This is one of those series that I love what's trying to do more than I love what it does... 
 Here's the thing, if you go into this with an ounce of thought, you will be conflicted. I was. It is a smarter book than the genre really requires, but not smart enough to accomplish it's lofty message and themes. On one hand you have a book about sexuality and romance between abuse victims, and all the mental and emotional trials and tribulations, on the other hand you actually have two abuse victims in a borderline abusive relationship with each other. It's trying to be this dark, complicated romance, and while it delivers in conflict, the minute they start sexing their way back together you realize...no. He won't let her go anywhere without security. He uses sex as a way to get what he wants from her or to distract her out of an argument. He held back seriously important information regarding Eva's safety. He literally uplifts her entire life to revolve around their relationship because he's so obsessed with her. 
 But such is the genre. Just because it's the thinking woman's fifty shades of grey doesn't mean you have to think all that hard, so if you turn your brain off to it's flaws (don't bitch at me, I like these books despite their deep flaws) you come away with a really sexy book. Like, obscenely sexy. Sylvia Day found her niche in very possessive, dominating, passionate sex and she really has no holds barred on having these two fuck each others brains out. Hell, a common theme is physical pleasure after having your body abused at a young age, and painstaking lengths are taken for Eva's pleasure: physical and emotional (can you say multiple orgasms and enough foreplay to accommodate an impressive member, Thank you Sylvia Day). So sexually, this is the series that I give a massive thumbs up to (I'd say two thumbs but the other hand is busy. Ugh. I'm sorry. That joke was awful.) 
 The side characters, for the most part are layered, real people with lives of their own. This was an aspect that was really well done, Eva is not a Bella Swan with one friend that she immediately isolates herself from once a guy gets in the picture. Eva has close friends, family, work colleagues, and a network of her own connections. They don't exist to help Eva, she helps them just as often. 
 So switch off that brain and crank out this books in a week. I did. They were fun while still maintaining a legitimate level of tension and drama. And porn. I'm not forgetting the porn. 
 Still, some issues I'd like to address: 
 Problems with the series: 
 1. We find out in the second book they've been together maybe a month. A MONTH. And already we have exes trying to sabotage everything, murder, nearly constant fighting, revealing tragic backstories, meeting the family, family drama, exes beating the shit out of friends as a warning, a break up, finding out it was never a break up because Gideon wouldn't allow it (we'll look at this later), and several instances of attempted sleep-walking rape. 
 This of over the course of like six weeks. And account for all the time they spend apart because they're mad. This relationship's pace is insane. 
 2. Dealing with his own demons or not, protecting her "for her own good" or not, loving her to oblivion or not, it would be generous to classify Gideon as borderline abusive, and that's on a good day. I'm not backing down on this, he's a control freak at best, a psychopath at worst. But it is brought up as a point of conflict between the two characters, so we'll see if it's properly dealt with. His attachment to Eva is unhealthy. There. I said it. Eva is perfectly functionally socially without him, but Gideon's friends strike me as business connections exclusively. There's maybe three scenes in all of the books where we see him mesh with another dude. Usually Cary. 
 3. When you're writing a series of books where the relationships primary way of progressing is sexual...there's eventually going to be a point where my typical vanilla comfort zone is going to be evacuated. What I'm saying is, anal play is a subplot. UGH. A light one, but... gross. 
 4. Giddeon's excess of bodily fluids. I'm sorry, fantasy or not, no man has that much stamina. 
 5. Billionaire playboy suddenly into monogamous BDSM. This premise, I can't believe I'm saying this, has been done to death. 
 6. Eva has no power. Safeword be damned, once she leaves the bedroom, Gideon fucking owns her. Her objections are met with no more than annoyance on Gideon's part, and rarely given much change. 
 7. Literal kidnapping to get married. She's not allowed to say no. I'm not okay with this. You twenty five year old girlfriend shouldn't ave to put up with you for life Gideon. I'm not saying 19 year old me wouldn't, but give your real girlfriend a break. 
 8. I hate Eva's mom, and she's in way too much of these books. Social climbing whore. And Cary. I don't get Cary's plotline. He's bisexual so that means he has to fuck men and women equally? That's not how it works. Bisexuals are capable of monogamy with one gender. Yet every time he cheats on his boyfriend with a girl, everyone shrugs and says "what can you do? He's bisexual." It makes no fucking sense. 
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 I think because we're three books into a five book series, we still have a lot to get resolved. If anything gets resolved with a pregnancy subplot, I'm bowing out, I'm sorry. Pregnancy subplots are so knee-jerk in this mommy porn genre (huh, happy ending through a vanilla nuclear family, I wonder what audience that's catering to. You made the right choice, Middle American Moms). I'm sick to death of them. I loathe them. Making a life together on the building blocks of an unplanned pregnancy is such a fucking buzzkill, and it slaughters romance because it makes the couple staying together seem incredibly forced. 
 Sorry, I spent way too much time ranting about this, I just really, really don't want it to happen. 
 This series is walking a precarious line, any miss-managing or sophomore slumping could send it careening into a Fifty Shades pile of shit, and it really is better than all that. I'm rooting for more Gideon, because let's face it, despite his insanely creepy behaviors, he's one of the best things put to paper.