an author.

I don't want to ruin anything for the listeners but I'll just say I am glad I finished this series and I am glad he finally gave her the respect she deserves.
But I feel the story could have gone on to explain more about who is running the mod amongst other thing's. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to ruin this amazing but frustrating series for anyone who has not listen to this.