I’m honestly not quite sure what the author was going for with this book. From the blurb (and the title), I was expecting a sort of dark story about a younger, maybe arrogant man who falls under the thrall of his domineering valet and is, I don’t know, humbled or something. Sort of an age difference, power imbalance type of thing. I admit it’s not my usual fare but I guess I was in the mood for it and this book looked to be that. However, this book is nowhere near that.
With a title like “The Cocky Valet,” I was sort of expecting the valet to be, well, cocky. And he was for the first couple chapters, I guess, but it seemed like it was building to more and it just never happened. The valet (his name escapes me and I literally just finished listening to it, never a good sign. It’s Brand, I just looked it up) quickly falls for the younger man (Ash) and soon after, the book becomes a typical spoopy romance, only not particularly interesting. And that’s, like, a fifth of the way through the book. I listened to a bit more and it just seemed to be going in a much more romantic direction than I had anticipated. And I love romance novels, but trust me, you can find much better ones than this. So, I consigned this one to the DNF pile. It’s not “bad,” really, but don’t expect anything particularly edgy or dark, or indeed anything that stands out from the crowd at all.