The Bully by Sophie Lark

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After finishing The Rebel, I had to immediately jump into the third book in Sophie Lark's Kingmakers series, The Bully. This Saturday, August 7th, Sophie Lark is going to be doing a life show to wrap up the Kingmakers series on Jen's (The Book Refuge) channel. I'm excited for the live and really enjoyed the previous live show. Update: I applied this to the prompt of indie published for the 3rd board of Summer of Swoon.

If you've been following my reviews from the previous two books in the series, our main characters aren't anyone new. Our hero is the 3rd pov in The Heir, Dean. Our heroine is Cat, the 3rd pov and Zoe's little sister from The Rebel. Things happen in The Rebel and Cat makes a big decision to change Zoe's life. Dean finds out about this and uses his leverage of keeping it a secret in exchange for her being his slave the following school year. Cat reluctantly agrees. As we start the new school year, Dean quickly exerts his power over Cat. It quickly turns sexual and emotional between them.

I loved the redemption arc of Dean. I know that a lot of people's enjoyment in bully romances relies on the redemption and I feel like this is a really good one. Dean finds himself so drawn to Cat and opening up in ways he has with nobody. Is this book perfect, no. Does it have some kink I don't really enjoy, yes. The overall story between them just makes everything feel epic between them. I didn't really enjoy the conflict that separated them and wish that they were a little bit more communicative. I had to keep reminding myself though that they are young and in college. It just sometimes feel more than a new adult series because their mafia life just brings about more maturity. 

This isn't too much of a review, but there are a lot of spoilers I don't want to get into. I think if I were to pick at this point I would put The Rebel above The Bully in my favorites of the series so far. Oh, and our 3rd pov in this book is titled "The Spy." We starting getting more clues for who it might be and going into the spy I have someone that I'm really guessing it is. I have secondary option as well, but I don't think it's him after this book. I feel like my first choice is the correct one, but we'll see. I can't wait to jump into The Spy!

Have you read the The Bully?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: The Bully, Sophie Lark, 5-stars, 0 days, eBook, 372 pages, published in 2021