Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades Darker

Romantic, liberating and totally addictive, the Fifty Shades trilogy will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you for ever...

Daunted by the dark secrets of the tormented young entrepreneur Christian Grey, Ana Steele has broken off their relationship to start a new career with a US publishing house.

But desire for Grey still dominates her every waking thought, and when he proposes a new arrangement, she cannot resist. Soon she is learning more about the harrowing past of her damaged, driven and demanding Fifty Shades than she ever thought possible.

But while Grey wrestles with his inner demons, Ana must make the most important decision of her life. And it's a decision she can only make on her own ...

Review After reading the first book by E.L James, Fifty Shades of Grey I was really looking forward to continuing the trilogy with the second book Fifty Shades Darker.
The story begins where the first book, Fifty Shades of Grey, left off. Anastasia, unable to deal with Christian's need to dominate in a relationship and cause pain for pleasure has left the relationship and is starting her new life in Seattle.

Christian soon reappears and offers to take Anastasia to her friend Jose's exhibition, straight away rekindling their relationship. All of a sudden you find yourself thrown right back into the issues that the couple faced in the first book, only this time they include a crazy ex-girlfriend, a sleazy boss and Christian's all to secretive past.

While this book holds to its young adult all-too-naughty-it's-addictive roots, the characters continue to develop as Christian begins to face his problems with getting close to others and Ana begins to grow up and become a stronger woman. Unfortunately, they both seem to deal with any issue in their daily life (including food) with sex and it often becomes a matter of pages before anything was even achieved!

You can forgive the book for its ridiculously strong parallels to Twilight, and you can forgive the book for making you blush all too often, the part I had trouble forgiving was the timeframe of the story. So much happens in a matter of days in this relationship that it just becomes too unbelievable after a while. I often found myself, in-between blushing, sighing in exasperation of these two people who drive each other so crazy in one month that you can't possibly see a future for them.

But all that said, I still enjoyed the book, it kept me reading, and the cliff-hanger at the end will keep me reading the third book as well. Again, another recommendation I will reserve for the closest of friends.
Fiona Tew

For more reviews see: Fifty Shades of Grey Review and Fifty Shades Freed Review.

E L James is a former TV executive, wife and mother of two based in West London. Since early childhood she dreamed of writing stories that readers would fall in love with, but put those dreams on hold to focus on her family and career. She finally plucked up the courage to put pen to paper with her first novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

Fifty Shades Darker
Random House Australia