The Initiation

Ahahaha wow I wasn’t expecting this at all.. but I am interested in the outcome. Wow

This is the 1st book that I’ve read by Ms. Sloan and I am totally hooked! The book begins with a weird, shy, intelligent & virginal loner college sophomore, Marist Northcott, attending a party with her older sister, Emily. Marist & Emily are 15 months apart in age and often mistaken as twins. But their personalities are nothing alike; Emily is a friendly, confident, quick-witted and sexy bombshell. While on a whim, Marist had died her hair an unnatural shade of dark green during spring break. It had faded since she had last died it, but the hue was still there.
Emily is going to the party to see her potential fiancé, Royce Hale. While Marist brings a book on mythology hidden in her purse to read! Royce Hale had declared Emily a “nobody” at the beginning of her 1st year at their exclusive private secondary school. That social stigma was still following her through her sophomore year of college.
The Northcott & Hale families both have generational wealth. Royce’s family controls Hale Banking and Holding Company(HBHC) a 150 year old institution which started as a common bank. HBHC is now the 8th largest bank in the world and has financial & wealth management, commercial banking and expanding deeper in the global market. At the helm of HBHC is CEO Macalister Hale, Royce’s 50 year old father. Also with a recent retirement of an HBHC board member; Emily & Marist believed their father, Charles a longtime employee & high level executive at HBHC, was on the cusp of making it onto the HBHC board of directors.
Tonight’s party was to celebrate Royce’s graduation from Harvard Business School. The Hales & Northcotts families have been longtime friends and the girl’s mother was best friends with Royce’s mother before she passed away. The ladies had often joked that their children would marry. Whether to honor his wife’s late wishes or not, Macalister Hale had long ago decided Royce & Emily should marry.
By the end of “Initiation”, which covers approximately a year, Marist’s & the Northcott’s world has been forever altered. Emily becomes pregnant by 1 of her (married) college professors, Marist is no longer a virgin(maybe more on that later), the girls find out that their family is on the verge of bankruptcy and the mortgage on their 4th generation home about to be put in foreclosure.
Due to Emily’s pregnancy, she is no longer a suitable candidate for marriage into the Hale family. However, Macalister Hale who had previously barely acknowledged Marist’s existence turns to her to replace Emily. To him it is really just a business transaction. Royce needs a wife of suitable social standing, intellect and character before he can ascend to a HBHC board of directors position.
Marist, who is majoring in economics with minor in history, has learned that to the Hales everything is about power and control. She also still has a deep interest in mythology, the powers & weaknesses of the gods & goddesses and the strategies they used to control their power and standing in their time ruling over the “world”.
With this background, Marist Northcott begins negotiations with Macalister Hale to save her family from bankruptcy and save the family home before agreeing to pursue any further consideration of a future with Royce Hale. The same Royce Hale that had made her social status non-existent and repeatedly turned from her and left, but first asks her to wait for him.
Read this book to find out how Marist becomes Royce’s fiancé; helps her family begin to recover their financial stability by becoming the only responsible adult in the household, which does not really earn any favor with her mother and moves into the Hale family home.
The title of this book is “The Initiation”. I can’t really give you any pertinent details on the actual ritual. But to get through it, Marist calls upon her interest in mythology to create an almost out of body experience. Read the book for a wild, sensual, & sometimes darkly erotic, journey with Marist and experience her growth & maturity in every facet of her life. Now she truly understands EVERYTHING is about Power & Control in the realm of the Hales!

I got nervous with some of the reviews and comments I read but if you stick to the trilogy, it comes full circle. Took me 5 days to read the three books. It was manipulative and seductive, and certain parts dark but she goes through it and the ending was satisfying.