Today we have a new Measha stone Russian mob story. It’s the 3rd book in her Innocent Bride series. Ravaged Innocence is the story of Avery and Luka. This one does happen at the same time as other books, but other than a brief mention, it isn’t really an issue. You can totally read it as a standalone if that’s what you want.
So, Avery is a college student trying to get a degree to become a medical assistant. She’s also working 3 jobs because she has to pay for school, food, and rent somehow. (BTDT, got the ratty t-shirt) One night, when she’s working at the ratty dive bar, some Russian mobsters walk in. One of them, Luka, takes Avery back into the kitchen to stay safe. Only Avery isn’t all that sure that she’s safe with him. The very next thing that Luka knows, Avery is dashing out the door and into the back of a passing yellow cab. Avery thinks that she is well away, at least until Luka comes pounding on her door and makes his way inside.
Luka is in town from Moscow to do a job. When that job takes him to a dive bar, he meets Avery, and it’s possessiveness at first sight. He finds out where Avery lives, and plans to go to her house to discuss with her why running away wasn’t a good thing. Which he does, with the palm of his hand swiftly applied to her hind end.
I love how fiesty Avery is. She doesn’t go down without a fight. She works really hard at not letting Luka get away with not telling her everything. Of course it doesn’t always work, but she tries. I really like that strong, rebellious, and fiesty streak in her.
I mostly like Luka. I think that he’s a little high handed, but that’s how characters in this kind of book tend to be, so overall, it’s expected.
We’re back with a new Amo Jones book. Amo’s books are all dark, and very twisty. Seriously twisty. I mean, think about the twistiest thing ever, and double it. Wicked is no different. This book is sometimes so twisty that it ends up going straight. This book does take place in the same world as Antichrist, which I reviewed here, and Sicko, which I did not.
Wicked is the story of Wicked (yes, that’s his name) and Ruby. She is a Mafia princess, he is a guy from the wrong side of the tracks who just killed his father after the man killed his mother. Wicked just wanted to make sure his beloved younger sister, Poppy, is safe.
Shortly after Wicked pulls the trigger on his father, an unknown man in a suit shows up with cops. He tells Wicked and Poppy to pack a bag and come with him. He ended up taking them to his house, where he introduces Ruby to Wicked and Poppy. Ruby and wicked are both 17, Poppy is 14. Papa leaves, after warning Wicked away from Ruby, which, how well do you think that’s going to work?
So, Papa takes Wicked away for a little while, so that he can get into La Famiglia. When Wicked comes back, Ruby notices that he is different. They had had an explosive interlude before he left, but he’s not the same guy now. And he’s put in charge of her security. Instead of a gala, Ruby ditches him and runs off to the family’s lake house for a party, where Poppy is too. But then, something happens, and Poppy disappears. Wicked shows up, and he takes Ruby with him to try to find Poppy.
I like Ruby. She has a lot going on. She might look and act like the perfect Mafia Princess, but she is a lot smarter than people give her credit for, I think. She’s also a bit more ruthless than other people think she is. She is strong and she owns herself and her power. She will also do whatever she needs to do to protect her family, and frankly, I wouldn’t want to get in her way.
Wicked. Hmmmm. Sometimes I hated him, sometimes I didn’t. He is a very interesting character, no matter how I feel about him. He is very cagy. He would be a great chess player, I think. He would probably know all the moves from all the games you might play with him at any point.
There was a lot happening in this book, and yeah, it was good and it did keep me interested, so that’s all good. Go check it out. Happy reading!
We’re back with the second book in Alta’s Wonderland series, Queen of Hearts. There is one more book to come in the series, so if you are one of the people who like to read a whole series when it is all finished, you are just about able to do that. There are likely to be spoilers in this one for King of Spades, so if you haven’t read that one yet, be wary of reading my review. I try to keep them down, but it does happen.
So, when we last saw Lyriope and Nick, there was fire and chaos. Lyriope took advantage of the chaos, and now she’s in Italy. Which of course Nick doesn’t like at all. He’s going to go out and find her, no matter what. Even if his own people are telling him that he’s distracted by her.
Off Nick goes to Italy, grabs Lyriope, and spirits her away to a small town that he owns. He’s going to keep her there, and they will just stay hidden away under the radar. And he’ll show her around to his favorite places.
