Mercenary Princess by Setta Jay

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The first book I read for the Mafia Romance Readathon was Mercenary Princess by Setta Jay. This is the first book in her Mercenary Socialites series. This covered the new author and Bratva prompts for the Mafia Romance Readathon. I also applied this read to the revenge quest prompt for the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo, on tbr 6+ months prompt for Summer of Swoon and indie author for the Romancing Summer Challenge. 

I really loved the uniqueness of this plot. We have Sophia, the princess of a small European country. We find out quickly that not only has she been "molded" to be the perfect princess persona, but she's also a founding member of a secret group. They go after politicians and rich people that are able to hide their crimes and get retribution. It started when she was in boarding school and a Saudi prince killed a boy from a local restaurant when trying to save his younger sister from his advances. Sophia and her friends are the ones that found this young boy's body and since then have made it a mission to get revenge against the Saudi Prince and others like him. Our hero is the older brother of one of their school mates, Viktor. He is older, but the age gap didn't feel like one with Sophia being so mature for her 24 years. There are rumors that he's connected to the Bratva, but he's more known as a ruthless billionaire. Sophia has been crushing and fantasizing about Viktor since she first saw him at the boarding school.

Sophia is on a mission at a night club in Paris and finds Viktor staring at her from across the way. She is instantly turned on and so in tune with Viktor. His staring causes her to panic internally and she has trouble keeping her composure. Later that night, they are staying at the same hotel, and Viktor watches Sophia climb out her window and down the building. So starts the intrigue and breaking of the tension between them.

Oh boy was this spicy. Viktor is very alpha and I love how he's the only one that can make Sophia break her composure and read her. Their connection is very visceral and there were times where I was voraciously reading to see if they would finally break the tension between them. Once they break the seal of feelings and lust between them, they just can't keep away from each other. I also really liked that though Sophia still kept a lot of secrets from Viktor about her double life, she still felt bad about not being upfront with him. She smartly knows that it's not just her life she could put at stake. I also loved the protectiveness of Viktor and loved how he had to fight being too alpha with her. The only part I was disappointed about was the ties to the mafia. There wasn't really much outside of Viktor's family formerly being apart of it and him pretty much murdering everyone that expected him to take over. He's still mafia-esque in his business, but he tries to keep most everything on the up and up. I also really enjoyed that when it came down to it, Sophia was the one that saved herself. It was such a great scene when she tells one of her friends to follow her plan and not just try to rescue her himself. 

I am intrigued for the setup of the next book which should be out later this year. It's mentioned kind of early on in the book that Sophia's friend Irina keeps getting "saved" by an ex-smuggler during her missions. There's other little tid-bits we learn about them both and so I'm guessing that'll be book 2. No release date has been set that I could find, just in 2021. I'll definitely be reading more and I certainly want to finally try her paranormal series as well. I enjoyed the writing style a lot.

Have you read Mercenary Princess?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Mercenary Princess, Setta Jay, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 269 pages, published in2018