Joyless

Alabaster Penitentiary, Book 2

By: Nyla K

Narrated by: Sebastian Grove, Silas Hart, Melisandre Verte

Length: 19 hrs

Publisher's summary

Correctional officers get a bad rep. But in our case, it’s fully justified. We’re not good people. We’re guard dogs. As twisted as the inmates we patrol, courtesy of the monster who created us.

Prisoners ourselves on an island of manipulation, we’ve spent years drowning in vices to dull reality. If these walls could talk, I’m telling you, they’d scream. They call me Velle, but that’s Officer Chevelle to you. Hands dirtier than my mind, I have no qualms with staying ruthless to keep these creatures in line. And I’m not alone.

Joy Jameson is my partner in crime, and my ex. Together, we rule Alabaster Isle like Bonnie and Clyde, only prettier and far more dangerous. It’s the two of us against this wicked, secluded world. Until he shows up....

Although we need him, the rookie is a problem. Flipping me upside down, using my own hidden desires to tempt me. Rook, with his green eyes and country boy smile. He has no business luring me into something that will get everyone hurt.

Let it be known, denying myself while dominating this role is my default setting. But with him in the picture, I’m struggling to keep it intact. The mask is slipping, control I can’t lose wavering as we welcome our newest psycho to the roster.

Let’s hope, for all our sakes, Inmate #101 doesn’t do anything stupid.

Joyless is a MMF romance in the Alabaster Pen world. While it explores new characters, it is advised to listen to Distorted first to prevent spoilers.

©2021 Nyla K (P)2023 Nyla K

Velle, Rook and Cherry

"𝙔𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨..." 𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙨 𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙬𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙤𝙣𝙚. "𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙄 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙞𝙩. 𝙆𝙣𝙤𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙡𝙡 𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙢𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙖𝙡𝙡."

Alabaster Penitentiary is a wild and twisted place where the unexpected happens at every turn and no one, not even the guards, are unaffected by its craziness.

John Chevelle, aka Velle, can not believe when his almost one-night stand, Harley "Rook", shows up on the isle as the new prison guard. Joy can tell something is going on between Velle and Rook and as she works her magic to get them together she gets pulled into their orbit.

WOW!!!! It has taken me a while to finally get the words together to write this review. I am blown away again by this place. I went through every emotion listening to this book including shedding tears. After the first book, I couldn't give you two cents for Velle but he was redeemed completely. The chemistry and imagination Velle, Rook and Cherry have together is unreal. I can not wait for more from Alabaster Pen.

Sebastian Grove, Silas Hart and Melisandre Verte are all brand new narrators for me and I loved all three of them. All of them did an amazing job of bringing the characters and story to life while perfectly conveying all the emotions of the story.

Get ready for... mmf, dark, workplace, first times, interracial, law enforcement, BDSM, told in the first-person multiple points of view.

Content... see the author's website for a complete list.

5 Maple Leafs / 5 Flames / 4 Tears / 2023 Top Read

Absolutely wonderful

I absolutely love this series. I love the mystery of the island and the people that unravels with each book. I absolutely love it when someone that has been presented as bad is shown to have good traits after all . The romance is wonderful and the sexy scenes are very well written. I wish I could find more authors like Nyla K, ones who know how to write an interesting story and keep me coming back for more. Truly wonderful series. It is going to be maddening waiting for the rest in the series. I will have to break down and try to find time to read them before audio comes out because I can stand the wait. Narrators were perfect, I felt like they were the actual characters. I highly recommend the series be read in order as suggested. You won’t regret using credits on these books.

Out of the park

Another great book from Nyla k. I can’t wait to start the next book in this series.

Nyla K👏

Book two and we get some ansewrs to situations that were left hanging in book one. Holy hot sex scenes. This prison is CrAzY!! I'd rather be a guard than an inmate. I can't wait to see what book three brings us. 👏🔥❤ Narration is outstanding!

