Maya Banks’ Dominated is an Urban Fairytale with a Suspenseful Twist

It sounds like every girl’s fantasy, except that over the course of the first novel, the romance between the sweet yet sultry Evangeline and the mysterious and commanding Drake Donovan felt more like Beauty and the Beast; for Drake and his team of “Enforcers” were keeping secrets from Evangeline which could destroy their relationship. By the end of Book 1, being kept in the dark has forced Evangeline to flee, when she believes Drake to have revealed his true beastly nature, and thinks that everything they had together was a lie.
Book two, Dominated, begins with Drake and his team of equally attractive and possessive-of-Evangeline thugs searching for the girl he was forced to betray in order to protect her. Although the nature of Drake’s seedy business is never fully explained—though it appears to be some sort of mob association with a resulting turf war with other powerful families. Regardless, Evangeline decides to take him at his word and try again, and they embark on a relationship with a truer understanding: Drake’s need for dominance stems not only from a sexual urge to control, but from the very basic fact that if Evangeline does not obey him, her life could be at risk.

Both the internal relationship storyline as well as the external plot feel high stakes—Drake takes Evangeline to her sexual limits while she encourages him to reveal more about his (naturally) tortured past. One of the things I like most about Drake is his relationship with the other members of his team, his chosen family, which is often fraught with tension; Silas, the favorite of the group (and subject of a future Enforcers novel) is torn between his loyalties to Drake and Evangeline. When a leak in Drake’s team causes him to think that Evangeline has betrayed the nature of his shady business ventures to the police, he forces her to leave, even when she’s on her knees begging him to believe her—and Silas is the one who stands up to him. Drake’s inability to truly trust, paired with Evangeline’s open heart, is a recipe for disaster, unless Drake can learn to truly let his guard down, if only around the woman he loves.

Eventually Evangeline must make a difficult choice: stay with Drake and risk her future, or leave New York and pretend their whirlwind romance never happened.
With fast-paced plot, a well-balanced narrative between tension and romance, and some truly illicit, steamy scenes, Banks’ continuation of the series holds up well to its initial premise. Add in a mafia showdown and a few surprises, and Drake and Evangeline’s romantic happily ever after is well worth the wait. I’m looking forward to the next volume in the series, Kept, which will tell Silas’ story—and hopefully give us even more glimpses into the dark underworld that Drake Donovan controls, and which his men enforce.
Dominated is on shelves now.