Filthy by Serena Akeroyd

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After bingeing through the first five books of the Born in Blood Chronicles, I needed a small break before getting into the next book. I'll get more into it in that review though. But since I was still in a mafia mood, I went with another series recommended by Jenn at TheBookRefuge, The Five Points' Mob (or Filthy Feckers) by Serena Akeroyd. Filthy is the first book in the series.

This book starts out with Finn dealing with the last hold-out on a block of businesses that the Five Points' Mob (the Irish mob in New York City). The last business left is Aoife's tea and pastry shop that was her mother's dream. She is holding out because of her wanting to uphold her mother's dream (she's passed). When Finn meets Aoife he is instantly drawn to her and she is exactly his type. In the negotiations he ends up convincing her to not only sell the building, but spend a night with him as well.

I loved that from the get go they just seem to fit perfectly in personality, bedroom preferences, and just their communication style. It was a little bit insta-love and they get married pretty quickly but it didn't feel rushed really because of how upfront they both were in that this is what they were feeling, yeah it's crazy, but let's do it. However, one their wedding day when leaving the chapel there's a drive-by and several people end up injured, including Aoife. She ends up loosing her spleen and going through all of these hard medical procedures. This creates this loss of sexual intimacy between them that allows more of the emotional and platonic physical intimacies grow. Now I understand that healing from what Aoife does is serious and actually takes a long while, but the book is separated into two parts and I almost wish that there was more of a time jump during her healing. While it did pass fairly quickly (even though it was months in book time), it still felt too long. Plus it felt like a way to help them connect to each other more strongly emotionally, but it didn't feel like enough. While Aoife was healing Finn was dealing with the war with the Columbians (the mob behind the drive-by) and wasn't actually with her very often. So while they were able to get closer, it wasn't as much as I wanted. It just felt like too much. Yes these are mafia books, but I also felt like there was too much of the business side during this portion as well and I wanted more the romance between Finn and Aoife. It was setting up future books, so understand seeing some of the business stuff, but I just wanted more between Aoife and Finn after their marriage.

I still adored this book and if I were to use portion starts this would most likely be a 4.25 or even 4.5, but I didn't feel like rounding it up to 5-stars. It just didn't quite get there for me. I definitely still enjoyed the book and am excited to continue the series. I really wasn't expecting to like so many mafia romances, but I am really enjoying the darkness more than expected.

Have you read Filthy?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Filthy, Serena Akeroyd, 4-stars, 3 days, eBook, 462 pages, published in 2020