This review contains spoilers fro Cruel Beginnings.
A super quick read clocking in at under forty pages, this novella sets up for the first installment of the Blackmore University series, Cruel Intentions, with Kaye and Xavier's story. I downloaded this on Stuff Your Kindle day and did not even realize the page count was that of a short story, but I have been in a reading slump for nearly two weeks and needed something to get me back into the groove of things.
When Xavier returns home from France, he finds his parents fighting over the fact that his father is leaving her for another woman, a client nonetheless, that he helped get a divorce from an abusive man. His father gives him the choice to move in with his new girlfriend and her daughter, but Xavier is anything but excited by the prospect. After showing up to this woman's house, he causes a scene and his father quite literally knocks some sense into him, really adopting the "these hands are rated E for everyone" lifestyle by punching his own son. Ridiculous.
You can tell that tensions are going to be high for the rest of the series, especially between Xavier and his father, but most importantly between Kaye and Xavier. He really has set his eyes on this new person in his life, essentially just collateral damage in his wave of destruction to retaliate against his father. I do wish that this novella was a touch longer and covered a little more on Kaye -- we learn a lot about Xavier in this short installment, but barely get to know anything about Kaye except for her age and a little backstory on her mother.
Xavier is about to start college and well, Kaye... is fifteen. Nothing happens between them in this novella that is more than a kiss, but this series is definitely leaning on the more taboo side of romance. Right off the bat, Xavier wants nothing to do with Kaye and her mother -- after all, her mother is the reason that his parents are divorcing. He essentially makes it his mission in this prequel to tell Kaye that he is going to make her life as complicated as possible because of what her mother has done.
This prequel definitely has me intrigued on what happens next in Cruel Intentions, and I may find myself revisiting this series in the future. If you are a fan of bully romances, I would recommend the Saint View High series by Elle Thorpe and The Dare by Harley LaRoux.
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