Bound by Vengeance by Cora Reilly

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Bound by Vengeance by Cora Reilly is the fifth book in her Born in Blood Chronicles series. This book takes a little bit of a detour into the Las Vegas mafia the Camorra and connects at the end to the previous books of this series. Since we are meeting mostly new characters this book, it was fun to meet some new people in a different mafia. And while it was fine in the other books, it was nice to not have the little time jumps rehashing parts of the plots from previous books again.

The couple of this book is Growl and Cara. Cara's father ends up betraying and stealing from the head of the Camorra (which is the father of the boys the connected series is based on). During the confrontation, Cara stands up slightly for her mother and younger sister, which leads to annoying the boss and he "gifts" her to his head assassin, Growl. It's kind of expected that Growl will torture and rape her and that's more punishment for the family. What's so sweet about this is Growl's feeling that Cara is too good for him and really just wants to take care of her and keep her safe as "his." Now Growl's name is as such since when he was a young child, his mother was killed and he was also target, but somehow lived after having his throat cut. This did damage his vocal chords so his voice is growly, which I absolutely love. The growly voices just do it for me and I'm tempted to re-read this in audio to see how the narrator does it. 

He also has two dogs that he rescued from the fighting pits. Growl's life basically just revolves around his dogs, job and now Cara. I loved how even before the showdown with her father, Cara sees him at a party and feels for him and there's this unexpected attraction. I absolutely loved Growl and that he never pushed anything onto Cara. He's the damaged hero to a tee and I just absolutely adored how willing he eventually came to give everything up for Cara. Growl just wanted Cara so much that he didn't want to let her go and give her back, he just wanted to keep her safe and happy. I loved this book  so much. Of the series I've read so far, this is probably my favorite book (with Dante and Valentina still my favorite couple). I'm excited to keep reading and loved the little sneak peak into what the Camorra Chronicles will bring to Cora Reilly's mafia universe.

Have you read Bound by Vengeance?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Bound by Vengeance, Core Reilly, 5-stars, 0 days, eBook, 257 pages, published in 2017

Bound by Temptation by Cora Reilly

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The fourth book in Cora Reilly's Born in Blood Chronicles is Bound by Temptation. This book focuses on the last Scuderi sister, the youngest Liliana. We've seen since book 1 that Lily has had a super crush (what she called love, but everybody else didn't think so) on Aria's bodyguard Romero. 

I was really excited to read this. I really felt for Liliana and how she was the youngest sister but always felt like Giana and Aria treated her like she was too young and kept her out of a lot of conversations. We do see a little bit of a time jump in the beginning again with some of the meetings between Lily and Romero during the first few books. The main story line in this starts out with her mother being diagnosed with cancer and having to take care of her by herself. Their younger brother Fabiano is starting to be inducted in the Outfit, so their father doesn't really let me be around Lily or their mother anymore. 

I loved most of this book. The forbidden feeling between Lily and Romero was done really well and you could just feel the pining between the two of them. After her mother passes, Lily gets kind of sucked into her grief and ends up fainting since nobody noticed that she wasn't sleeping or eating like she should've been. It was so heart-wrenching to read what Lily dealt with and really had me crying and a lot of the situations I could really connect with because I had felt or dealt with similar things with my mom's passing. Aria ends up convincing their father to allow Lily to come visit for the summer so they can take care of her. This time is when Lily and Romero finally cave into their yearnings and start to form a real relationship. Where this book lost it for me was the main conflict. 

Lily is suddenly required to come home since she's been promised in marriage. However, it's a daughter trade between her and another man's daughter. Lily is supposed to marry this man older than her father and in return her father is marrying a young 20-year-old. I really didn't like this and that Lily initially didn't push back more against the marriage. I get that there was going to most likely be a turf war between the two mafias, but I didn't like that she actually got married to old man. I didn't like how she treated Romero before the marriage and wasn't willing to fight for her love until he was forcing the consummation. Then we had to deal with everybody trying to escape and the two mafias starting war. 

The ending and Lily just ended up disappointing me a little bit in the end and I had to take a moment to really process how I was going to rate it once I finished. My initial gut reaction was 3-stars, but after thinking more and for how much I enjoyed the first three-quarters of the book, I went with 4-stars.

