The quick verdict
Call Me Daddy is a fast, easy read that I got through in no time. That is genuinely a compliment.
It is also, and I say this as someone who came in specifically for Jade West, a much milder book than I was braced for. I read The Naughty List last year and went into this expecting the same volume of smut. It is not that book.
Three and a half stars, three and a half chillies. Good, not great, and I suspect my expectations did some of the damage.
The rundown
Laine Seabourne turns eighteen, gets stranded in a storm with nobody coming for her, and is picked up by Nick Lynch.
Nick is in his forties, widowed, and still carrying the loss of his daughter. Laine grew up without anyone in her corner. He takes her in, and what starts as shelter turns into something neither of them goes looking for.
It is an age gap taboo romance built on a daddy dynamic, and both of them are adults choosing it. It is a standalone, so there is no series commitment here.
Real talk
The pace is the best thing about it. It never sagged, I was never tempted to skim, and I finished it quickly without it feeling thin. For a quick read between heavier books that is exactly the job.
What I did not get was the heat. This is the one real criticism and it is worth being specific about, because Jade West has a reputation and that reputation is what sold me the book. The Naughty List is filthy. This is not. Three and a half chillies is a perfectly respectable rating, it is just not the number I expected to be writing down.
So my honest advice: if you are coming to this off her spicier titles, recalibrate before you start. Read it as a grief-and-comfort story with heat in it, rather than as a smut delivery mechanism, and it lands much better.
Worth saying too that the emotional side is doing more work here than the sex is. Nick’s grief is the real engine of the book, and Laine having genuinely nobody is what makes the whole arrangement make sense. That is not what I picked it up for, but it is what I got.
One thing worth setting straight, because the title and the cover both suggest otherwise: this is not actually a dark book. It sits at the very bottom of my Blackout Scale. The taboo here is kink between two consenting adults, not cruelty, and there is nothing in it that belongs further up that ladder.
Tropes & vibes
- Age gap, and a wide one
- Daddy dynamic
- Taboo romance
- Hurt and comfort
- Grieving hero
- Protector and ward turning into something else
- Touch-starved heroine
- Power exchange
- Standalone
The tiny details that did the damage
- A girl turning eighteen with literally nobody coming to get her
- A man whose whole house is still arranged around someone who is gone
- Two people whose damage happens to fit together
- Soft daddy energy rather than the version the title implies
- Finishing it in one go and only afterwards noticing how little spice was actually in it
Read this if…
Pick this up if you want a short, self-contained age gap taboo romance with a daddy dynamic, and you are here for the hurt-comfort and the grief as much as the heat.
Leave it if The Naughty List is your Jade West benchmark and you want that again. This is the quieter end of her range, and going in expecting otherwise is the fastest way to be disappointed by a perfectly decent book.
EmberSas ratings
- Story: 3.5 / 5
- Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️½ / 5. Respectable, just not the Jade West number I expected.
- Blackout Scale: 🖤 Candlelit (lower end). Kink rather than darkness. Nothing in here goes past that.
- Emotional damage: 💀💀 (2 skulls). The grief does more to you than the spice does.
- Format: Kindle
- Series: Standalone
- Read time: Quick. One of those ones that is gone before you notice.
- Public-reading safety: Proceed with caution, mostly for the title on your screen
- Final vibe: Two people with nobody else, and a fast read that was softer than the cover promised.
Group chat verdict
Call Me Daddy. Honestly? Fine. Quick, easy, done in no time.
But I read The Naughty List last year and I walked into this expecting that level of filth, and it just is not that. It is way more about his grief and her having nobody than it is about the smut.
Also it is not really dark, despite the title doing a lot of heavy lifting. It is kinks, not carnage.
Three and a half stars, three and a half chillies. Good, not great, and I think the expectations were my own fault.
Comfort-level note
This is a taboo age gap romance between two adults, built on a daddy dynamic and a power exchange, with a very wide age difference. It also deals with childhood neglect and abandonment, the death of a child and a parent’s grief, an attempted assault early on, and explicit sexual content including discipline.
That list looks heavier than the book actually reads, which is why it sits at Candlelit rather than further up the scale. Still, check the author’s full content warnings and your own comfort level before you start.
Final vibe
A fast, quiet, sadder-than-expected read from an author I picked up for the opposite reason.
