I enjoyed the book. Mostly I felt incredibly sorry for Thalia she had so much trust in calix only for their dads to cruelly tarnish it. She endured so much as a child and then as an adult. Tropes: Age-Gap (Small), Stalking, Possessive-Hero, Jealous-Hero, Virgin-Heroine, Revenge, Bonnie/Clyde, Hades/Persephone, Arranged Marriage, Forced-Marriage, Found-Family, Friends-to-Lovers, Touch-Her-and-You-Die

So basically, to wed them and breed them. To create the next generation of Leaders in their families For updates, please visit www.adelaideforrest.com or follow her on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdelaideForr... All of that changes the day the Veil shatters, unleashing the fae upon our world once again. The magic of faerie marks those of us they mean to take, but the Mist Guard protecting Nothrek will kill us all before they let the fae have us. There’s no choice but to flee everything I’ve ever known, not if I want to live to see my twenty-first birthday as a free woman. If Isa had been older and more experienced I think I wouldn’t have minded as much. But for me, Rafe came across more like a predator than a lover and I couldn’t see him care about Isa at all. While reading I was rooting for Isa to escape rather than be caught by him, so unfortunately I wasn’t buying their love. Thalia, despite the years of abuse she endured, is not a wilting and submissive woman. She may think herself broken but she is so far from it. Thalia only needed the right push and incentive to see there is so much right at her fingertips. I loved her and all her moments of uncertainty. The way she is falling for the new Calix is intimate and exciting and I love that she gives her whole self to no one but Calix. It made their marriage and love so passionate and unique. She has a loyal nature like Calix but I have a feeling she will be just as vengeful and blood thirsty as Calix, if not more. Thalia is going to rise from the ashes of her past like a phoenix and burn everyone to the ground. And I am here for it.I really didn’t think I would love a captor/tormentor story as much as I did. This author did and AMAZING job at bring you 2 very complex beautifully dark characters and make you fall hard for them both. I quite liked this. It was a lot to take in initially. I loved the concept of a few things (that I don’t want to spoil) but the entire “avenging angel” thing had me hooked.

My favorite part of the series and I wish there was more was the mafia side of it. It kept me engaged the entire time. It was dark, demented, twisted and OH soo good! Let's talk about Rafael: this is the darkest, most morally grey man I have met, but I was obsessed! Think of him as your alphahole, possessive, man giving off intense "touch her and you die" vibes! Some of his actions were questionable but the way he talks 😮‍💨 and I LOVED that he was Hispanic! There's nothing hotter than a man speaking Spanish and I was weak 🥵 This is your chance to give consent. This is your chance to tell me you trust me with your body, and if you can’t do that then it all stops until you can. It’s all or nothing with me, Little One. The choice is yours.”Trope list - stalking, kidnapping, anti-hero, forced proximity, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, possessive/ jealous alpha male, age gap, touch her and die, v-card. As Thalia I struggled with her character for a while. Due to the fact that. Midway through the book, she. In my view, she seemed to be somewhat of a spoiled Insulin child throwing, tantrums……… I did find Thalia to be quite indecisive to when she liked Calix. One minute she was infatuated and next she hated him. So I got a bit of whiplash from her mood swings

Calix being absolutely obsessed and unhinged with Thalia is the kind of MC I look forward to in these kinds of romance. He genuinely loves her and it’s not just his obsession, but he FEELS – he is not scared to make her his queen and get on his knees for her to do anything she requests. He listens to her and actually gives a shit about her well being and it’s not a ploy to get something from her but it all stems from protection and devotion. And Thalia...This girl was so annoying to me. She had to witness horrors at such a young age and I did feel sorry for her, of all the pain she had to endure at the hand of her own family. I just really didn't like how unreasonable she was all the time. After Calix got banished, she dreamt for so long for him to come save her, and when he finally does it, she's complaining that it took so long. Like, this guys worked for years to gain the power to achieve saving And Calix is all that I love from a mafia leading man- only a bit swoonier. His undying and lifelong obsession…err, devotion….with Thalia is so epically romantic. Well, could be a bit creepy if you think about how early it started- but again, the past does a lot of service here in establishing the wholesomeness of their earlier years. But his obsession has evolved into something carnal and possessive. He’s not a gentle man, he’s a ruthless survivor, but he is a goner for his lady, even if he’s unwilling to protect her from his own darkness. Good thing, because she relishes it. And their shared quest for vengeance unites them in powerful ways.

Rafael is something else. I can’t say he makes it onto my list of book boyfriends because he was slightly too unhinged for my tastes. He’s a character who really made it difficult to like him. Every time I thought he was winning me over he did something crazy and it put me off again. That being said at no point in this book was I not rooting for Rafe and Isa to sort through their issues and have their HEA. While some of his actions were brutal it is very clear that he loves Isa but he just doesn’t know how to show it. Isa is a girl from Chicago, who is naive and inexperienced. She lives her life trying to fix a mistake from the past, which her twin sister absolutely hates her for. (This sister is a bish and karma is a real thing) when she meets Rafe she learns to embrace the darkness that lurks inside her and that ‘good girls don’t always have more fun’ we see Calix has a dark side, and we see very well why him and Rafe are friends 😈. He isn’t on races crazy level AT ALL but he’s got that darkness and when he got made at Thalia 🥵🥵🤤 Thalia. Strong and smart. Thalia intrigued me since the very start. I liked a lot of things about her.

Hero: Rafael is a mafia boss from Spain known for being a cold and detached merciless king of his domain. Rafael ‘El Diablo’ believes himself incapable of emotion until Isa creates a shift in everything who he believed himself to be. He is definitely a BAD man and that does not change, so if you like your hero to have a good sense of morality, you won’t find that in Rafe. I can see him being too unhinged for many but I absolutely love him. He’s made it on my roster for favorite book boyfriends 🔥 DEVOTION ❤️ this is the best word that I feel describes how Calix feels for Thalia. He is utterly devoted to her. From the start we see Rafe is obsessed. He sees her and knows she is his but she’s only 16yr so he sets people in her life to watch a protect her -since he is a powerful man in the underworld- while he sets his plans for their future together in motion over the next 16months. I mean he waits for her sexually! 🥰😍💕 swoon. He doesn’t even look at another woman after setting eyes on her and that sets the tone for his absolute dedication to her for the rest of the book. I loved this beyond word.I love mafia romance and I really enjoyed the prequel and book 1 of this series. However once the MFC was kidnapped and held against her will the book got really dark, real fast, and I couldn’t finish book 2. I also want to say that I am really intrigued to see where Thalia will end up by the end of this duet. She may seem like a broken and worn out girl. Barely able to get through every day, but she has some fire in her belly and seeing that fire peak through is so validating. Standalone/Duology This book could be read as a standalone but it does feel incomplete, although it doesn't really end on a cliffhanger Calix is my favorite type of alpha male - he’s ruthless, violent, possessive and dominant. In their coupling, he seeks Thalia’s willing submission but beyond their relationship he needs her and encourages her to stand with him as his equal.