Dark Captive by Kate Douglas

Dark Captive by Kate Douglas

Publication Date: May 15, 2018

Series Information: Dark Captive book 6 in the Spirit Wild Series.

Dark wolf is book 1 published on April 30, 2013

Dark Spirit is book 2 published on January 6, 2014

Dark Moon is book 3 published on January 28, 2014

Dark Refuge is book 4 published on May 11, 2014

Dark Terror is book 5 published on April 5, 2017

Genres: Romance, Paranormal Romance, Erotic Romance

Formats: Ebook, Paperback

Pages: 275

My Ranking: 

Fire In The Sheets Ranking: 3.5 Steamy with some heat. This story has mixed couples with both male and female partners, male and male partners, multiple partners with the couples all switching between each other. For more information on my ranking system click here

Page Turing Ranking: 3 for more information on my rating system, please click here. For more information on my ranking system click here

Where To Buy:

Amazon

IBooks

Google Play

Smashwords

Nook

Barns & Noble

Kobo

My Review:

     Warning, though I try my best to avoid this, all reviews can contain spoilers of some kind. If you would like to know just my overall opinion of the book, and otherwise go into reading it blind, please scroll down to my overall and would I recommend it section.

     I received an ARC copy of this book for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own and in no way influenced by the publisher or author. 

    This is the first book that I have read from this author, and I have to say I was more than surprised by what this story had to offer. For the most part, when I picked this book up I thought I knew what I would be in for with a shifter romance book, however I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

    What a beautiful emotional connection these characters have to each other, as well as themselves. The things that really grabbed me the most in a very unique way was how the human side and the animal side had no real line between the two. When the characters were in human form they did and thought things that were very much animal, and when they were in animal form they had a lot of human characteristics. I am so use to the shifters I read about being completely one of the other, but the way these two sides mixed wan’t just beautifully done, it really made me feel more connected to both the characters as well as the way they interacted and treated each other. 

    The way the relationships in this story develop is also gripping. Leo, the hero, is a shifter that was raised with parents that live a very different life than the rest of their kind. Because of this, Leo feels the male in the relationship should not only protect the woman, but also make all her decisions for her. This leads him to struggle with his relationships and ultimately be shunned, however he has a talk with his alpha, Anton, and is set straight. Wow, all I can say for Leo’s situation is wow. I really feel his embarrassment and confusion from this, as well as see why his struggle is so difficult. I love the way Asha‘s sad past helps to push Leo into seeing how truly strong and graceful a woman can be. Beyond that, thanks to his newfound appreciation for women, he really sees her personality and not only accepts how wild she can be but also admires it.

Excerpt from Dark Captive by Kate Douglas

   Asha is a stunning shifter that has lived her whole life in a Snow Leopard form in captivity. She is starved and close to death when she is saved and taken to the reserve in Colorado. While she lived her whole life as a Leopard, she still knows that she should be able shift and live as a human. With what she has learned by watching people and her short upbringing with her mother, she learned enough to be able to reach out for help through writing a message with her claws. I love this heroine. Asha is a very interesting and deep character to me. On the one hand she is a kick butt woman who takes no guff from anyone, she even tries to tell death to stick it before she starts to give into her shutting down body. However, she also desperately needs help to both get out of the bad situation she has been living in, but also adapting to being human. 

Excerpt from Dark Captive by Kate Douglas

    With their back stories being described prior to them meeting, it is obvious that she and Leo are meant to be together. I loved the way they were drawn to each other and how Leo’s weakness when it comes to how he treats women actually helps Asha acclimate to her new life.

    That being said, what has caused the lower page turner rating, as well as the lower fire in the sheets rating is the lack of details throughout the story. While the emotions, inner thoughts, and what each character looks like is described lightly, they are the only things given any good amount of detail. The main thing that threw me out of the story was the lack of landscape description around the characters. While a few scenes are described, for the most part I am told they are in a bedroom, on a rock, or in a bar but that’s the extent of it. This carries on to a lot of physical interactions between characters and during the sexual scenes in the book as well. This left me feeling a little left out of what was happening in the characters lives. For me the saying show me don’t tell me really does hold a lot of weight. 

    The only other thing that interrupted my reading process was not a fault of this book, or the author but rather a realization that this book should not be read without first reading the other novels in the series. For the first three chapters I felt confused about what was happening or being discussed between the characters that obviously knew each other very well. 

    Another thing I wanted to mention was the masterful way Kate Douglas has integrated so many different characters stories into the same book. I tend to not mind more than one characters story being told in the same book, but I always seem to grab onto the main hero and heroine’s story more, however in this book I found myself fascinated and invested in every character’s story. The emotional conversion for Remington and full acceptance into the pack as a newly shifted member was really magical to me. 

    Honestly, despite my confusion on what was going on during several points in the book, as well as the distraction of the lack of details, I am interested in the story and invested in the characters enough that I will be reading the rest of the books in this series. 

Overall:

I felt that this book was a great and unique take on shifters, as well as an interesting story, however the writing style made reading the book a little difficult do to its large lack of descriptions. 

Would I Recommend It: 

I’m going to be honest here and say I’m on the fence on this one. I really love this take on shifters and how both the animal and human are being portrayed as one, however the fact that reading this book felt a lot more like I was being told a story over shown a story makes me hesitate to just jump into saying yes. At the end of the day I think I am going to say maybe. It’s a gripping story if you have both read the pervious books and don’t mind that road bump in the writers style.  

About The Author:

To find out more about Kate Douglas click here.