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Kent Crime Syndicate #3
Obsession
Lark
It was supposed to be a fun night. A way to forget about my cheating ex. My lousy job.
When I thought things couldn’t get worse, I was attacked. Shoved against a building, trapped beneath a wall of muscle.
As suddenly as it happened, he was gone, lunging towards a dark figure.
He came out of nowhere. My savior with blonde hair and serene blue eyes. He saved me.
But little did I know he was almost as bad as the man he’d stopped.
Nathan
I always knew I was different. People hated me and I was indifferent to them. I couldn’t be bothered to understand their expectations. Their touch made my skin burn. Their voices grated me.
Until hers.
It carried through the club. Drew her to me in an instant.
So when I saw the gleam of a knife, I didn’t think. I saved her.
And a fixation started.
My Songbird didn’t know it yet. But obsession meant one thing to me.
Forever.
******
'Obsession' is a stand-alone book in the Kent Crime Syndicate Series. It can be read alone, but for a better reading experience, you may want to start with 'Revenge.'
It is a dark romance and will not be to everyone's liking. Please check the author's note for content warnings.
It was supposed to be a fun night. A way to forget about my cheating ex. My lousy job.
When I thought things couldn’t get worse, I was attacked. Shoved against a building, trapped beneath a wall of muscle.
As suddenly as it happened, he was gone, lunging towards a dark figure.
He came out of nowhere. My savior with blonde hair and serene blue eyes. He saved me.
But little did I know he was almost as bad as the man he’d stopped.
Nathan
I always knew I was different. People hated me and I was indifferent to them. I couldn’t be bothered to understand their expectations. Their touch made my skin burn. Their voices grated me.
Until hers.
It carried through the club. Drew her to me in an instant.
So when I saw the gleam of a knife, I didn’t think. I saved her.
And a fixation started.
My Songbird didn’t know it yet. But obsession meant one thing to me.
Forever.
******
'Obsession' is a stand-alone book in the Kent Crime Syndicate Series. It can be read alone, but for a better reading experience, you may want to start with 'Revenge.'
It is a dark romance and will not be to everyone's liking. Please check the author's note for content warnings.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 27, 2024
28 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
About the author
Jayla Talbot
20 books62 followersJayla lives in Southeast Michigan with her husband and young son. She writes steamy romance. When she's not writing you can find her hiding behind her kindle or streaming the latest rom-com.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 19, 2024
“You rewired my brain chemistry. I’m not me anymore. I’m yours.”
April 21, 2024
This is my favorite book of 2024 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Andddd I’ve found my new favorite author. ♥️♥️♥️Hands down Jayla Talbot is fucking TALENTED. I’m as obsessed with this book as Nathan is with Lark (which is a fuck ton 😂😂). Think dark romance with crime syndicate, feuds, and cozy obsession vibes. The way I binged this freaking book. I haven’t gone so hard for a mafia romance since Nero and Hans. 😫😫
Nathan is a neurospicy hottie with a brain so sexy it makes you sweat 🥵. He hates touching and being alone means safety. He had no interest in sex until he’s inexplicably drawn to Lark. Who is a FREAKING DOCTOR 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I can’t tell you how often I’m disappointed that the heroine is relegated to the nurse role. We need nurses, they are so freaking necessary and valued. Buuuut why don’t authors cast the heroines as doctors? Jayla doesn’t make that mistake. Nope. She makes Lark a sassy, smart, Latina whose vulnerabilities are second to the way she cares for others 💕💕💕
To say Nathan is obsessed is an understatement. 😂 He legit puts cameras in her home without her knowing. He says to his brother “I want to take her”. So yeah, he’s sipping on the crazy kool aid. But we love a morally grey king who is on his knees for his queen 💁🏻♀️💁🏻♀️and Nathan is definitely is. He’s this conundrum of innocence and darkness. He’s protective and has total OTT JP vibes 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 andddd he’s 8 years younger than Lark. Like a reverse age gap? Hell yeah! 🔥
I could legit write sonates about this book. 😩😩 It blows my mind there aren’t more reviews….Like wtf? This is smut gold with incredible writing and a storyline to boot. 🙌🏼🙌🏼
What I liked:
Mafia/crime/dark romance 🖤🖤
Woman of color heroine
Neurospicy hero
Virgin hero
Accomplished af heroine 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The spice bruhhhh 🌶️🌶️🌶️ (how were Lark and Nathan so fucking compatible?)
Curvy heroine (pear shapes do not get the representation they deserve) 🍐🍐
Incredible writing
Subplot 🤌🏼🤌🏼
Banter
OTT JP hero
Obsessed hero
He falls first
Thriller elements
Bad guys are the good guys
Touch her and die (literally 😭)
What I didn’t like:
This book was perfection. I have no notes.
My only complaint is I can’t buy a paperback of this. 😩 It looks exclusive to kindle. I alwayssss buy hardcopies of my favorites, there’s something so comforting about seeing physical copies of the novels. So I’m hecka sad Amazon doesn’t have a physical option to buy.
