When she was fifteen, Juliette Portland was brutally gang raped by Dornan Ross and his sons, who then shot her father in cold blood. Several years later, and with a new identity as Sammi, after undergoing plastic surgery, she is back for revenge on the family. Having worked out carefully what she is going to do, she decides to put her new face to the test and gets herself hired into the Strip club that Dornan Ross now runs. Ross unwittingly takes a liking her immediately and sets her up as his newest girlfriend allowing her closer access to him and his sons. The sons that include her childhood sweetheart Jase, the only one not to participate all those years ago.

This is quite a short, brutal book with fairly graphic scenes of violence and sex being depicted. The lead character may have come in seeking vengeance, but it’s not all encompassing and its obvious that she only wants it on her terms. The antagonists, especially Dornan Ross are reasonably nasty pieces of work, so you wont feel so bad when something eventually happens to them. The plot doesn’t actually contain a lot, other than show the dangers of what she is facing, her allies and enemies in the area and the plans she has. The little pieces of backstory are nicely spaced and help to flesh out the plot giving good reasons and motivations for the characters. The writing is fairly snappy and descriptive and you get a reasonable feel for the characters and why they act the way they do.

There are two main problems with the story though. Firstly, the change of plan halfway through, from trying to find a video of her assault to Juliette deciding to outright kill them all. What’s disappointing is that the first murder takes place at the end of the book more or less out of nowhere. There are a few hints as to how she is going to do it, but the actual details of what she does to set it up seem to skip by and it goes straight to the deed itself. The second slightly disappointing thing is that it appears the only way she can get close to take her revenge is to have lots of sex with the man she hates the most. No trying to take them down one at a time, preying on each one’s problems, but sleeping with the father, hoping she isn’t recognised, even when she has a major identifying factor on her hip, which she hastily has to have covered up. Good planning there. You could say, this was her using feminine wiles, but there’s little that’s cunning in her process.

All in all, If you like this kind of story, this is still a well written and entertaining addition to the genre. However, I can see where this set of books is going, although I would imagine the tension is going to be ratcheted up through out the ongoing series, but you can probably jump straight to the last one, catch up on all the plot twists and still see the ending.