I think that Lyriope is really starting to come into her own in this one. She isn’t just reacting to what is happening all the time. She is actually doing something about it. It may not always be the right thing, but it is something. And I think that is a good thing for her. Everyone has pushed her around, so her making some of her own decisions about her life is going to be a good thing, IMO.
Nick. Hmmm. Well. I didn’t like Nick all the time in the last book, but it’s better now. Mostly. I think that Lyriope is good for him, and she is changing him for the better. I think that he is learning some things too, and I think that he needs to see Lyriope making her own choices.
I can’t wait to read the next one. It’s going to be explosive, I think.
So, once upon a time, there was an author who came up with a shared world around the Morellis and the Constantines. And all the stories are based around interpretations of fairy tales. We’ve seen K Webster’s Cinderella story on the blog, and now we have Alta’s Alice in Wonderland themed tale, King of Spades. I will warn you that this is the first book in a trilogy, so plan accordingly.
Lyriope is the bastard daughter of Bryant Morelli, who is the head of the Morelli crime family. He fucked her mom, and Lyriope and her brother were the results of that affair. She has spent her life hidden away like a dirty little secret, and not claiming her Morelli blood at all. She hasn’t contacted the family at all and wouldn’t be in contact with them at all if it weren’t for her cousin finding her. She didn’t contact them even when it would’ve helped her out, like when she needed money to bail her mom and stepdad out of trouble, again. Instead, she went to a Russian mob family and borrowed from them. She doesn’t have the money to pay them back, and that is bad, very bad.
Now, she’s at a party surrounded by the rich and corrupt. Her cousin snuck her into a Morelli party, and Lyriope is busy hiding when Nick walks in and their eyes meet. Nick isn’t the only one to walk in who could change Lyriope’s life. A Russian mobster is there, and she’s pretty sure that she isn’t going to survive the night.
Lyriope ducks into a room to not be found, and it turns out that Nick is there. Nick is powerful himself. He is an information broker and he has a popup VIP club called Wonderland. That’s where he gets all his information and he brokers agreements there. They are invite only, and very, very, very exclusive. Nick is also hot as fuck, and he intrigues Lyriope. They talk for a minute, and he tells her that he knows that she’s supposed to die tonight and why. He also tells her that he made a deal, and she’ll be safe for tonight, because he wants to fuck her before she dies.
That is an absolutely ballsy introduction, right? But it really fits Lyriope and Nick. He knows what he wants, and he’s going to do everything he can to get it. She will fight him when she can and fake it until she can make it. Lyriope may not be as strong physically as Nick, or as powerful, but she can damned well do everything she can to appear as strong as he is. Or at least as strong as possible. And she really is strong. She has spent her life having to be the one in charge and having to be strong. Her mother is a complete waste of genetic material, I don’t know that her father actually knows she’s alive, but he wouldn’t acknowledge her if he does, and her step-father is a conman who keeps expecting Lyriope to bail him and her mother out, and then dumps her like a hot turd when he does. And I do mean dumps her. After Lyriope borrows from the Russian mob to pay off his debts, he and her mother decide to just leave her high and dry and run off to somewhere warm and safe. She’s homeless and looking over her shoulder so that she doesn’t buy the farm.
I really was involved in this book so much. And it’s hot as fuck, especially when Nick and Lyriope sign the contract. Whee doggies, that was smokin.
Like I said, this is the start of a trilogy, so I cussed Alta when I got to the end. At least the next one is coming soon.
That’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
We’re back with Jane and our Scottish Mafia. Tate is the last of the brothers, and he’s about to find some shit out.
So, when we last left our family, they were trying to figure out who was writing the romance novels that were just too close to the truth. There were facts in the book that no one would’ve been able to just guess. And it’s not necessarily the big facts, there are just a lot of little things that just show that the writer knows who they are and what they do. The family found out that there was a maid who was keeping notes, and they put her in a room to ask her questions, but she disappeared overnight. So, Tate has now been tasked to track down the author, find out how they are getting their info, and take care of them.
Fran is the best friend of the Cowen girls. She’s been in and out of the house for years. It’s almost like her own house. She’s crushed on all of the brothers at one point or another, but Tate was the one who lived in her heart right now. Her worry is that when he finds out that she’s the one who is writing the stories, he’ll be mad at her. She does everything she can to keep the secret, but sadly, even the best hidden secrets have a way of getting out, and well, Instagram isn’t Fran’s friend.