Intense

The relationship was done in a way that felt right. Even when there was a MMF scene the men focused on each other but in a way that didn't make you fill like like Joy was forgotten. Even when Joy is considered a part of the relationship the men still think of each other first. It was done in a way that wasnt demeaning to Joy and it made me see how much the two men actually care for each other. I had problems listening to this book compared to the last because of Velles story. I was so uncomfortable every time his chapters came up that I almost stopped listening multiple times. Im looking forward to the next book and seeing what comes next. I didn't expect to get attached to these characters like I did and didn't expect to want to see them all together. Overall the books romance is flushed out and not what most would expect. The story is extremely dark but if you know your triggers this book is worth buying.

I love this series!!

The one reason I've been keeping my Audible subscription has been for Nyla K! I absolutely love this series (currently reading Fragments). I think the best part of these audiobooks is Nyla K picks the perfect narrators for her books. These narrators truly bring these characters to life. I can't wait for Brainwashed to be out of audiobook!

So refreshing and eye opening

5/5⭐️ 5/5🌶️ 5/5🎧
Audiobook review: I could not stop listening to Joyless. It was so cool to be on the flip side of Alabaster Pen , seeing everything from the guards’ povs. I don’t want to give any spoilers but I’ll just say that everything is not as it seems in Distorted. There is a whole web of secrets. And seeing things from the other side was absolutely eye opening.

The spice. Off the charts. Nobody does it like Nyla. All the spicy chili peppers.

The relationships and takeaway…beautiful.

As to not give spoilers, that’s all I can say for now. But I definitely enjoyed this book and recommend 100%!

Favorite Quotes:
“You beg so good, Officer.”

Remember that whole thing I said about how being in love makes you stupid? Well, color us all the perfect shade of moron.

“You’re my greatest weakness…” he tells me with wonder in his tone. “But I think I want it. Knowing you’ll catch me makes me want to fall.”

My Throuple Dreams Come True

Like the first book in this series, this one delivers some very hard MM and MFM content. I enjoyed it immensely. Not for the faint of heart.

Good part 2 of Alabaster Pen

It was interesting to learn about the prison from the guards perspective with this intriguing story. I loved the characters and was happy with the narrators as well. Good pace throughout this book with some heat fairly soon into it which I appreciated (especially as the other Nyla K books I’ve read keep you waiting much longer). I love the amount of dialogue during the love scenes and the description of how things feel to the characters.

AMAZING! So good!

Listened to the audio in Aug 2023: OUTSTANDING!! The narrators did such a good job bringing these characters to life. I enjoyed this more as an audiobook vs reading the words (that is typical for me though). I can't wait to add this into my annual relisten rotation!!!!

Original review from reading the book:
Another book in the win column. This one starts a few months before book 1 starts and then runs concurrently with book 1. We go through the same situations but told and seen through different points of view. This book answers some of our lingering questions from book 1, so I was happy about that. And the author has promised that future books will have more answers.

This book tackled a lot of complex topics. All of the guards are so broken and on the island for a reason. This book takes us on the journey of 3 of them: Velle, Rook, and Joy. We find out what happened in their lives that led to them being employed at the prison. We learn about the history between Vella and Joy. We learn more about the creepy warden. There is a lot of storytelling in this book vs action/dialogue. We spend a lot of time in the characters heads. When we aren't in the heads, we are in their pants (hahahaha). This one felt a little long for what needed to happen in this book, but again we have been promised by the author that all the scenes are deliberate and needed to tell future stories. We shall see!!!

I just love this depraved world that Nyla has given us. I love the characters and I look forward to almost every interaction regardless of which character it is. The one exception is the warden. I could have done completely without all of his scenes. They are important to why Velle is the way he is and very important to his character ARC, but I hate that man. I am interested how Nyla plans to tease more of his story that is coming in book 5.

I am fascinated by a story between Darcey and Dr. Love BUT I need me some more Ren and Luthor!!!!!!!!! I would also love for Velle, Rook, and Joy to visit Kemper and Dash. I want to see how they would all interact together outside of a prison setting (if its even possible).

Anyway, loved this installment. Impatiently waiting for book 3 and 4.