Captive Desire is the sequel to the Whiteside’s addition (Bound by the Dragon) to the extremely successful duology, Captive Dreams with Angela Knight. It is not possible in my opinion to read this new instalment without first reading the earlier title as it expands the world introduced there and one needs the knowledge of the previous story to fully enjoy and understand this one. As I had tremendously enjoyed the first book, I had high hopes for this one.

Whiteside portrayed the interesting and often bizarre world of fanfiction and comic conventions with a great deal of charm but it sometimes became rather convoluted but that might be true as well of reality. Although the two main protagonists have a great deal of sexual chemistry and the bedrooms scenes were extremely steamy, I did not feel like that they progressed naturally in their relationship and that the sex scenes were oft-times gratuitous. Individually, the characters were also not well-developed and even at the end of the book, I do not feel that I knew who they were. The pacing of the story was off and as the plot was not as tightly drawn as needed to pull off a sequel, there were small unexplained gaps in the story here and there. The author might have relied too much on readers knowing the previous story.

This was a mildly entertaining read if one does not enquire into the whys and wherefores of the plot and the reasons the characters have for doing this. If you loved Captives Dreams, it might be nice to revisit the characters.

Overall rating:
Sensuality rating: Explicit

Reviewer: Auriel
December 21, 2009