BEAUTIFUL SAVAGE
Series: Dark Empire #2
Genre: Dark Mafia Romance
Author: Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Release Date: July 20, 2020
A dark, mafia standalone from Wall Street Journal #1 bestselling authors Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
I’ll destroy them all to make her mine…I want to forget the man I used to be. But violence just keeps calling my name. To avenge her, I’ll become that savage again.
Dark.
Corrupted.
Brutal.
Hers.
She was broken by the men who took her, so now I’m going to make them bleed.
I might be her saviour, but I’m no valiant knight.
There’s only one thing I want in return for helping the girl I found in the wilderness. And that’s her.
Winter may not remember who she is, but she’ll soon realise that the only thing she needs to be is mine.
I’m the shadow of two men and the total of none, though she might be what I need to rebuild myself.
So once I lay their heads at her feet, I’ll cast my tattered soul down with them.
And I’ll paint her a happily ever after in their blood.
Nicoli and Winter’s story is a Stand-Alone Dark Mafia Romance with revenge themes and a HEA and no cliffhanger. It contains heat, passion and explosive steamy scenes for readers who enjoy mature content. For the best reader experience, start with book 1 Beautiful Carnage.
I’ll be your warrior, Winter. Because you need vengeance and I need redemption.
You know that feeling when you absolutely LOVE and devour the first book in the series and you are so giddy to read the next one, only to end up rage reading it to spite yourself? Yeah? I didn’t either, but I sure do now. Because what a disappointment this book was. It was like night and day from book one and I’m still bitter that I forced myself to finish it. I kept thinking that surely it will get better. Right? WRONG. I have bitten off my nose to spite my face and I have all the regrets. Le sigh.
After the curve ball of a twist we get at the end of Beautiful Carnage, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Nicoli’s book. And I remained excited right up around 20%, and then the excited began to rapidly wane. And annoyance and cringe entered the chat. First of all, the nicknames in this book gave me a nervous tick. The amount of times he called her “savage girl” and “Baby doll” was like nails on a chalkboard after a while. One overused nickname is enough, but two just about did me in. He calls her “baby doll” 83 times and “savage girl” 64 times. And yes, I counted.
But that aside, there was just something about this story that just didn’t land. Winter’s character had so much potential but she was flat. There was nothing more to her outside what was described. I couldn’t connect with her for the life of me. Her connection with Nicoli also felt flat. The chemistry was just not there. I felt like every nuance of this book was a tell instead of show and it just didn’t land. The spice began to take over the plot and by the 60% mark, I was skimming over every sex scene because it just got repetitive and boring. It also got eye roll inducing cliche of we’re in danger so therefore we must bang.
Considering how much I loved the first book, this one fell so flat. I regret forcing myself to finish but I did enjoy the additional POV of the rest of the brothers. I do hope we get books for them eventually, because I’m super intrigued. But this book was sadly not it for me.
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