Review ~ Denied (The One Night Trilogy #2) by Jodi Ellen Malpas

Reviewed by Donna ~ 3.5 Stars

**ARC received for honest review**

“I love your bones, Miller Hart.”

I am afraid that my thoughts from book one, Promised, have not changed. While I felt that this was mildly better what then let it down was the awful editing. I am a huge JEM fan, but sadly this series just does not do it for me. Once again, this book took a long time to read. I can normally read a book a day but this one took four days.

These two do seem to be going round in circles; it just seemed to be a permanent game of tug of war for the majority of the book. The tooing and froing became a tad boring after a while and I think that is what led me to disconnect from the characters somewhat and also disengage from the plot itself.

I will say though that it really picked up in the last 30% and once again I am left with that, I really want to know what happens going forward. It was the same format as Promised, like a three course meal, the starter was great, the main meal was a bit bland but the dessert is the best bit that we all look forward to.

I will say I love Miller Hart; he really grew on me in this book, if you were a bit unsure about him in Promised I am sure your opinion will change in Denied. We learn a lot about his background in this book and that goes some ways into explaining why he is the man he is today.

“Because when I look into those bottomless sparkling sapphires, I see freedom.”

Slowly but surely I do feel that these two are becoming a stronger unit, the trouble is that now they have kind of got themselves on track they now have to deal with “the interferers.” Miller’s life is extremely complicated, we always knew he had secrets and these do come to the forefront in this book. For once in his life though, he is trying to put himself first, together with Livy. He is in one tangled web though and I just feel that he may just be the fly caught in the middle and the spiders are there on the outskirts waiting to scramble in and eat their prey.

“Keep me in this beautiful light place with you…Don’t let me fall back into the darkness, I beg you.”

The majority of this book was cohesive and understandable but there were parts where it just seemed to jump around and this is where I blame the editing. Normally I do not mention the odd mistake here or there but there were quite a few and they have to be mentioned. JEM’s signature writing was present and at times I was fully engaged in the story but the flow was off and if it was any other author I probably would have DNF’d but this is JEM so wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt.

I will be reading book 3 as I do want to see where this story is going, I have never given up on a series and I do not intend to do so now. I just hope that Promised and Denied are the slow burn leading up to a climactic finale. If anyone can pull it out of the bag JEM can.
“And I’m deeply fascinated by you, Olivia Taylor.”