Immoral Origins Review

Immoral Origins
By Lee Matthew Goldberg

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Lee Matthew Goldberg explores that idea in Immoral Origins, the first book in The Desire Card book series. The Card’s motto is Any Wishes Fulfilled For the Right Price. Goldberg stages a trainwreck for his readers to see the evil that permeates the motto. I knew that the story was just leading to more disaster, but I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to look away. Just like those who worked for The Card, I knew I was getting dragged deeper and deeper into the darkness, but I didn’t want to stop.

Jake Barnum just wants to stay out of prison, earn money for his sick brother’s treatment, and to find a better girlfriend than Cheryl. He falls hard for a woman wearing a Marilyn Monroe mask at a Halloween party. The mask stays on even as the relationship starts, and Marilyn explains that those who work for The Desire Card work under the name of an old movie star and keep their masks on as part of their employment. She recruits him and suggests he could be Errol Flynn since he dressed as Robin Hood at the Halloween Party. The boss, Clark Gable, brings on Jake on a trial basis. Clark quickly offers a permanent job – and an Errol Flynn mask. Soon Jake/Errol is finding out how similar his Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood and new job are and is quickly torn between them. He’s also learning how extreme the wishes of the super-rich are as he realizes what it will take to fulfill them. Jake just wants to find a way out and bring Marilyn with him, but are either of those possible?

The title, Immoral Origins, should be an obvious clue that The Desire Card does not offer a bubble-gum pink genie in a bottle kind of wish story. This setting is dirty, seedy, and violent. Power is far more important than happiness.

I’m a fan of Lee Matthew Golberg’s writing, and this first book in The Desire Card series does not disappoint. He entices me to take a tiny step into the book’s cesspool, then another. I was just like Jake, waist deep into an ugly world but still seduced to dive in deeper and deeper. I realized there was no escape, but had no interest in turning back. The characters were fascinating, each bearing some level of evil to drag them into the twists and turns of the story. The ending was inevitable, but Goldberg left just enough room for questions until the last sentence of the book.

The second book in The Desire Card series is Prey No More. It jumped to the top of my very large TBR pile. I can’t wait to find out what happens next. 

Thanks to Black Tide Book Tours for providing a review copy of the book.