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Continuing my Sophie Lark binge, I read Bloody Heart. This is the fourth book in her Brutal Birthright series. I also applied this book to the saving for summer prompt for Summer of Swoon.
I'm very torn on this book. There were parts I really liked and parts I ended up kind of skimming. It just didn't hit me right. I do have to say though, after completely loving Savage Lover, I knew that the bar was certainly raised for the rest of the books in the series. Bloody Heart is also a second chance romance, which is one of my least favorite tropes. It also has the hidden baby trope. While that is also something that usually bothers me, I'm a little more forgiving when it comes to hiding it because the father is in the mafia.
So a brief rundown. Dante, the eldest Gallo brother, meets our heroine Simone nine years prior. They date for a couple months and fall in love. They are both young but it's such a strong connection formed that they both know that they are each other's person. Simone is the daughter of a diplomat and fairly sheltered. When Dante steals her town car, with her inside gathering herself before a gala, things start to heat up quickly between them. Things happen and family drama ensues and Simone is kind of forced by her parents to leave Dante. She was thinking about going against her parents, but Dante gets injured and shows up to the rendezvous injured and slightly crazed (because he was trying to get to her). Simone ends up leaving and not telling him she's pregnant or in love with him. We time jump back to the present and they end up meeting again as her father and Callum are speaking at the same rally. There's an assassination attempt and Dante is the lead of security for the rally. He takes point and starts his own investigation.
Now, before I get too harsh on the book, I want to go over the parts I did love. First off, Dante is a veteran and it was nice to learn more and see how he's using his skills now. We also learn that he was a sniper in Iraq. I loved the take charge attitude he had during the rally and it was so sexy. Just competence porn all the way. I also loved how despite Simone completely smashed his heart, he knows that it's her and only her. He's resigned himself to not have children or getting married if they can't be together. I also liked the moments showing the friendship between Dante and Callum's sister Riona. I really enjoyed the climax events and getting to see Dante and his friend Raylan do their thing.
Now where I had issues. Maybe this is just me, but it took until 40% in for Dante and Simone to reconnect. I feel like the flashback portion was too long and it left the rest of the book a little rushed for their romance emotionally. There is a lot of hurt and issues on both ends that I would've liked to have been resolved more. Not just banged out. Also, I was not on board with their reconnection scene. It was a little much for me, even though Simone was into it. I think it would've been perfect to do the flashback portion as a novella that ends up with them meeting at the rally. Then this book could pick up there and we would have more space to work on the emotions. Like I said though, second chance romance is harder for me to get behind. I find I'm usually okay with it if the second chance is more that they missed their first chance and never actually dated or got together in the past. Just circled around each other or pined for each other. (A great example of this is Fluffy by Julia Kent.)
Another thing that bothered me is Simone kept putting off telling Dante about their son until the end. I just wanted her to "man up" and say it. I know she was scared and she was hurt too, but I didn't feel as sorry for her. She's the one that broke up with Dante and ran to London. While Dante says he could've gone after her, I didn't like him trying to put so much of their break up on himself. I didn't like the issues with her parents and wish there was more resolution between them. I did not like that their issues were never dealt with, but just buried. It also felt very odd that they were so adamant that she not raise Henry, but wanted to be grandparents. So most of what bothered me about the book was Simone. Like I mentioned above, there's mentions that she went through depression and all this other stuff, but I wanted more. From what I understand, as someone who has been through depression in the past, it's never really fully "cured." There are things you can do to mitigate and treat it, but it never goes away completely (I know that there are different types; this is just generally). This might be too personal, but as someone that is mostly fine and not dealing with depression symptoms daily, I certainly have down days where it takes everything in me to just get out of bed. There are things that trigger me and can cause me to spiral. Thankfully I've learned how to combat those instances. I just wish that if it was going to be mentioned, that there was actually some representation instead of it feeling more like a character trait. To give Sophie some credit, Simone could've suffered post-partum depression. It just wasn't quite addressed or mentioned what kind. That's were I feel like novella would've been helpful so Simone and Dante could deal with the deeper and darker emotions that was caused by their whirlwind romance and subsequent break up. (Although I'd love to see more representation of post-partum depression in a romance novel.)
Yes the bar was raised by Savage Love, but it was also paired with some tropes I don't like and not getting into the meat of their emotions. I did still enjoy the writing style and will continue reading the series and Sophie Lark for sure. We get a little teaser of Raylan and Riona's book, which is next. I loved Raylan in his few scenes here and can't wait for more. He also fits my young/new adult reading habits as some of my favorite books in late high school and early college where romantic suspenses. My favorites usually had main characters that were former military turned private sector (aka mercenary). I'm definitely planning to read Broken Vow next.
Have you read Bloody Heart?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Bloody Heart, Sophie Lark, 3-stars, 0 days, eBook, 436 pages, published in 2020
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