Book Review: Gabriel's Inferno by Sylvain Reynard

Gabriel Emerson is a man tortured by his dark past. A highly respected university professor, Gabriel uses his notorious good looks and charm to lead a secret life of pleasure where nothing is out of bounds.
Sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrols as Gabriel's graduate student and his immediate attraction to her, and their powerful and strange connection, threatens to derail his career.

I'm not really sure where to begin with this book but I did enjoy it. As I have said before I read and enjoyed Fifty Shades of Grey but I wasn't that interested in reading many others in the genre. However, I was intrigued by Gabriel's Inferno, mainly because it was written by a man and most books written in this vein are by women.
As with Fifty Shades of Grey, Gabriel's Inferno is ultimately a love story but I wouldn't say that Gabriel  is as dark as Christian Grey. He certainly has a past but he has relatively normal sexual desires. There are very few sex scenes in this book, it is more about the developing tension and relationship between Gabriel and Julia.
The problem is that Julia is his student so their relationship is effectively forbidden. They must try and keep away from each other or not be caught until the end of the semester when Gabriel ceases to be her teacher. They cannot ignore their desire for each other though but there is a lot for them each to learn. Gabriel is not proud of his past and Julia is also running away from events that she would rather forget.
If they are entirely honest with each other then will they still feel the same?
Sylvain Reynard delivers a really interesting story and I didn't feel as though he focused solely on the male perspective which I thought he might. In the main I enjoyed this book and read it very quickly. But there were things which I found annoying which I think is why I don't read a huge amount of books in this genre. I found Gabriel's behaviour towards Julia suffocating at times. I struggled to see how she would find that attractive but that is obviously just my personal opinion. Also I didn't feel that the secrets that Julia and Gabriel were keeping were actually that bad given how much they had been built up.
Gabriel's Inferno is a very addictive read, I find this genre really difficult, I can't stop turning the pages but yet there are things about the books that I don't like. You can't always like a character though nor can you always understand them.
Gabriel's Inferno is a more gentlemanly read than Fifty Shades of Grey and I think that I will probably read the rest of the trilogy.

Dot Scribbles Rating: 4/5

Many thanks to Penguin for sending me a copy of the book to review, Gabriel's Inferno is out now.