Have you read Bound by Temptation?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Bound by Temptation, Cora Reilly, 4-stars, 0 days, eBook, 260 pages, published in 2015

Bound by Hatred by Cora Reilly

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After finishing Bound by Duty, I immediately jumped into book three of Cora Reilly's Born in Blood Chronicles, Bound by Hatred. This book focuses on Aria's sister Gianna and Luca's brother Matteo. We've seen them banter and argue with each other in the first two books, but this one does a little bit of a time jump.

We see the initial few meetings from Matteo's and Gianna's views during Aria and Luca's wedding and marriage. Gianna is very much against the mafia life and just wants to escape and live normal. After Matteo tricks Gianna's father into allowing them to be married (to save her from marrying an older, very abusive man), things between them escalate even further. Usually I'm not a big fan of enemies to lovers. I do understand why people say there's a fine line between hate and love, but if someone is trying to hide their feelings of love or like for their person it's just really hard for me to understand being mean to them. But I am also a person that doesn't really get angry in confrontations. I get hurt instead. So while this was a little bit of a struggle for me sometimes with Gianna since she kept trying to keep her "pride" and was arguing just to argue. I also didn't like that when people assumed she was just being a b*tch, she didn't say no, that's not why or what I'm doing. Instead she just went, since you think I'm a b*tch, I'll be a b*tch. 

I did like that Matteo just was gone for Gianna the entire time and really just wanted her to give into her deeper feelings. He could tell and read the signs that she was attracted to him and more. He really made this book for me. I loved that he pushed her buttons, but it was all for fun. As soon as it was time to be serious or he noticed that what he said hurt her, he would stop pushing and really show her he cared. Despite Gianna annoying me for a lot of the book, I really liked the way Matteo was able to break through her walls and really get her to allow herself to fall for him. I also didn't like the ending and that everyone, including Matteo, misunderstood the situation and Gianna allowed them too, I just had to give this book 5-stars. Matteo just did it for me and is my second favorite Cora Reilly hero (after Dante). He just has that charm that gets you no matter how hard to try to keep him at bay. I am definitely enjoying Cora Reilly and am so happy I added her to my tbr!

Have you read Bound by Hatred?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Bound by Hatred, Cora Reilly, 5-stars, 1 day, eBook, 280 pages, published in 2015

Bound by Duty by Cora Reilly

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After finishing the Kindle Clear Out and the last book Seized by Love, I could feel that I needed to pick something that I knew would suck me in to avoid a book slump. After thinking and debating on several items, I decided to go back to Cora Reilly. Thank goodness I picked this. Instead of entering a book slump over the weekend, I ended up reading four books that weekend and starting a fifth late Sunday night. And there wasn't a readathon! I was feeling pretty sick on Sunday though, so I ended up reading since I wasn't able to do my normal Sunday chores. Alright, back to my review. The book that started my Cora Reilly binge over the weekend was book two of her Born in Blood Chronicles, Bound by Duty. 

This book focuses on Dante, the heir to the Outfit, Chicago's Italian mafia and Valentina. Valentina is a daughter in the Outfit and we saw her briefly in Bound by Honor since she's Aria's cousin. As Dante is reaching the point of taking over the Outfit soon, he's expected to marry and have kids. However, what's different about this book is they are both widowed. Dante's wife had passed from cancer a couple years prior and they were completely in love with each other. In Valentina's case, her husband was killed less than a year prior. While Valentina and her husband were friends before marriage, it comes out that he was actually gay and their marriage was never consummated. There is a little bit of contention for Dante choosing Valentina as a wife over some of the other young daughters, but he was hoping to find someone that was a little older and more aware of what would be expected. The joke is on him though since Valentina is still a virgin and not experience in the intimacies between a couple.

Oh this book gutted me. I absolutely loved Dante. He's definitely cold and stand-offish, but it's mainly because he's been trained to be like that. Emotions can cause issues when dealing with business, especially as the heir. I really felt for Valentina. Since her marriage was never consummated with her first husband, she was really looking forward to having a real marriage. However, Dante keeps himself away from her and she has to seduce him. He does find out about her previous marriage (as it was pretty obvious once they slept together). I loved how once they finally start to connect both emotionally and physically the way their love for each other felt so natural. Dante still hides a lot of his feelings, even when they're alone, but I loved the little touches and ways that he subtly showed he cared. 

