Rina Kent

Empire of Desire

honya

3.5. gwyneth shaw kissed nathaniel weaver on her 18. bday. her father's best friend. she was raised alone by her dad and nate because her witch mother "abandoned her" and left her at kingsleys front door. gwyn now has a book written with negative words because she`s unbelievably empathetic and she wants to desensitize herself. one day, the father makes a phone call in his car, about the mother he has no idea who is (they had the baby when drunk and young) and he crashes the car. he gets into a coma and in the meantime, nate marries gwyn. lmao. It is so the the evil grandmother, susan, doesn't win the house back and the shares in Weaver and Shaw (nate´s and kingsley´s law firm, they were once rivals but then became besties). so nate and gwyn marry out of convenience which is such a bad idea considering she´s had a crush on him since out of the womb. she feels like a burden and nate tells her she isn´t. she thinks that he´s in love with aspen though, a hard-working woman at the firm, and she hates her for that. she only wants nate (turned down dude named chris who rides a harley.) nonetheless, one day, at 11, she comes back home on the back of chris´s harley and seems happy. nate is PISSED and they get a lil freakyyy. still can´t get over the good girl bad girl baby girl thing tho. gag. he always preferred peace but since living with gwyn, every day she dances to her playlist while baking cupcakes for the peeps at the firm, he just stands there and watches. forgot to mention that gwyn finally has a small friend working in IT. she´s also into older men xx. nate gets jealous when gwyn is around other men, whether it be daniel, know, or even bastian. one day, debra, nate´s bitch ass mother visits and disapproves of the marriage. he tells her how she tried to kill him when he wasn't even born yet, because they already had a son, nicholas, who was 10 years older, better in every aspect, and the heir. she slaps him and gwyn defends nate. he gets mad at her for stepping in and later that night, she doesn´t come home cause she´s at a club grinding against chris AND alex. BOSSS. he gets her out of there and is again, pissed, tells her to stfu cause she´s drunk like never before. she tells him she´s HIS slut. doesn´t kiss her back cause he doesn´t kiss. she´s burning and jumps into a pool (SHE CANT SWIM) nate gets to her and they have pool sex :DDDDD. she tells him they´re compatible because they both were abandoned by an important person (nick left the country with the love of his life julia (they´re sebs parents) and miraculously they get into a crash a few years later) but after a while, she wants more and he´s not willing to give. she feels like a whore because of him and the dad wakes up. after a few days, he sees his best friend kissing his angel by the pool (at least nate is finally out of his emo era). dad becomes a BEAST and tries to drown nate. king. "best friends don´t touch their friends' kids" is such a savage line. he devoured. dad tells gwyn she has to choose between them. gwyn is depressed but she and nate sneak touches here and there. she finds out aspen is her mother but she didn´t actually abandon her, she just thought her daughter died at 14 because of her evil uncle and aunt who would abuse her so her baby would die. i cannot. kingsley hates aspen and calls her a witch :( he tells nate to go away for a few weeks to see if his daughter gets over him but she doesn´t. she doesn´t even eat vanilla ice cream for a whole week which is a record. so the test failed successfully and dad tells nate he can come back and he doesn´t actually want 10% of his shares yada yada. THEY HaVE TWINS, lily and logan and it is a happy ever after.

Estefany 

3.5 Stars

Me gustó, lo devoré pero, no sé, me faltó algo para terminar de conectar con los personajes y la historia. Me la vi un poco apresurada en algunas partes quizás por eso me costó profundizar en la historia.

No es el mejor concepto para desarrollar un age gap, en realidad me hacía ruido y me incomodaba un poco, pero decidí hacerme la loca y disfrutar del libro porque nate y gwyneth son muy hermosos 😭

idk i didn’t enjoy it. the imagery was overdone. the characters were repeating the exact same thoughts and convo every chapter that i was practically skipping pages

Jessie Stafford

While Empire of Desire isn’t nearly as dark as I’m used to with Rina’s writing it definitely makes up for it with some of the thickest tension I’ve read from her. Gah. Nate and Gwyneth are so combative and entirely combustible. Then having that forbidden element of being her father’s best friend makes for this story to be a solid taboo romance you won’t wanna put down. I really enjoyed the chapters from Kingsley’s perspective. It added an extra level to the angst.

This one will hit you in the feels for a few reasons making it easy to grow attached to these characters. I felt like I was being battered at life right along with them. Suspense lies underneath the sizzling heat of the story keeping you on your toes wondering how things will play out. I clutched my kindle quite a few times, but like always my heart was mended by the end. I’ll always be a sucker for two lonely sounds finding their eternal happiness and that’s exactly what you’ll get with these two.

JoLee

Kent 

Loved Nate as he is standoffish and cold. I would not expect any other way as his best friend Kingsley daughter Gwen makes a pass on him on her 18th birthday. Gwen has some personal issues and I can see her falling for Nate as he was always there when she did not feel good about herself and he would make sure she knew she was a better person. Enjoyed the suspense and Kingsley, Aspen, Knox and Jane were amazing secondary characters I want more of. 4⭐️

Recommend 
* Contemporary Romance
* Age Gap
* Dads Best Friend
* Forbidden Romance
* Marriage Of Convenience

Sarah Williams

I’m actually shocked by how indifferent I ultimately felt about this book. I love age gaps, marriages of convenience, and grumpy/sunshine, so I thought this would be a slam dunk of a romance for me. I was so excited for EMPIRE OF DESIRE that I’m shocked it took me so long to read it, but I had the hardest time staying engaged with it.

While it was fine and interesting enough at points, Nate was way too cold and aloof until he just…wasn’t. He spent most of the book being so cold, and then it was like he flipped a switch and was suddenly all in with Gwen. And yes, I can see why he’d love her, she was delightful, despite being so immature, but his possessiveness and lust for Gwen didn’t morph into feelings in a believable way. I would’ve appreciated more scenes showing their connection; without it, the romance felt satisfying enough but still relatively hollow.

Thank you to the author for the early copy in exchange for my honest review. 


Empire of Desire

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