Savage Blooms

2 stars, thank you to NetGalley for this eARC!This was my first S.T. Gibson book, I heard a lot of things about their previous novels An Education in Malice, A Dowry of Blood, Evocation, etc. They didn't pique my interest but when I saw Savage Blooms on NetGalley, I thought I'll see if the hype would catch me. (it didn't.)Savage Blooms starts with two childhood friends, Adam and Nicola, on a road trip in Scotland to find a place from Adam's deceased grandfather's stories. The first thing you gotta know is that they're *just* friends!! Even if they are super attracted to each other. But they can only be friends, it would be too messy. So friends and nothing more!!They end up at a random pub in the town they were headed to and a random hot guy is like, "I know the place you're looking for, follow me." and then they just go? Turns out he's the groundkeeper of the large manor and the owner, a weird hot lady, is able to answer some of their questions.There's A LOT of insta-lust and to be quite honest, the characters aren't doing much beyond reading books and researching family history, staring at each other's anatomy, walking the grounds, and then there's the slightest hint of plot somewhere in between the orgies and kink sessions. I found out after I finished the book that the author intended this to be porn with plot, and I felt that the plot wasn't constructed well. I appreciated how much the book covered all 4 characters' perspectives within a short page count, but so much of the plot was driven by character dynamics, and so much of that came across as flat and disconnected to me. Eileen is supposed to be a genius mastermind who has her own motives, but when it's revealed that she's orchestrated everything to get Adam to marry her so the faeries would stop bothering them, it felt like a letdown after the buildup of a mysterious atmosphere of mind games and gothic themes.The sex scenes and kink sessions were well-written, but I wish greater emphasis was on making the plot make sense and keeping the characters consistent. Nicola and Adam wanted to leave the manor at various points but seemed to change their minds because of sex I guess. I won't be seeking out the sequel, but I'm willing to give S.T. Gibson another try at some point.