Review: Dark Restraint by Katee Robert

Title: Dark Restraint
Author: Katee Robert
Series: Dark Olympus #7
Publication: August 6, 2024 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Dark Romance
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Rating: 3/5★

Ariadne Vitalis is in trouble. She’s betrayed her father—and his benefactor—and now she’s left to rely on the questionable mercy of Olympus to keep her safe. As with everything in this city, mercy comes with a price. For Ariadne, that means a marriage to Dionysus. She has no choice but to agree, even if there’s only one man she’s ever wanted—a man she’s feared just as much as she desires.

The Minotaur never had any illusions about Minos’s plans. He was willing to get his hands dirty as long as the old man kept his word—at the end of this, the Minotaur would be given Ariadne as a reward. Nowhere in that deal was her walking down the aisle to a different man. She’s meant for him, and he means to have her.

Ariadne knows better than to encourage the Minotaur. Her relationship with her new fiancé might be more friendship than burning passion, but she is all too aware of how much fiery passion can hurt. She and the Minotaur are no good for each other. She can never forgive him for what he’s done, and he can never change. But when his hands are on her body and his wicked words are whispered in her ear, she might just be willing to let all of Olympus burn…

Dark Restraint seventh book in the Dark Olympus series by Katee Robert. This wasn’t my favorite book of the series and maybe even my least favorite. The previous book, Midnight Ruin, was such a big hit for me that I couldn’t help being a little disappointed by this one. Don’t get me wrong, it had good things going for it but it wasn’t enough for me to rate it more than the three stars that I gave it. And it’s a fair rating, in my opinion for this book.

This instalment features Ariadne Vitalis and Asterion who is also know as The Minotaur. In the story Ariadne is announced to be engaged to Dionysus while loving Asterion but seeing as he’s her father’s henchman she didn’t see any way forward with that. This is a very simple explanation of the romantic plot but I just didn’t love Asterion and Ariadne as some of the other couples in the other books. The spicy scenes were hot, yes. Katee Robert can write very intense and steamy romantic scenes. But with these two, I just didn’t feel it as much.

If anything, the overarching plot with the Olympus politics and everything was more interesting to me than the romance between Ariadne and Asterion. It’s not like I hated them or anything. They were okay characters but in the end I wasn’t as much invested in them. I ended up liking, like I said, the overarching plot more and also loved the secondary characters like Dionysus, Hera and Psyche (from book 2, Electric Idol) who made an appearance as well, more than the main couple.

The book did a good job to set up for the series slowly ending, which I might cry about because I don’t think I’ve ever read a long series like this one where I’ve consistently have been reading it. It’s going to be a 10-part series so we should be getting three more books. And I’m really looking forward to reading those as I’m really interested to see how it’ll all end and for the stories of the couples in those books. Book 8 will be about Icarus and Poseidon which I’m really exited about since we haven’t seen much of Poseidon yet. I wonder what their vibe is going to be. Book 9 will be about Hera and Zeus. I’m the most excitedly about them with everything I know. And the 10th and final book will be about Hermes and two characters but we don’t know who those will be. I’m hoping for at least Dionysus since he was in Dark Restraint and I really liked him but we shall see!