Merciless

By: Willow Winters

Narrated by: Savannah Peachwood, Jacob Morgan

From USA Today best-selling author Willow Winters comes a heart-wrenching, edge-of-your-seat, gripping romantic suspense.

I should’ve known she would ruin me the moment I saw her. Women like her are made to destroy men like me. I couldn’t resist her though. Given to me to start a war; I was too eager to accept. But I didn’t know what she’d do to me. That she would change everything.

She sees through me in a way no one else ever has. Her innocence and vulnerability make me weak for her, and I hate it.

I know better than to give in to temptation. A ruthless man doesn’t let a soul close to him. A cold-hearted man doesn’t risk anything for anyone. A powerful man with a beautiful woman at his mercy...he doesn’t fall for her.

©2018 Willow Winters (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Wish it could be re-recorded

Savannah Peachwood is really difficult to listen to. Her voice is annoying and over the top w emotion. Her voice is terrible for the male sounding characters.

Book might have been better if just Jacob Morgan read it.

Aria is all bravado alone then is a ridiculous mess at the sight of Carter.

The story is shaky and confusing. Too much going on. This is book one. Be prepared to spend more $ to get to the end of the story.

Exciting

I really love this book and the series. I can’t wait for the next one to come out. Love love love them!!!

I had many mixed feelings.

I have so many mixed emotions about this book. On one hand, the narration is superb, as expected from these narrators. The writing was great in so many ways with an interesting, addictive storyline. Carter's obsession with Aria was amazing, one thing I love in my dark romances is the element of being one step past love into the realm of obsession and how it drives a man or woman to do such outlandish things that my twisted brain often finds strangely romantic. Regardless, there were things about both main characters that just ate away at me throughout the book.

First of all, it was a cruel joke to start us off with this heroine that is fearless and badass just to immediately then make her turn into a complete and utter mess at the first sign of trouble, especially when she even says what happens is something she expected to happen [on some level] for many years of her life. This quick switch in behavior made my head spin and then when we finally found out why she was the way she is, my disdainful feelings switched to Carter. Knowing about the trauma this woman went through, he consistently uses traumatic events against her all the while knowing full well how helpless and scared she becomes. He does this to manipulate her into both fearing him and seeking comfort from him. It made me feel deeply for her. I know what it's like to feel so mixed up inside that you don't know which way is up anymore because someone is manipulating you so well. A piece of me hates Carter for that. Even if he somehow heals all her traumas and makes it all ok in the end, it's still not alright that he did this. I don't know why exactly, but it just felt like some invisible line was crossed for me. I read some of the most sickening, twisted dark romances imaginable and the way he preyed on her PTSD was so upsetting. Yes he cared and helped her through nightmares etc. when it suited him sure, but as soon as he got mad about something he'd use it as leverage (am throwing her in the cell where she'd be scared and have flashbacks and such). The way he harms her emotional and mental health to such an extent that she says "sorry is all I know how to be anymore" because she's constantly scared and asking for forgiveness for wanting to save her family was frustrating. I wanted her to keep her defiance from him in some small way, keep some small piece of the Aria she was before that we'd been given a glimpse of in the beginning. So many of these dark romances make it seem like it's ok to break someone's identity and life apart because the main character is crafted as if they weren't a whole person or at least not a happy one living a full life before they met their man. But it didn't seem that way in this book at the beginning. Yes Aria had scars she hid from everyone but seriously who doesn't? You can see how conflicted this made me. Then again.... Carter does show many redeeming qualities and his affection for Aria was obvious from the start. His obsessiveness and possessiveness when it came to her would make any woman swoon with envy and wish to be the target of that kind of desire. I'll try to end this review by saying this to summarize my thoughts: This is an excellent book to kick off the story. I was impressed in many ways. The main characters are fickle and difficult to like at times here and there but overall endearing in many ways. I don't think it's full of triggers, but try to hang in there when the going gets tough because overall the book is worth it.

