I don't read dark romances, I have to admit I like nice, beta heroes more than I like the possessive, alpha males and I like charming, easygo2.5 stars
I don't read dark romances, I have to admit I like nice, beta heroes more than I like the possessive, alpha males and I like charming, easygoing and silver-tongued heroes more than I like the brooding ones.
That being said, I really wanted to give this one a try as the premise was very interesting and I had heard good things about it from a booktuber with whom I have more or less similar taste.
This wasn't a big hit with me. I was reluctantly fascinated by the hero's story and quest for revenge, I really felt sorry for him and for all he went through and I wanted to reach to the conclusion of his story so I was by no means bored by this book. But I was also disgusted in parts.
This book doesn't hold back. There is death, murder, rape, sexual abuse, child abuse, a lot of topics that are very hard to stomach. I'm not always a light reader and I can stand heavier topics but here it was kind of hard to get over all the ugliness and enjoy the love story.
I can honestly say that about half of the book was 4 stars, but the other half was a weak 2-star for me so I decided not to round up my rating to a 3 star. I'm still not sure how I feel about the mafia underworld depicted in this back but it was definitely interesting enough to keep me glued to the pages. Therefore, I don't think this is the reason for my low rating.
For one, I did not like the heroine at all. I thought she was very weak. Though I can accept not being able to act due to fear, making excuses for your monster of a fiance and accepting just like that that this is your lot in life is not my cup of tea. What really bothered me though is that she actually ran an illegal death ring and not once did she think about how disgusting it is that her entire family made money from the cruel slaughtering of other people for entertainment. I know this is how she grew up and I'm not expecting to read about a saint in a mafia book but this really bothered me and it wasn't something I could get over. Her actions also did not make much sense to me. She has been, during the events described in this book, a victim of abuse and it seemed like she had completely recovered in the next chapter. Also, I thought she acted really stupidly in the first half of the book. Okay, I get it that in romances there is this idea that you would recognise your soulmate anywhere blah, blah but I wanted to scream RUN at her for at least the first 50%. This woman acted so stupidly she wouldn't have gotten away without being murdered or raped or at least getting an STD if she was a real person.
Secondly, I did like that (view spoiler)[Luka and Kisa were in love as children before Luka was taken to the Gulag but the fact that they had sex when Kisa was 13 and Luka 14? Ewwwww!! I didn't even have a period at that age. She was still a child for fuck's sake. Why was this romanticised? The author could have made her 16 at least (hide spoiler)]
I did love Raze and his story was really interesting to me, I felt for this guy and wanted him to get his HEA but the fact remains that he was a killing machine, though not due to his own fault, and I wanted to see more of their connection in the first half of the book to believe that Kisa was attracted to him. The whole "we are soulmates, my soul knew yours" reasoning isn't convincing for me. Plus, these two barely ever seemed to talk about anything with the exception of Raze's past which started coming back to him slowly after leaving the gulag.
Anyway, despite my low rating I'm kind of intrigued by this world and might decide to read the other books in the series later. I'm not sure if it's worth it so the jury's still out on that one. I'll think about it again after I let my feelings about this book settle.
It does seem though that dark romances might not be for me. I honestly prefer reading about flawed but decent people....more