Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Sea of Ruin

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Sea of Ruin by Pam Godwin

31 reviews

bluestockingbookshop's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-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

5.0

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hereiskyra's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

SPOILERS…. 🖤🖤🖤

Well, this wasn’t anything I expected it to be. I really went back and forth between bored and interested throughout the entirety of this book. I did feel like we got thrown into the middle of a story and I know King or Libertines exists but I couldn’t finish it.

I felt the progression with Ashley was more natural even though I really wasn’t his biggest fan. I really didn’t like either of the MMC’s until the point in time that their history was revealed… which, I had guessed this was the case a long time before it was revealed but still enjoyed the overall arc it provided.

I think the last 30% or so really saved this for me. It wasn’t my favorite book of all time by any means but it was pretty enjoyable overall. I would’ve loved some humor or banter to break up the dark theme and make the characters a little bit more digestible but it was something different and interesting.

Unfortunately, I don’t think pirate smut is a genre I’ll be delving farther into. 😅

Tropes:

Enemies to Lovers

Captor/Captive

Second Chance

MFM

Spice:

🌶️🌶️🌶️

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shannonspage's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. It’s like a sexy Pirates of the Caribbean if Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner got with James Norrington

For me, the story was fast paced and I never got bored. I loved Bennett and Ashley together and all their hate and banter. I was confused and concerned why Priest betrayed

and cheated on

Bennett but when I learned the reasoning

was because Priest’s lover was Ashley and they had history

I was SHOOK. Such a good plot twist!

My only qualm that is making me not give it 5 stars is that I wish it had more MMF for a MMF book. The ménage doesn’t really occur until the last 25% of the book. The one MMF scene that was written wasn’t heavy in the inclusion of MM and when MM does occur, it is in passing and not actual scenes

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deathmetalheron's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

1.75

Sea of Ruin has a lot going for it. The setting is great, the character dynamics are certainly there, the author knows her chops. The romantic tension is palpable.
But the delivery of many of these aspects is disappointingly subpar. The characters go through humiliation parade after parade. The garnish of shipping and naval vernacular immediately gives way to crude words for sexual interaction, the transition between the two being jarring at best and non-existent at worse.
The height of this book comes at Bennett's capture by Ashley Cutler--the dynamics indicated before suggest a conflict between Bennett as a character and her struggle between two loves. I daresay the second fifth to quarter of this book is pretty much phenomenal.
You could see it in my reading journal, but at the halfway point this book goes from a high tension pirate romance to an absolute slog. Some critical decision are made of Ashley's character that really draw the line and make him seem a bit more manipulative and Bennett (who's been characterized as being headstrong and skeptical) brushes them off. I get this is the appeal of a captor-captive romance but the characterization is quite literally strewn off the deck into the sea, NSFW

squirted into the ocean much like Ashley is described as doing repeatedly.

The final act is an absolute slog where Bennett is NSFW

kidnapped and raped

and then she is

kidnapped and tortured.

The end of the story basically just happens to her. I was turned off from this book at the halfway point, but by the end I was uniquely frustrated.
Even during the good times, the way sexual interaction is written is hysterical and I saved numerous quotes. In a better story, they would be a fun aspect to giggle about and another layer to add to the story's atmosphere, but given the dark humiliating train to the end they come across as severely out of place and way too lighthearted. I was really hoping this book would be it, but MAN it was not.

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