Review: The Professional Pt. 2 by Kresley Cole

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole comes The Professional—the second scorching installment in her Game Maker series, an erotica collection that has readers asking: How hot is too hot?

He makes the rules...
Mafiya enforcer Aleksandr "The Siberian" Sevastyan’s loyalty to his boss is unwavering, until he meets the boss’s long-lost daughter, a curvy, tantalizing redhead who haunts his mind and heats his blood like no other. Ordered to protect her, Sevastyan will do anything to possess her as well—on his own wicked terms.

Rules are made to be broken...
PhD student Natalie Porter had barely recovered from her first sight of the breathtakingly gorgeous Sevastyan before the professional hit man whisks her away to Russia, thrusting her into a world of extreme wealth and wanton pleasures. With every day she spends under his protection, she falls deeper under his masterful spell.

Are you ready to play?
Yet all is not as it seems. To remove Natalie from an enemy’s reach, Sevastyan spirits her into hiding. From an opulent palace in Russia to the decadent playgrounds of the mega-wealthy in Paris, the two lovers will discover that even their darkest—and most forbidden—fantasies can come true...

One of the drawbacks of first person point of view is that we truly only hear from one person.

I think many of my problems with this serial/book could have been solved by third person pov.

I think that KC wrote this in first person to show that when Natalie goes much farther than she ever would, and when Sevastyn pushes her limits, her boundaries and overrules her agency, that with Natalie narrating we can see she really does love what he does to and for her.

The down side is that I don’t like Sevastyn. I, as a reader, know so little about him and it just reinforces how little Natalie knows about him. Which on one hand might be the point, but it didn’t work for me. If you’re going to write about an alphahole, and you all know I love me some alphahole heroes, then it has to make him still look like an alpha hero rather than just an alpha male asshole.

With decisions being forced from Natalie left and right, she didn’t want anything permanent. But she didn’t have a choice. So she asked for some breathing room, but it’s all or nothing. And Sevastyn walks in on this conversation between her and her father, thus hearing it out of context. This is where my distaste of Sevastyn was sort of cemented. She says at one point, I don’t know anything about you, he fires back with you know all you need to. But he gets on her for wanting him for sexytimes, but not as a husband. Dude, she’s known you for 2 weeks. Slow your roll. But that’s also part of this book-new rules for her new life. It’s all or nothing, decide now.

I love KC’s brand of snark because it’s so much fun! And it works here, too, but I can’t get behind Sevastyn without knowing more.

Hopefully the next installment will let me (and Natalie) get to know him better. In the mean time, I’m truly relying on KC’s master planning skills to turn me around. And since she is one of my all-time favorite authors ever, I have no problem assuming that there’s something about Sevastyn that will redeem him for me. Any other author, though, and no way would I be able to give the benefit of the doubt. This guy isn’t an alphahole, he’s just a dick. His protective instincts aside, since that’s his you know, job, it’s his treatment of Natalie in every other situation. Heaven forbid he throw her a bone.

Maybe this isn’t the best book to turn into a serial. It might be better read all at once. This book really does feel as if it’s a novel chopped into 3 parts. For a true well-done serial, try either Ilona Andrews’ free serial on their blog called Sweep in Peace, or Meljean Brook’s The Kraken King.