Dante really is pretty close to a perfect hero for me and is definitely one of my favorite heroes. I absolutely adore the alphaness, it just hits a sweet spot for me. I was excited to see a different kind of love story with them both being widowed and it definitely had me crying and swooning throughout. I am so excited I decided to try Cora Reilly's books and as mentioned above, immediately jumped into the next one!

Have you read Bound by Duty?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Bound by Duty, Cora Reilly, 5-stars, 0 days, eBook, 318 pages, published in 2015

Bound by Honor by Cora Reilly

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The ninth book I read for the Kindle Clear Out Readathon was Bound by Honor by Cora Reilly. After getting through His Grumpy Childhood Friend by Jackie Lau, I only had two prompts left on my bingo board; Oldest TBR and Buddy Read. I did have a couple different options, but Wednesday morning the Smart Women Read Romance new episode was posted and centered on Twisted Emotions, a book in Cora's Camorra Chronicles series. This connects with the Born in Blood series, of which Bound by Honor is the first. Jen and Jessen have both also raved about these two series on their YouTube channels a lot recently so I added them to my TBR. After listening to the podcast at work Wednesday, I immediately decided to go off prompt and start Bound by Honor! Mood reading strikes again!

I have read dark romance before (not quite as dark as these are supposed to get) as well as I know I've read at least one mafia series at one time, but don't really remember what it was. I do remember I didn't enjoy it, but now that I'm thinking, maybe it was a MC (motorcycle club) or combined the two. Anyways, I'm not usually a fan of either of those. Dark romance that I've read has also been hit or miss for me. Sometimes I'm on board all the way, but sometimes it's a little too much depending on when it's set. This book was easier for me to handle the rights that weren't afforded to most women in the mafia because it was set up more along the lines of how it is in a lot of regency historicals. So if they're following old traditions, it made more sense. Although it's still hard to get past it sometimes with the characters being set in modern times and them still being treated as property.

That's also a part of the draw though; that Luca doesn't treat Aria like property, not really. He says the things in front of others that shows the "ownership," but in reality it doesn't feel like that when they are alone. It just feels like max alpha vibes to me, which I am on board with. Now, one thing I did have issue with is Luca cheating on Aria and pretty early on in their marriage. I also didn't like how his groveling was over pretty quickly, but I do understand that it's not like they can get divorced or separate, even temporarily. Aria just has to accept his apology and they both move past the indiscretions if they want to try to have a decent marriage. 

Now, going into this I heard from a couple reviews that people have issues with Aria acting too young and tstl (too stupid to live). I didn't get that vibe. While she did act young sometimes, it wasn't annoying or grating to me. Plus she's a sheltered 18-year-old that's only really been around men in her family or guards, so while she's mature for an 18-year-old, she is still young and pretty naïve. But even then, the men she was around were happily married, older and trusted to not be lewd towards her or her sisters. So basically, she didn't bother me like it seems she did others. I did wish that when Luca got short with her, especially in the beginning of their marriage, that she was more open with him about what she was actually feeling. I understand that she was afraid of him still and didn't want to feel weak or vulnerable around him, but I feel like her opening to him, just a little, would've helped them have a better basis for the marriage. Plus, she just let him assume the worst instead of actually explaining why she was upset. I feel like that was part of why he ended up cheating and this book had enough going on without that plot point. Maybe that's just me though.

I also really enjoyed Cora Reilly's writing and was hooked from the prologue. It's very engaging and when I started late after finished my previous book, I just wanted to read the first couple chapters. Next thing I know it's midnight (I'm usually in bed by 9pm) and I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. Yet my mind just wanted more. I'm super excited to finally get into the series and definitely understand the hype. I'm going to try not to binge them all too quickly since I feel like these could possibly give me a book hangover, but you never know. I am a mood reader. 

What's also fun is I saw there's a version of this book all from Luca's POV, so I'm tempted to read that as well, just not sure where I'll get to it in the order. It is listed as 0.5, but covers the same timeline as Bound by Honor. It seems that a lot of people liked it better from what I saw glancing through reviews and actually has a higher average rating on GoodReads. From what I saw it explained his cheating in a somewhat satisfactory way and that the banter between him and Mateo was really great. We'll see when I get to it, but I do want to read it though. 

Have you read Bound by Honor?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Bound by Honor, Cora Reilly, 4-stars, 2 days, eBook, 273 pages, published in 2014