Loyalisa30

Willow Winters continues to slay with her books. My rapt attention never waned throughout this enemies to lovers story. Aria and Carter’s love-hate relationship kept me on the edge of my seat while waiting to hear why happened next! Jacob Morgan’s narration of Carter was excellent and showed his indecisiveness of how Aria should be treated. Savannah Peachwood’s narration of Aria was fantastic and demonstrated her battle with discipline vs. defiance! Okay, let me finish by saying I absolutely abhor cliffhangers!!! However, I enjoyed every minute up to that point!😂😂😂

Very Dark

This particular book is very dark in comparison to other books I read. It toes the line of Stockholm syndrome so readers beware. This is a M/s relationship where the slave isn’t given a choice on whether she wants to engage in that type of power dynamic. Consent is key in any power exchange relationship so this book was outside of my comfort zone. That being said, the narrators did an amazing job reading this book. Cater’s narrator was exceptional. Nice choices all around.

Love it!!

I loved this book although the voice of aria kinda annoyed me sometimes. But other than that I really liked it.

Dark dominating romance

This was a story that degraded Aria down to a slave and was just treated like a dog. That did bothered me but at the end of this conclusion she went rabid. Like always my two favorite narrators did a fine job in making the story come to life.

Loved it! But...

It’s a cliffhanger! I thought I was gonna throw my Alexa machine thingie when it ended as it did. But it was good. Zachary Webber was EXCELLENT, Savannah Peachwood was pretty good but has a slightly annoying pitch; but it wasn’t something I couldn’t ignore.

The story itself was great. I can’t wait to get the next book!!

Have Mercy!

This dark piece is a mesmerizing guilty pleasure. You know the type: you can't quite explain what makes it so compelling to you, because you don't want it to be. But it is. You try to tell yourself you can't relate to this female character, Aria, at all. You try to convince yourself that there is nothing intriguing about the dark, edgy, and mysterious Carter. But putting this book down is like paying no attention to the bright lights of a UFO in the sky because it's "boring." Go ahead, try to convince yourself.

Mercy. This story. These characters. They just get in your head and won't leave. Aria seems to show weakness, but then who wouldn't in her circumstances? In truth, she's amazingly strong--not just stubborn, but smart, too. She needs to be to hold up against Carter's ruthless personality. His secrets are tightly held, and his dark heart is as hard as stone. They fight each other tooth and nail in a brilliant display of dual denial while others look on in abject confusion. Nothing seems to make much sense. But that's because almost no one has all the puzzle pieces.

This is a masterful work of mind games with dark psychological implications. It's gritty, sensual, passionate, and tough. Be warned: the novel does end with a cliffhanger.

no one spins a tale quite like Winters!

my more in depth reviews are reserved for GoodReads, but when I listen to audio like this paired with such an amazingly twisted tale of "love"....well it needs to be praised in as many platforms as possible!

The beginning of Carter and Aria's story is a tough one....she refuses to submit and obey, he refuses to bend and compromise. slowly these two come together, but there is one major barrier she must overcome in order to fully give herself to him....one that we (as readers) don't even know until its given to her. what we are left with is a cliffy of epic proportions! luckily the rest of the books are out so its a cliff we aren't stuck with for long.

as for the narration: I have been in a bit of a rut when it comes to audibles, doing most of my reading through Kindle.....too many amazing books (and even some of my all time favs) were ruined with bad narration. but these two? I found myself favoring listening instead of reading for the first time since L.J Shen's Pretty Reckless.

Jacob Morgan is incredible. His voice brings Carter to life. Deliciously dark, sinfully sexy, and exuding power with every syllable. He is 100% one of my new fav male narrators. 5 star performance.

Savannah Peachwood is the reason I took a star away from performance. Not because she was bad, actually she did justice to Aria's character. Her voice has the perfect balance to play the part of this age. I had 2 problems with her is there is such a thing as TOO MUCH, and sometimes she went way overboard in her emotion....making it teeter on the line of cheesy and fake. Then, her Carter voice. I can't explain it, but instead of just speaking the words with her deeper voice she attempts to throw a type of arrogant tone to her words. It ends up sounding like a man with a stick up his ass. However, I still loved her as Aria. 3 star performance.

if you haven't had a chance to read this series, or you have read the books but not listened to the audibles, do yourself a favor and dive in!