Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - The Ritual

Brighton University is home of the LORDS. A secret society that runs on violence and includes the most powerful men in the world. Trying to escape her expectations of her parents, Blakely is thrown into this chaotic world when she agrees to be Ryot's "chosen".

You need to check the TW before reading this one and check your feminism at the door, because this was dark.

The LORDS, a glorified frat, have high expectations for their members. Their initiation process includes forced celibacy and murder. After three years of celibacy, each man gets to chose a "chosen" (essentially a sex-slave). Of course Ryat, psychopath that he is, is a member.

Blakely's boyfriend of 3 years (another psychopath) is also a member of the LORDS, but she has no knowledge of it. She is also in a forced arranged marriage with this douche, no biggie. How has she been in the dark this long, considering both her boyfriend and father are members?

Anyways, Ryot choses Blakely as his "chosen" after being told to do so from her FATHER. WTF! and it spirals out for control from there.

Ryot is your typical controlling, possessive, jealous asshole. Blakely is the innocent virgin who is magically into all these intense acts .. ya ok... She is honestly the most idiotic and naive character.

Their connection was very forced, shallow, and based on a physical connection. He protects her, she gives herself to him, that pretty much sums it up. This is basically Stockholm Syndrome at its worst.

Tropes: dark, secret society, touch her/you die

Content Warnings

im_s_morgan's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s giving Damon and Elena with the toxicity, but yet still working. That being said, I still love this book and “touch her, I’ll kill you” trope is slowly becoming my favorite. I ain’t going to lie and say that I did google a certain part of the book(ifykyk) to see what actually happened because I couldn’t continue reading if it was true. I 100% recommend.

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maryp20's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This was such an easy read for me and I enjoyed it so much. It honestly was 10% plot and 90% smut and I was completely okay with that. It was super fast paced so I wish it had slowed down a bit and added in some more detail or character development but all in all I enjoyed it and will definitely continue the series.

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bergha1998's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Woah this is a dark romance, check those TWs. The plot was great, I’m not usually into college romances, but it being so secret society focused kept it very interesting. The spice is crazy: drugs, primal, dubcon, breath play, and a lot of BDSM. I loved how possessive Ryat was from the start.

Dark Romance, Arranged Relationship, Secret Society, 4 1/2 🔥

Content Warnings

ghastlywicked's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

teebearrr's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

At first I thought I was going to be overwhelmed with how much smut there was and little to no plot but I knew with 600 pages, there had to be more; I just had to be patient! The plot got reallly interesting and when it finally picked up on it, the smut added to it made it very enjoyable. I wanted to hate Ryat with how harsh he was & it was all just a game to him but as the story went on, his character development was beautiful. While the fmc was great, at times I found her a bit annoying. I felt she was very naive / oblivious, like girl the puzzle pieces are in front of you - put two & two together! But I do feel like Ryat & Blake were made for each other. He loved her & accepted her for who she was as she did for him too. The epilogue was 🥹. Matt & Valerie can go to h*ll where they belong &

Spoiler

I’m surprise there was no growing relationship with her biological mother (I guess she disliked her that much)

. Other then that, the read was very addicting and I couldn’t put it down! Although I heard the second standalone in this series gets even more smuttier, I hope the plot will balance it out like book one! I cant wait to finish the rest of the series.

Content Warnings

lucymunoz111's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Title: The Ritual

Author: Shantel Tessier

Format: Kindle Unlimited

What I liked:

▪️ I loved the characters, especially Ryat
▪️Main characters have great chemistry

What I didn’t like:

▪️ A little long, I felt some parts could’ve been skipped

Series?

▪️Yes, Book 1 of The LORDS series

Tropes:

▪️ Dark College Romance

▪️Alphahole

▪️Touch her and die
▪️Secret Society

Trigger Warnings:

▪️Sexual Content

▪️Violence

Overall Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spice Level:

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

▪️Degradation

▪️BDSM

▪️CNC

▪️Forced-Sex fantasies

▪️Praise kink

▪️Voyeurism

Content Warnings

leatherboundriot's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

DNF at 26%
I wanted to like this one so badly. There were some aspects that really intrigued me but the writing style, characterizations, and pacing just weren’t it for me.

Second Read Review: Update 08.24.2023

So I went back and finished the book. I have to admit that it surprised me. The first time I made it about a quarter of the way through and didn't really connect with the characters or plot. Diving back in at that point, I did continue to struggle with it for a while, but around 50-60% it got better. I struggled with the pacing of the book because it felt like it was moving very fast-- and it was, but in the second half of the book, we started to get more substance to the story that drew me in.

The spice was 10/10, that was never the issue for me.

All in all, I think I'm on board to read more in this series. Maybe not the entire thing, or even in order, but there are some other characters that I would like to know more about. I've got my eyes on you, Ty 👀

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