Carnality, A Naughty Whodunit by S.P. Aruna

Carnality, A Naughty Whodunit by S.P. Aruna

My Rating: ★★★★

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Frederick Stevens is an extremely crooked man. When he’s not charming his way into his latest conquest’s bed, he’s revealing who he really is to the people around him as he plots and steals. Frederick is a twisted man who leaves nothing but chaos in his wake. He’s also man who has made many enemies, which includes his wife, step daughter, business rivals, and past conquests. Unfortunately for him, several of his enemies want him dead. Some plot to kill him while others hire professionals to do the terrible deed for them, but when he turns up dead, no one knows who took him out.

I don’t usually see romantic or erotic mystery novels around, so this book caught my attention because I love when two genres that don’t usually go together are paired to create a story. Once I got into the story, I found that it’s a bizarre soap opera involving a lot of scheming people who are all angry with one person: Frederick Stevens. Told in the first person perspective, we follow several narrators and watch all the pieces of the story slowly come together.

The story was a little confusing at first because there are so many characters and there are moments when the narrator suddenly changes without warning. It was puzzling for the narrator to change in the middle of an event without warning. It just abruptly switched perspectives with no page break or any other indication that the story was about to switch to another character’s view. I got into the story once I became more familiar with the characters and was used to the sudden change in perspectives, but I do think that there needs to be some improvement on when and how the story will change narrators.

That said, I rather enjoyed the story. Many of the characters were interesting to follow and I liked how we got to see exactly why each person hated Frederick. It was dramatic, bizarre, and sometimes funny how the group of characters lived their lives and moved about as the story continued. At some point, the characters start to collide with one another and that’s when I knew things were going to get even crazier very soon. It was a fun read and I’m interested in seeing where the story goes as the series continues.