The cover is initially what got my attention. The tropes made me pick it up.
I was about a quarter away from finishing when I had to finally put the book down. As much as I wanted to power through it, I couldn’t bring myself to finish it.
Overall, I’d say the book is okay. I picked it up for the reverse harem, but I stayed for the action scenes. Those were done pretty well, I’d say. This book is captivating enough that I read the majority of it, despite the reasons that made me have to admit to myself that I had to put it down and DNF it.
→ The Plot ←
There’s two intertwining plotlines that I could see, so I’ll start with the obvious one: the dark romance.
I hate saying this but it didn’t feel believable, even when the benefit of the doubt is given.
It went from enemies-to-lovers within several chapters of the reverse harem getting together on the page. They’re enemies, for sure, but not for very long. Roxy says she hates them, but her actions and thought patterns tell me differently.
To me, it seems like the enemies-to-lovers trope was sped up for the sake of getting as much spice into the story as possible – or getting into the spice as quickly as possible.
It’s more satisfying for me, personally, when the relationship feels earned before they get to the spice or by the time the spice becomes a thing between characters. I want to see the character growth from enemies into the ups and downs before they become lovers.
I wasn’t convinced that any of them loved each other in the way they said they did. It felt like lust was cranked up to a 20 and then injected with adrenaline and trauma-bonding. It made the other tropes that I was excited for with this fall flat.
There is another good storyline going on…in the background. The book doesn’t start with romance, it starts with the hook: Roxy getting sold off. I was intrigued but slightly confused: what debt was she supposed to be paying off? How did she become collateral?
I was also intrigued by the rival family, the vengeful ex, and such when it was introduced later on. This is what really brought the Mafia feel into it for me; it’s what kept me reading. I thought it’d add to the drama and flair of getting the Vipers and Roxy to admit feelings for each other, or to show off their possessiveness for each other.
It accomplished its goal somewhat – I didn’t understand enough of who people were and what their motivations were outside of the Vipers in order to root for or against them. The worldbuilding was set up loosely enough to get me interested, but it was difficult to understand why people were doing what they were doing other than “for power”. For what reasons? Personal vendettas? More wealth? More territory? Adding new operations? Expanding on what was already there?
This storyline was the first one introduced and then as soon as Roxy and the Vipers met, it was dropped until the narration needed it to advance the romance plotline.
Maybe I’m one of those readers that likes to read a bit more than just dark romance storylines when things like Mafia are tagged in the genre.
→ The Characters ←
For the most part, I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I didn’t understand their motivations beyond the reverse harem, and many of their qualities felt like they were taking on specific roles to fulfill what was needed.
Roxy felt like she was trying to convince herself that she was this bad-ass heroine at times and purposely acknowledged things she knew could get her killed – that she went ahead and did anyway, which made me think that her character was extremely reckless. Everything outside of the relationship after she was taken was dropped: no friends, she didn’t seem to care too much about her bar after a while, and she only tried escaping once. She overestimated her abilities constantly without acknowledging the hardships, nor does she appear to have a character growth arc at any point. It was hard to connect with someone that didn’t seem to change from beginning to end other than “I hate them, oh, I guess I love them now.”
The brothers – Ryder, Garrett, Diesel, and Kenzo – felt like they were filling in stereotypes. I didn’t dislike them, but I couldn’t bring myself to root for them either since, well, there were no roots planted in the narration for me to do so.
If I don’t understand the stakes and deeper motivations of the characters, how can I get invested enough to devour this book in one sitting, like I wanted to do?
→ Where I Think I Fell Off the Bandwagon ←
I’m one of those people that likes to research things from time to time for my own work, and Mafia Romance is one of the genres I am branching out in the future (there’s already a series WIP). Hence, I have a basic understanding of how the structure of a Mafia family works: power dynamics, who does what, who has the most power, where the money goes, how romance fits in, etc.
I didn’t see any of that in this book. The worldbuilding was set up a little bit, but I can tell little research went into how the Mafia operates. There’s four brothers… but one family cannot have four Bosses. That would either cause chaos or the Vipers would be four different families (That right there would’ve made the dark romance part very interesting, to be honest).
Maybe Ryder is the Boss in this story, but his brothers don’t have a specific role within the family that I could make sense of. Diesel’s entire personality felt more like thug behavior to me rather than an Underboss or someone close to that status.
It’s based on tropes and stereotypes of the romance part of the genre, but it doesn’t seem to fit in with the worldbuilding of what would make sense for this type of story.
I think it got frustrating for me when I couldn’t tell who holds what power, what they even do for work, and why the heck it seemed like their work wasn’t progressing outside of the romance because it was so vague. I couldn’t get immersed because I had questions that took me out of the story. Why was there no one questioning why Roxy bypassed so much security? Why wasn’t she investigated as a potential mole or someone who could gather intel by accident and run off into the night? Where was all the tension that would make the majority of the plotlines go from a three to a nine? Where was the tension I was expecting of a Mafia romance?
I rate this three stars. Read once, but wouldn’t pick it up again. I’d recommend it to people that I know like action-packed reverse harems because while I may not have been able to enjoy it as much as I hoped, there were good things going for it that other readers could find enjoyable.
Rating out of 5 Stars: ⭐⭐⭐
Would recommend: ✅ if the situation calls for it.