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The final book in Sophie Lark's Brutal Birthright series is Heavy Crown. My goal was to finish the series before the live interview Jenn (The Book Refuge) had on June 19th. I ended up not quite finishing, with 20% left before the show. It was a great interview and discussion that made me love Sophie Lark even more. If you like her books or even just like learning about authors that are in the indie publishing space, definitely check it out! Also, I was able to apply this to the prompts favorite author for the Summer of Swoon and date auction for the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo.
Heavy Crown focuses on our remaining Gallo brother, Sebastian. He is walking home after a goodbye dinner with Dante (he and Simone are moving to France) and comes across a lady getting kidnapped. He ends up saving her and then accompanying her to her cousin's party. They have an instant connection and he also learns she is the daughter of the new Bratva boss in Chicago. There is a lot of twists and turns and we get more mafia in this book than the others. Yelena has always been seen as an object to be used by her father and her only positive relationship since her mother's passing is with her twin Adrian.
There were some things I wasn't too fond of in this book. It was really good though and I liked being able to see Sebastian find his place in the family and really find himself. I kind of got the feeling beforehand, but we do see him step up as the new head of the Italian Mob. I did not like Dante at all in this book. It felt like he was abandoning his family, which really rubbed me wrong. Family is a big part of the mafia romance novels, both blood and found. With the Gallos and Griffins (Irish mafia) moving to more legitimate businesses, I kind of wanted Dante to maybe split his time between the two locations. It just felt weird to me. Then he had to the gall to call Sebastian out. It just really rubbed me wrong.
The other thing that really bothered me was how Sebastian reacted after the wedding. It took to long to come to the realization that Yelena wasn't made aware of the plans. I know he was grieving, but it also seemed odd it took him a few days to question her for information. Then it felt a little too quick for them to be back at peace. I would've liked for there to be more discussion between them once everything was over. I was also disappointed that Adrian and Yelena were never able to reconnect and he allowed their father to tear them apart. I understand that it helps set up the spin-off, but I just wanted some sort of bridge between them, even if it was just a "in the far future" kind of thing.
Overall I really loved the series and while the final book wasn't quite what I wanted, it still ended well. I did enjoy the epilogue and the lead in to the Kingmakers series. I'm excited to jump right in. During the live Mr. Lark, Sophie's husband, recommended to read the first two books in the Kingmakers, go back and read the Underworld series, then jump back into the Kingmakers. I might read in that order, or I might just read Underworld before jumping in to Kingmakers. I am planning on getting to them soon either way, but it might not be until next month since I have several book club books to read as well as the Historical Romance Readathon later this month. I'd like to get caught up in time for the release of The Spy, the fourth book of Kingmakers. I'm guessing it'll be out sometime in July or August, but I didn't see an official release date yet. I'm definitely excited to read more though!
Have you read Heavy Crown?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Heavy Crown, Sophie Lark, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 371 pages, published in 2021
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