🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 3.8/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read The Risk yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
I liked this book significantly more than I expected to. A woman who I assume was gang raped at sixteen, and I assume watched her brother be killed, spent years training herself into a cold calculated vigilante, and is now hunting down the men responsible one by one while simultaneously helping the FBI profiler assigned to catch her profile herself. If that sounds unhinged, it is. It is also genuinely compelling.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
Lana
Lana Myers has been planning this for a long time. When she was sixteen, what I inferred from the book, but was never cleanly spelled out, was that a group of men attacked her. She does not say explicitly what happened but the implication is clear. Her brother was there and I also believe they killed him — again not clear yet. He did not survive. The reason behind the attack has something to do with their father, a storyline this first book raises but does not resolve, which is fine because this is a series.
For years Lana has been building toward this. She has trained herself. She has a plan. She has Jake, her friend and partner in all of this, who has been faking being wheelchair-bound for three years specifically so that if they are ever investigated, he has the cover of being physically unable to have committed the crimes. It is an extremely thorough alibi and frankly I respect the commitment.
Her method for the men she hunts is deliberate and specific. She surveils them, learns their routines, and then takes three days. What she does to them over those three days is tied directly to what they did to her. She takes flesh. She removes specific anatomy. She paints the walls with their blood. These men did terrible things and she has decided they are going to answer for every single one of them.
Meanwhile everyone, including the FBI, assumes they are looking for a male killer. Nobody is considering that it might be a woman. Lana has also taken on the identity of a dead woman, which is both very smart and, as the book’s ending makes clear, is going to become a significant problem.
Logan
Logan Bennett is an FBI profiler and he is very good at his job. He meets Lana at the beginning of the book and they read each other immediately. Both of them are clearly drawn to the other. What follows is one of the more genuinely ironic setups in dark romance: she ends up helping him with his cases. They have just started talking and Logan just showing up at her house without warning is both a very creepy thing to do when they have barely started seeing each other and also a running nightmare for Lana given what is in her house. At one point he arrives and she has blood in her hair. If he had been ten minutes earlier he would have caught her covered in it after having killed and tortured two men. She has surveillance equipment, evidence, everything he would need to connect her to the case. The balancing act of genuinely liking this man and also being the person he is hunting is the heart of this book and it works.
He does a background check on her, which is a very FBI agent thing to do. The person running the check keeps digging because she finds something that does not add up.
The Butcher
There is another killer operating in parallel, someone the media refers to as the Butcher, and Lana becomes convinced this person is going to come after Logan. Her logic: the best way to hurt Logan is to go after his girlfriend. So she decides she will be ready when the Butcher comes for her. Logan is off working a case. Lana is home waiting.
And then there is a knock at the door. It is the woman who ran the background check on her. She tells Lana she will make this quick and asks her one question.
Why did you take on the identity of a dead woman?
That is where the book ends.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥🔥 — Present and consistent. The romance between Lana and Logan runs hot throughout and the tension of her double life adds a layer to every interaction between them.
The Ending Explained — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied with the setup, frustrated in the best possible way by the cliffhanger. The background check woman showing up at the door is a genuinely good ending beat for a first book. Picking up book two immediately is not optional.
Would I Reread It?
Continuing the series — not rereading this one specifically.
Who Is This For
Dark romance readers who are comfortable with graphic content and a morally complex female lead. Anyone who likes the idea of a vigilante romance where the person being hunted is also sleeping with the hunter. Not for the faint of heart. Very much for people who like their romance with serious edge.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book
Amazon
📱 Ebook
Amazon Kindle
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📚 More from the Mindf*ck Series
- Book 1 — The Risk | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 3.8/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — Read the Review
- Book 2 — Sidetracked | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — Read the Review
- Book 3 — Scarlett Angel | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.3/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — Read the Review
- Book 4 — All the Lies | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 3.2/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — Read the Review
- Book 5 — Paint It All Red | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 — Read the Review
- Full Series Review — Is the Mindf*cked Series Worth Reading? — Read the Review
Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Series: Mindfck Series Book 1 | Genre: Dark Romance, Romantic Suspense | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥*
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