When the secret of the author comes out, Tate ends up having to take Fran to Ireland because the latest book is causing all kinds of problems, and they have to go try and figure everything out.
I get where Fran is coming from. She saw these amazing love stories around her and she wanted to share them, because they were her way of escaping the world, and, well, inspiration right? She never meant to cause trouble, but I don’t think that Fran ever really thought through everything as well as she could’ve. I can see where she would add things in so that the story would have more oomph, but that fact would end up being a huge problem. Writing her stories is good, basing them on real people is less good. I do like how clever Fran is though. She puts things together quickly and is able to go correctly from point A to point G without having info points B,D, and F. She is just able to put things together.
Tate isn’t stupid, by any means, but I think that he isn’t necessarily as agile as Fran is, and that’s not a bad thing, one way or the other. When she shows him her train of thought, he’s like OK, I get it, yeah, that makes sense. He does trust her, but it isn’t necessarily an easily won trust.
Fantastic book. OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
This is the 3rd book in Measha’s Mafia Bride series. Captivated by Him is Jakub’s story. We’ve seen his older brother and his sister, and now it’s his turn.
The book starts 5 years ago. Nicole and her friends are sneaking into a bar run by Jakub. I say sneaking, because they are all underage, and they have fake IDs. They get in the door just fine, which is probably more down to the fact that they are pretty young women and less about the fact that their IDs are great, but when Nicole tries to buy a drink, she gets busted. And not just busted by the bartender, but Jakub too. And Jakub has plans for little Miss Nicole. Mostly related to her naked butt and his hands. So, he ends up at her apartment, spanks her silly, and then fucks her silly. He tells her that she will see him again. We are left with her thinking that this can only happen once.
Flash forward 5 years. We find out that Nicole and Jakub had a wonderful month, but then she disappeared from Chicago. Now, she’s come back. It turns out that her father dragged her to New York with him. He’s dead now and she’s on the run from the man she was with in New York. He’s a member of a Polish mafia family, and he’s been busted, and for some reason, he’s sure that Nicole is the one who grassed him out. She, of course, knows that snitches get stitches, and didn’t say a damn thing. But, Chicago is home, and she feels safer there.
She’s working at a night club, assisting the manager and keeping things organized. Nicole didn’t realize that it was one that Jakub and his family owned. But when they see each other face to face for the first time in 5 years, things get explosive. Nicole’s crazy ex happens to be in town, searching for her, and Jakub just wants to keep her safe, which means that she has to be a member of his family. That means that she has to be his wife. So, whether she wants to or not, they are getting married.
I think that Nicole is really smart. She’s also very independent. She’s had to be, which means that it’s hard for to accept anything that Jakub wants to do for her, because she feels like she needs to go out and do everything on her own. She fights hard against Jakub because of that. I mean, I don’t blame her, because Jakub is kind of a dick sometimes. Generally he isn’t too bad, but he is a little much at times.
Jakub has all kinds of feelings, mostly because he feels like he’s left out of the family business. He is the second brother, and his older brother is the crown prince. Jakub is just left with the dregs. I think that he feels left out a lot of the time, and I totally understand that. I get feeling like he’s being ignore or left out of the important stuff. But now he has Nicole, and he’s planning on never letting her go, whatever she happens to think. And he feels like she’s more important than just about everything.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Hot Scottish men? Sign me right up! And Jane delivered with Mac, the second book of her Mountain Men series, covering the Scottish Mafia. And in my imagination, Mac is chopping wood wearing a kilt, in proper Scottish fashion.
So, Mac and his brothers are plotting revenge against their enemies for their actions against Paisley. They have finally decided that what is going to happen is that Mac is going to seduce Brynn, the only daughter of the family, and then ruin her. So, to do that, he’s going to do everything he can to get her to notice him, and he’s going to use all the information that he’s been gathering for months and months against her. So, he manages to “meet” her and then starts to get to know her. He finds out a few things about her that he didn’t know, and arranges to meet her that night.
