Credence

Title: Credence
Author: Penelope Douglas
First Published: January 13, 2020
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 487
Genre: Coming of Age, Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Romance
Format: Ebook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Rating:


Synopsis:

Three of them, one of her, and a remote cabin in the woods. Let the hot, winter nights ensue...Tiernan de Haas doesn’t care about anything anymore. The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she’s grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. Shipped off to boarding schools from an early age, it was still impossible to escape the loneliness and carve out a life of her own. The shadow of her parents’ fame followed her everywhere. And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She’s always been alone, hasn’t she?Jake Van der Berg, her father’s stepbrother and her only living relative, assumes guardianship of Tiernan who is still two months shy of eighteen. Sent to live with him and his two sons, Noah and Kaleb, in the mountains of Colorado, Tiernan soon learns that these men now have a say in what she chooses to care and not care about anymore. As the three of them take her under their wing, teach her to work and survive in the remote woods far away from the rest of the world, she slowly finds her place among them. And as a part of them. She also realizes that lines blur and rules become easy to break when no one else is watching. One of them has her. The other one wants her. But he…He’s going to keep her.

Buy the Book: Amazon

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Review

I’ve had my eye on this book since it released during the pandemic and knew that it was a taboo romance book. I don’t normally reach for new adult romance, and certainly not dark romance books, but my curiosity got the better of me. I did like it, but this book is definitely a hot mess.

I was a little concerned because many reviews decry that this book contains grooming and rape, which after reading, I’m not sure I agree with. Assault? Absolutely. Is consent dubious at times? Yeah, a bit. But I absolutely did not expect Tiernan’s narration throughout the book; she’s the one that shocked me. I laughed and rolled my eyes when she talked about how meditative cooking is, following recipes, as she’s making what I’m pretty sure are package instant ramen noodles, so she’s clearly immature as she should be at seventeen.

The book opens with the death of her famous Hollywood parents, which she’s not that broken up about because her parents didn’t really care about her; she was essentially raised by her mother’s assistant. As she is just a few weeks from eighteen, she is left under the guardianship of her only living relative, Jake, who is her father’s step-brother and has no blood relation. She is offered an out right away; Jake tells her he will sign the necessary papers if she wants to be emancipated. He lives in the mountains with his sons, where they get snowed in, and Tiernan decides fuck it, yeah, she’d like to get away from the world for a bit.

Now I need to pause for a minute and talk about the setting because it is absolutely marvelous. A nice house in the wilderness where the boys hunt and ride motorcycles down the mountain to town and all the drama that comes with small towns. The setting is definitely a place to fall in love with, and Tiernan does right away. She hits things off right away with Jake’s younger son, Noah, who brings her out of her comfort zone and becomes a good friend. It becomes clear quickly that the house is a bachelor pad with townies showing up to sleep with the men pretty regularly. Jake’s other son Kaleb shows up, and I didn’t expect such a scary and difficult character.

Right away, Tiernan is warned to stay away from local boys, and the trio is protective of her. Unfortunately for everyone, Tiernan is emotionally stunted and in her flea bag era because she is dead set on ruining lives, especially her own. She seriously spends much of the book trying to fuck, whether it’s the local townie fuck boy or her cousins, which I can’t even talk shit about because I’ve been there. Tiernan does develop as a character, maybe not in all the right ways because, holy shit, did I want to shake her when she was knowingly playing with the emotions of the men in her life. She’s young and inexperienced with relationships, clearly, on the cusp of adulthood. So she swings between her crushes on all three men, reveling in her “control” as she eats up their attention and spirals out of control. After turning eighteen, she ends up sleeping with all three, though it wasn’t the literal bunny hopping from bed to bed with all parties cool with it that I expected from reviews.

Instead, this book was a character-driven drama of volatile emotions between characters straddling the line between love and lust. There are even several scenes where it’s clear from Tiernan’s narration that she doesn’t want any kissing, no emotion, no romance, and she gets frustrated when whichever person she’s with pulls back because damn their feelings. I was surprised by Tiernan’s agency, that she recognizes the power that she has, but she is still too inexperienced to realize that you can’t have everything you want without hurting everyone involved. The plot develops at a decent pace that I never got bored reading.

Overall it was a good read; I enjoyed the complexity of the characters, how they got along together, and how they clashed. And as messy as the plot was, I was happy with the way it ended. Could I comfortably recommend this book? Not a chance in hell unless I know the reader likes dark and taboo stories.

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