Filthy by Serena Akeroyd

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After bingeing through the first five books of the Born in Blood Chronicles, I needed a small break before getting into the next book. I'll get more into it in that review though. But since I was still in a mafia mood, I went with another series recommended by Jenn at TheBookRefuge, The Five Points' Mob (or Filthy Feckers) by Serena Akeroyd. Filthy is the first book in the series.

This book starts out with Finn dealing with the last hold-out on a block of businesses that the Five Points' Mob (the Irish mob in New York City). The last business left is Aoife's tea and pastry shop that was her mother's dream. She is holding out because of her wanting to uphold her mother's dream (she's passed). When Finn meets Aoife he is instantly drawn to her and she is exactly his type. In the negotiations he ends up convincing her to not only sell the building, but spend a night with him as well.

I loved that from the get go they just seem to fit perfectly in personality, bedroom preferences, and just their communication style. It was a little bit insta-love and they get married pretty quickly but it didn't feel rushed really because of how upfront they both were in that this is what they were feeling, yeah it's crazy, but let's do it. However, one their wedding day when leaving the chapel there's a drive-by and several people end up injured, including Aoife. She ends up loosing her spleen and going through all of these hard medical procedures. This creates this loss of sexual intimacy between them that allows more of the emotional and platonic physical intimacies grow. Now I understand that healing from what Aoife does is serious and actually takes a long while, but the book is separated into two parts and I almost wish that there was more of a time jump during her healing. While it did pass fairly quickly (even though it was months in book time), it still felt too long. Plus it felt like a way to help them connect to each other more strongly emotionally, but it didn't feel like enough. While Aoife was healing Finn was dealing with the war with the Columbians (the mob behind the drive-by) and wasn't actually with her very often. So while they were able to get closer, it wasn't as much as I wanted. It just felt like too much. Yes these are mafia books, but I also felt like there was too much of the business side during this portion as well and I wanted more the romance between Finn and Aoife. It was setting up future books, so understand seeing some of the business stuff, but I just wanted more between Aoife and Finn after their marriage.

I still adored this book and if I were to use portion starts this would most likely be a 4.25 or even 4.5, but I didn't feel like rounding it up to 5-stars. It just didn't quite get there for me. I definitely still enjoyed the book and am excited to continue the series. I really wasn't expecting to like so many mafia romances, but I am really enjoying the darkness more than expected.

Have you read Filthy?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Filthy, Serena Akeroyd, 4-stars, 3 days, eBook, 462 pages, published in 2020

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

March Wrap Up

** Update! I was updating my decades for Shanna which was published in the 1970s for April and realized that I read a 1970s book in March as well! I have updated the decade chart and stats!

 I can't believe we're already into the 2nd Quarter of 2021! It feels like the days themselves are long, but the weeks are flying by. Happy April Fool's Day as well! I'm not really a prankster, but if you are let me know if you've had any fun ones!

So this month there was only one readathon I participated in, the Kindle Clear Out and ended up reading 10 books that week. It was a lot more than I expected, although there were some shorter books. I also finally got to some dark romance, paranormal and sci-fi romance this year. Sci-fi and paranormal are my favorite sub-genres (with historical), so it's weird that I haven't really read either of those so far. There have been a lot of readathons that kept me in other genres though, as well as the book

Like always, each book will be linked to it's review and a few of my charts will be below. Books are listed in order read! Without further ado...

March 2021

23 books read for 6,608 pages

💗 I averaged 1.17 books a day
💗 The average page count per book is 287.30
💗 The page ranges I read were 4 in the 100s, 8 in the 200s, 10 in the 300s and 1 in the 400s
💗 14 were read for clubs and readathons and I had 1 reread

💗 5 of my books were diverse!

💗 I read 4 new authors

💗 I owned 2 of the books and added 13 to my wishlist

💗 The 2 books I read in paperback are the ones I own, the rest were eBooks

💗 The most popular decade was the 2020s with 11; 2010s had 6, 2000s had 4 and 1990s had 1 and 1970s had 1

💗 My average rating was 4.22
🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎 - 7 books
🍎🍎🍎🍎 - 15 books
🍎🍎 - 1 book

💗 8 books were historical, 6 were dark, 5 were sci-fi, 3 were contemporary and 1 was paranormal!

1. Legendary Warrior by Donna Fletcher 🍎🍎🍎🍎

2. A Dark and Stormy Knight by Kerrigan Byrne 🍎🍎🍎🍎

3. Stripped Bare by Emma Hart 🍎🍎🍎🍎

4. Stranger in My Arms by Lisa Kleypas 🍎🍎🍎🍎

5. Lord Holt Takes a Bride by Vivienne Lorret 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

6. My Kind of Earl by Vivienne Lorret 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

7. Randar by Annabelle Rex 🍎🍎🍎🍎

8. Cael by Annabelle Rex 🍎🍎🍎🍎

9. Garrant by Annabelle Rex 🍎🍎🍎🍎

10. Tarkken by Annabelle Rex 🍎🍎🍎🍎

11. Return of the Rogue by Donna Fletcher 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

12. Her Big City Neighbor by Jackie Lau 🍎🍎🍎🍎

13. His Grumpy Childhood Friend by Jackie Lau 🍎🍎🍎🍎

14. Bound by Honor by Cora Reilly 🍎🍎🍎🍎

15. Seized by Love by Susan Johnson 🍎🍎

16. Bound by Duty by Cora Reilly 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

17. Bound by Hatred by Cora Reilly 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

18. Bound by Temptation by Cora Reilly 🍎🍎🍎🍎

19. Bound by Vengeance by Cora Reilly 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

20. Filthy by Serena Akeroyd 🍎🍎🍎🍎

21. Under the Highlander's Spell by Donna Fletcher 🍎🍎🍎🍎

22. A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

23. Saving Verakko by Victoria Aveline 🍎🍎🍎🍎

💗 This month was a little easier to pick a favorite with there being mostly 4-star read and fewer 5-star than usual for me. I absolutely adored getting to read more Donna Fletcher and my favorite was definitely Return of the Rogue. I also really loved rereading Lord Holt Takes a Bride and finally getting to My Kind of Earl. It was also fun to get into Cora Reilly's mafia romance so far and my favorite of those was Bound by Vengeance, although Dante and Valentina is my favorite couple. I also finally caved (thanks to Smart Women Read Romance) and started Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark. This is both exciting but also makes me feel a bit of trepidation since it's such a long series and I know I could binge it super easily. I was also super happy to finally get to the Saving Verakko (it came out in January this year)! The most disappointing is Seized by Love and I'm still so let down by the potential that just felt squandered there. 

How was your March reading? Did you join in the Kindle Clear Out or any of the other book clubs too? I'm excited to move into April and even though the readathons are fun, I'm hoping for a little break so I can do more mood reading. Although I don't have to participate in a readathon if it's posted... but I like to. I do have a few books I really want to read this month, but we'll see what happens.

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