Meanwhile, Brynn is just trying to live her life and start her fashion design business. She’s keeping it secret from her dad, because she knows that he won;t approve. He’s a huge raging asshole. But, before Brynn and Mac get to go out on their date, her dad tells her that he knows about her business, and she’s betraying him, so he’s giving her an option. He can arrange her marriage to one of his nasty friends. Or, she can seduce Mac and then ruin him.
Interesting set up, right?
So, I like the play of both of them setting out to seduce the other and ruin them, especially when they both realize that the seduction thing is much less than a game and much more real than they expected it to be. It begs the question, how much of seduction is real and how much is fake?
I like Brynn and her creativity. I think that she is really just talented. I also like how loving she appears to be. She was really concerned about how Mac’s family would act about her, but she really drew them to her. Well, except for Mac’s dad, but he’s a prick, so who cares.
I think that Mac might have been a man whore, but he got better. He is very loyal to his family, and will do whatever he needs to do to make sure that they are protected. He seems quite clever and like he can think through a lot of things that could happen so that he can make a plan to handle everything.
And oh, I think that I have figured out who the author in the book is. I can’t wait to see.
OK, that’s all for today. Go check it out! Happy reading!
This is part of the Leave Me Breathless collections. There are 4 collections that make up the Leave Me Breathless books. Go hit up their website to find out about all the collections. Breaking Donatella is part of the Black Rose Collection, which is all about the dark romance, BDSM, suspense, dark sided things that we all know that I love.
So, we have Cristian Moretti. He’s the head of the Moretti mafia family in Italy. They have been at war with the Rossi family for centuries. The current head of the Rossi family is dying, so Cristian has a deal for him. He tells the old man that he will marry his granddaughter, Donatella, and that will let Cristian merge the families and become super-rich and powerful. Old man Rossi says, oh no, you can’t marry my granddaughter, she’s been dead for years. Cristian is all like, yeah, that’s what you think.
Ella Rose wasn’t born Ella Rose, she was born Donatella Rossi, but when she and her mom ran from Italy, she became someone else. Now, she’s an adventure writer and television personality. She does BASE jumping, diving, rock climbing, and, on this occasion, roller derby. She’s fierce, she’s strong, she’s got all kinds of lady balls. She knows her family history, but she figures being on televison and famous will protect her. Besides, who is going to connect a pierced, tattooed woman with a bright pink mohawk to a dead Mafia princess. Cristian, that’s who.
Cristian manages to kidnap Ella, who wakes up naked, with a collar on, in a private airplane. He tells her what’s going to happen, and she attacks him. He shocks her with the shock collar she’s wearing, and then she manages to get the chain of her cuffs around his neck and nearly kills him. Cristian whips her with his belt, she stoically takes it. He asks if she’s ready to say she’s sorry. Ella tells him that she’s sorry that she was gauche enough to not kill him. He shocks her again.
At this point, Cristian’s plan is to keep her prisoner, break her, and have a perfectly submissive wife who will allow him to take over the Rossi family. He also needs heirs, and getting heirs from her will cement his dynasty. All he has to do get her to marry him, willingly, and oh yeah, put this historical Bridal Collar on her. That collar has been put on women from both families, when they are taken as spoils of war, and the only way to take it off is for the women to be beheaded, since it is literally welded on to their neck.
It’s important to note that the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry, and this is definitely one of those times. When Cristian made all of his grand plans, he didn’t know what Ella was like, and I think that he would’ve made different plans if he did, but maybe not, because he’s kind of a stubborn man. He thinks that he knows best and that everything is going to go the way that he wants.
I love Raisa’s heroines. She writes some of the most amazingly strong female characters. I mean, just fucking kickass women. Women who try to choke you out with the chains on the cuffs you put on them. Women who manage to escape from locked rooms without going through the door. Women who ask you to kill their grandfather as part of their wedding present. I just really love these women that Raisa writes. Now, that doesn’t say that other authors don’t write strong women, because they do, but there’s just something about Raisa’s characters that is just special. And Ella? I have a definite crush on her.
OK, that’s all for this one. Really, you NEED to go check it out. Yeah, there’s some serious dark things that happen in this, but then there’s Ella. Fanfuckingtastic book.
It’s a new day and we get a new Mafia bride from Measha. Kept by Him is the second in her series of Mafia Brides books. It is connected to the first book, but could be read as a standalone, if you really want to.
