Paladin

 

Title: Paladin

Author: Onley James

Published: May 16, 2023

Pages: 334

Genre: LGBTQ Dark Romance

Arseny Lebedev lives a normal life. During the day, he’s a mechanic. At night, he livestreams a fairy tale video game called Paladin. And sometimes—only sometimes—he kills people. But they all deserve it.

Ever doesn’t know his last name. He doesn’t know much of anything. Most of his life has been torture, bought and sold by a woman who calls herself his mother. He’s resigned himself to a life of servitude, until he meets Arsen.

The moment Arsen sees Ever, they’re bonded. Ever is both fragile and feral, willing to defend himself with any tool at his disposal, even teeth. Arsen is color and light, a beacon in Ever’s darkness, as brave as the knight in the game he plays.

Arsen protects Ever fiercely, but just when he feels safe, someone attempts to drag him back to his old life, reminding him that reality isn’t fairy tales or video games. He knows staying puts Arsen in danger. But Arsen insists they’re safer together. Can Ever truly have his happily ever after or is it game over?

I have been drooling for Arsen's book since we met him in Moonstruck. I am now gnashing my teeth for Cree's book, but we're not there yet!!! 

Arsen is a mechanic who sometimes kills bad people in his neighborhood. He is one cog of a little vigilante machine that Jericho runs. He's on a seemingly easy job, kill the child abuser, when he discovers she has a boy locked in a closet wearing a shock collar with a GPS chip like a dog.

Ever is that boy who was locked in a closet. He may be teeny, but he's 19 and nearly feral. Arsen calls in reinforcements, they remove his GPS chip and they take him home. This is the first chapter people! 

Arsen is hot and everyone in town wants him. Ever is compared to MANY things, but I think bush baby was my favorite. So he's adorable and naive and in a near constant state of wonder at all of the new things in his world. He's also in a constant state of near-panic that bad things are just around the corner. But I mean, he was a slave in a closet so I can't say I blame him. And because this is a dark romance...the bad things really are just around the corner. (Also because this is dark romance there is a LOT of sex and it is HOT.)

BUT we have our favorite vigilantes to save this day. Ultimately, I loved it! It has the pit falls of many "first of a planned series" books where you can feel a lot of set up happening and you know you're not going to get any resolution for a while yet. But boy am I looking forward to those resolutions!

Ratings

Stars: 4/5

Spice: 4/5