Review: An Appetite For Blackmail

This is a story made for the Syfy channel! @RavennaTate #Bookreview

 An Appetite For Blackmail by Ravenna Tate

My rating: 3 of 5 stars




This is a story made for the Syfy channel! The concept is intriguing and captures a geeky reader's attention immediately.

In this post-apocalyptic story, the world is under a force of man-made tyranny based on a program controlling weather. A group of hackers introduced a virus into the weather machines and is destroying the world. Only those who went underground are surviving. Harper Mathews is a woman who handles the public relations for a large company run by Arturo Charles Easton, also known as Ace. Harper excels in her computer skills and makes a foolish mistake. It will cost her more than she expects.

The plot of this story is simplistic. The world building is decent. It's the computer virus angle and how the world is still controlled by a nasty group of computer hackers which keeps my attention. I want to learn more about the motives of this group. Why did they create the Tommy Twister virus? What are they gaining and what is their endgame? For these questions to be answered, I'm going to read every book in this series.

The characters in this story are okay. Harper is naïve and sweet. She's the proverbial geeky good girl who makes a stupid mistake whilst drunk. Ace is the requisite sexy billionaire who is lonely and with a tragic past. From a character building perspective, it's mediocre. Ms. Tate does create two characters who are flawed and help each grow beyond their past. Unfortunately, they didn't do much for me. I didn't feel anything for them.

The sex in this story is a bit too tame for me even if it is initially coerced. The chemistry didn't work for me between the two and whilst I understand this is the main plot device to bring the two together, it fell flat for me. The boring sex can easily be bypassed because the good parts are when Harper and Ace interact outside of their sexual parameters and when they start piecing clues together on the identity of the hackers.

I have my suspicions on who is leading the bad guys, but I need more information to determine why he's doing it. I look forward to the next book which features one of the guys in this club of wealthy heroes. Recommended for readers who enjoy speculative fiction with a touch of dubious-consent.



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