Lena’s father is the head of a Polish Mafia group. Her older brother married a woman and they did something to a Russian Mafia family. Len had absolutely nothing to do with it, and she has stayed out of the whole business. But, that doesn’t matter all that much when it comes to Mafia families. One day, when she’s out with her friends, she starts to get a headache and feel a little off. So, she heads out to her car so that she can visit her brother, but before that can happen, some guys grab her, and the next thing she knows, she’s woken up in a small room and it’s not good. She’s been taken by a different family, and they are holding her in the area where they store the women they traffic.
Micah was the second son in his family until his brother died. Now he’s the heir. He finds out that his father has taken Lena and he has to figure out how to handle this situation. When Lena’s brother and father come the next day, Micah’s proposal is that he marry Lena, and then everything will be equal. The peace can be restored in between their families. And Micah is fine with that, but his father? Well…
I like Lena. I feel really sorry for her too. She is angry about everything, and she really has every right to be. She’s totally a pawn in this situation, no choice in anything that is going on with her. I think that she knew what the reality of her world was, and she expected it to happen, but she was hoping that some things wouldn’t happen the way that they did. And I think that she was really hoping that her family would get her out of what’s going on now. It’s one thing to have an arranged marriage, it’s something else to be given as spoils of war, and that’s basically what happened here.
I think that Micah has some really interesting traits. I do think that he should’ve stood up to his father at the very beginning. Hell, even before the beginning of this book. I think that the old man’s brains were leaking out of his ear. He had some serious issues. I mean, serious issues. I think that Micah has a really good grip on the future and what it’s going to take to make the future happen the way that he wants it to.
OK, that’s all for this one. Nothing under the pic today. Go check it out! Happy reading!
This is the second book in Renee’s Chicago Bratva books. We first met these guys, or at least Maxim’s boss, in last year’s Black Light Roulette book, and then he ended up with his own book. Now, we have Maxim and Sasha in The Fixer, and we still get some mentions of Black Light, which is perfect, since this year’s Roulette just dropped. Anyway, let’s talk about Maxim and Sasha.
So, Sasha’s dad is a high head honcho in the Moscow Bratva. He used to be Maxim’s boss, but after a lie that Sasha told, he got sent to Chciago. Now, it’s 7 years later, and her dad is dying. He never married her mother, so now that he’s dying, he’s making plans for Sasha and her mother, and oh, all his money. The mother goes to the second in command. Sasha? Well, she’s to marry Maxim who will have control of all her millions of dollars for all her new oil fields. And when I say marry, I mean they dragged in the city clerk, the old man handed Maxim a ring to give Sasha, and they sign on the dotted line, and then pops kicks the bucket.
Sasha is not happy. She knows that Maxim hates her, how could he not, after all, she told a lie about him and got him sent away. And that doesn’t even count the fact that she quite literally showed up naked in his bed years ago and he walked away. It’s obvious he doesn’t like her or want her. So, Sasha is determined that she will just get him to leave her in Moscow and just give heer money to live on.
Now Maxim, he’s perfectly happy living in Chicago. He likes his boss, he likes his brothers, and he likes the freedome that being in the US gives him. So, he’s terribly surprised when he comes to Moscow to find out that he’s going to marry Sasha. This is definitely an interesting turn up because he didn’t think that this would happen, but now, several years after he kicked a young Sasha out of his bed and then got kicked out of Moscow, he now gets to have a grownup Sasha as his wife. She may come with gazillions of dollars, but that isn’t anywhere near the draw that she is.
I like Sasha. I think that she has a lot of fire and spark. I love that she literally makes Maxim chase her, but it seems like it’s a game that they both end up liking. She’s smart and clever and she’s brave and she’s not afraid to make herself known. I think that she’s been raised to use her body and looks as a weapon and she does that well, but I don’t think it would work nearly as well without the brains and boldness that she keeps under wraps. She also has a really loving heart. When she lets down her guard, she makes friends easily, and it’s easy to see why.
Maxim is a good man. That doesn’t mean that he’s on the side of the law or that he doesn’t do things that break the law, because he’s a member of the Russian Mafiya, so he totally does do those things. But, he’s good and honorable within his standards and morals. He does have a blind spot when it comes to women, but he’s still a good man.
I hate Sasha’s mother. Bitch.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
In Between the Pages 