The Raven Room (The Raven Room, #1) by Ana Medeiros Series: The Raven Room #1
Published by Diversion Books on November 3rd 2015
Pages: 250
Amazon
Anything you can imagine. Everything you crave. For the members of The Raven Room, it’s every fantasy fulfilled. But for some, that desire is a matter of life and death.
Drawn by needs he cannot control, Julian ventures to The Raven Room, a secret and exclusive sex club in the underbelly of Chicago. It goes beyond sex. It goes beyond kink. The Raven Room is the only place where Julian finds release from the dangerous urges that threaten to destroy the successful life he’s worked so hard to build.
When the police link the Raven Room to the death of a young woman, it threatens to expose a number of powerful people—people who would kill to stay anonymous...
Meredith’s body can’t get enough of Julian. He has opened her sexual horizons to tempting new possibilities. But out of bed she’s an aspiring journalist, and The Raven Room is the story she’s been looking for. By writing an exposé on the club and its elite clientele, she plans to launch her career.
As Meredith embarks on a sexual journey into the forbidden world that Julian inhabits, questions emerge, and dark appetites threaten to swallow her whole. How much can she trust the man who has laid bare her erotic nature and how much will she sacrifice in order to protect him?
Ana Medeiros has made an impressive debut with this intriguing tale of mystery, danger, desire, and despair.
Julian is a child psychologist and Associate Professor of Medicine. He also happens to be a member of The Raven Room, an exclusive underground Chicago sex club where no-holds-barred kink is openly explored. Although he tries to suppress his dark sexual proclivities, he’s regularly drawn to the club, which could be a career ender if his involvement is ever leaked.
Julian has been in an affectionate but nonexclusive year-long relationship with Meredith, a sexually adventurous grad student. He struggles with his identity and deprives himself of his urges when he’s with Meredith. Meredith is an aspiring journalist who is using Julian to gain entrance to The Raven Room. An exposé could be her big career break. After much cajoling on Meredith’s part, Julian agrees to take her to the club.
At The Red Room, Julian encounters a mysterious woman named Alana, in whom he senses a kindred spirit. When she disappears, he desperately tries to find her. Maybe she will help him finally feel connected to someone. Maybe she will help him find himself.
Julian is a complicated character to describe because he’s so reserved and reveals little of himself throughout the majority of the book. Medeiros takes the reader on a journey of discovery as Julian recalls his past and tries to comprehend his sexual compulsions.
There is a lot going on in this book, and it borders on being overwhelming. There’s Julian’s past; the love triangle between Julian, Alana, and Meredith (although I hesitate to categorize it as such); a murder tied to The Red Room; Alana’s secrecy; dark BDSM; the ebb and flow of Meredith and Julian’s relationship; a tense side plot involving Julian’s friends; and Meredith’s investigative article. Even though I didn’t always understand how the sub-plots tied in together or the characters’ motivations, the story kept me interested, and the writing is quite good. The book ends on one heck of a cliffhanger, and I’m definitely intrigued enough to read book two.
** ARC kindly provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. **
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