The Last King by Katee Robert | Review

Publisher: Forever
Release Date: April 3, 2018 (out now!)
Source of my copy: publisher
Series: The Kings #1
My rating:

Synopsis
Ultra wealthy and super powerful, the King family is like royalty in Texas. But who will keep the throne? New York Times bestselling author Katee Robert introduces a red-hot new series.

THE MAN SHE HATES TO LOVE

Beckett King just inherited his father's fortune, his company-and all his enemies. If he's going to stay on top, he needs someone he can trust beside him. And though they've been rivals for years, there's no one he trusts more than Samara Mallick.

The rebel. That's how Samara has always thought of Beckett. And he's absolutely living up to his unpredictable ways when he strides into her office and asks for help. She can't help wondering if it's a legit request or just a ploy to get her into bed. Not that she'd mind either one. After all, she likes to live on the edge too.

But soon the threats to the King empire are mounting, and the two find family secrets darker than they ever imagined and dangerous enough to get them both killed.

Sometimes even if you're not the biggest fan of the story, but when you really jell with an author's writing it makes all the difference.

The Last King is the first book in Ms. Robert's new series that revolves around the very wealthy and powerful King family of Texas. Our hero is Beckett King who just inherited the King fortune after the sudden death of his father. Even though he didn't get along with his dad, Beckett suspected that his dad's death was no accident. He thought his father's sister Lydia King, who has had a bone to pick with Beckett's side of the family ever since she was passed over as heir in favor of Beckett's father, had something to do with it. Standing between Beckett and Lydia is our heroine Samara Mallick, Lydia's second-in-command at her company.

Beckett and Samara had been rivals for years, often going after the same lucrative accounts for their respective companies. But, there have always been this undeniable sexual attraction between them. Now, they find themselves working together to figure out what really happened to Beckett's father and what exactly was Lydia's role in it.

I read The Last King by partly reading a physical copy and listening to the audiobook. The audiobook helped me keep reading because I was experiencing a horrible reading slump. I had hoped that The Last King would help get out of my slump, but sadly it didn't. While I found Ms. Robert's writing style to be very readable, I found the plot and the characters not very exciting.

My main issue with this book were the characters, particularly Samara. But, let's start with Beckett. He's kind of your run-of-the-mill dark, sexy, and supposedly charismatic businessman. I did like how much he loved his mom and how much he treasured his childhood mementos and that he was the one who wanted to have a real relationship with Samara—it was kind of refreshing to have the man be the one who wanted to pursue something more besides banging their brains out. But, overall, Beckett was just okay. He didn't wow me—if he stood in a line with a bunch of other dark, sexy, tortured-businessman type of heroes he'd get lost in the crowd. **shrugs**

As for Samara, she frustrated me. She was really stuck on how she grew up poor and how she can't trust rich people because at the end of the day she's a disposable employee. She also obsessed about how she needed to stay away from Beckett because he's rich and she didn't want to end up like her mom who fell in love with a rich dude, got pregnant, and was abandoned to raise Samara on her own. I wouldn't have had any problems with it, but it became a cycle of "I can't trust Beckett, "Beckett gives her a look, she bangs Beckett, rinse, repeat.

And speaking of sex, I'm usually on the side of yes, give me all the smutty scenes, but in this instance I agree with my mom (who read this book before I did and also loves her smut): There were too many sexy scenes. It dragged the story down because they all read pretty much the same and most didn't have anything to do with moving the plot along.

As for the plot, it revolved around who killed Beckett's father and who's trying to sabotage Beckett, but it wasn't very exciting or there wasn't much action leading up to the final showdown. We were just plodding along through all the sex scenes and all of Samara's inner monologue about how she can't trust Beckett because he's going to screw her over because that's what rich people do.

Like I said, I like the author's writing so The Last King won't be my last book by her. I also appreciated that she gave us a heroine who is of color (Samara is Indian), so kudos to her for that. The next book in the series, The Fearless King, is going to be about Lydia's daughter and Samara's best friend Journey and Beckett's best friend Frank (who is African American), so I'm looking forward to it.