Andddd I’ve found my new favorite author. ♥️♥️♥️Hands down Jayla Talbot is fucking TALENTED. I’m as obsessed with this book as Nathan is with Lark (which is a fuck ton 😂😂). Think dark romance with crime syndicate, feuds, and cozy obsession vibes. The way I binged this freaking book. I haven’t gone so hard for a mafia romance since Nero and Hans. 😫😫
Nathan is a neurospicy hottie with a brain so sexy it makes you sweat 🥵. He hates touching and being alone means safety. He had no interest in sex until he’s inexplicably drawn to Lark. Who is a FREAKING DOCTOR 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I can’t tell you how often I’m disappointed that the heroine is relegated to the nurse role. We need nurses, they are so freaking necessary and valued. Buuuut why don’t authors cast the heroines as doctors? Jayla doesn’t make that mistake. Nope. She makes Lark a sassy, smart, Latina whose vulnerabilities are second to the way she cares for others 💕💕💕
To say Nathan is obsessed is an understatement. 😂 He legit puts cameras in her home without her knowing. He says to his brother “I want to take her”. So yeah, he’s sipping on the crazy kool aid. But we love a morally grey king who is on his knees for his queen 💁🏻♀️💁🏻♀️and Nathan is definitely is. He’s this conundrum of innocence and darkness. He’s protective and has total OTT JP vibes 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 andddd he’s 8 years younger than Lark. Like a reverse age gap? Hell yeah! 🔥
I could legit write sonates about this book. 😩😩 It blows my mind there aren’t more reviews….Like wtf? This is smut gold with incredible writing and a storyline to boot. 🙌🏼🙌🏼
What I liked:
Mafia/crime/dark romance 🖤🖤
Woman of color heroine
Neurospicy hero
Virgin hero
Accomplished af heroine 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The spice bruhhhh 🌶️🌶️🌶️ (how were Lark and Nathan so fucking compatible?)
Curvy heroine (pear shapes do not get the representation they deserve) 🍐🍐
Incredible writing
Subplot 🤌🏼🤌🏼
Banter
OTT JP hero
Obsessed hero
He falls first
Thriller elements
Bad guys are the good guys
Touch her and die (literally 😭)
What I didn’t like:
This book was perfection. I have no notes.
My only complaint is I can’t buy a paperback of this. 😩 It looks exclusive to kindle. I alwayssss buy hardcopies of my favorites, there’s something so comforting about seeing physical copies of the novels. So I’m hecka sad Amazon doesn’t have a physical option to buy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2026
My desire for female-led romance has taken me places I wouldn't go with a gun.
July 22, 2024
Meh. Liked Nathan but didn't like how everyone focused on how different he was. Cause he wasn't? How did Brad make it so far in the book?
August 11, 2025
Sorry to say that I found this to be a pretty dull read.
😓 They're a fairly switch couple, so you get a bit of maledom and femdom. Ofc, I much prefer the femdom scenes, but I think other readers will love to have another (rare) switch couple
😓 I've been on a yandere (loving, obssessive, stalkery and devoted) kick lately. Very hard to find those with femdom! So I'd say that was a win
😓 FMC is a doctor. But, uh, I dunno if I found everything she did very medically adviced. Oh well, not that important
😓 I think what made this a boring read for me is 1) the general pacing and writing style. Things are very spelled out at times, and the reader is not allowed to think. 2) FMC falls in love too quick. I'd have liked her emotional build up to such over the top MMC to be slower
😓 They're a fairly switch couple, so you get a bit of maledom and femdom. Ofc, I much prefer the femdom scenes, but I think other readers will love to have another (rare) switch couple
😓 I've been on a yandere (loving, obssessive, stalkery and devoted) kick lately. Very hard to find those with femdom! So I'd say that was a win
😓 FMC is a doctor. But, uh, I dunno if I found everything she did very medically adviced. Oh well, not that important
😓 I think what made this a boring read for me is 1) the general pacing and writing style. Things are very spelled out at times, and the reader is not allowed to think. 2) FMC falls in love too quick. I'd have liked her emotional build up to such over the top MMC to be slower
September 14, 2024
I really wanted to love this! The sweetie autistic coded criminal and the lightly femdom doctor, sounds adorable. The sex scenes really wanted to be the kind of rare treat whimpering MMC that's so hard to find out here in these growling streets.
Unfortunately this book had a lot of quality issues, the choppy writing devolved into some completely unedited and error strewn chapters in what felt like a rushed ending.
There's also some icky stuff: the descriptions of the MMC's condition were confusing and magically resolved with the FMC, which is a fairly problematic trope, and despite otherwise being characterized as sweet and caretaking he has sex with her without a condom even though she absolutely did not consent to that and is upset when she realizes (although he assured her that he looked at her medical records and she has an IUD and theyre both clean so it's fine, and she decides thats ok I guess), that's just categorically assault.
I'm pretty forgiving of errors and writing for fun ideas though, but the execution of these ideas also stumbled pretty hard. There's a bunch of inconsistencies, stuff is established and then never mentioned again (if he's so obsessed with her voice why does it literally never come up after the first chapter??), chekovs guns that go nowhere, weird choices seemingly made just for the vibes (why can't a billionaire accountant go to the hospital for a random attack outside the club he openly owns, regardless of his secret financial crimes?). Their selling point personality traits are barely present or disappear, it shakes out mostly as a bog standard instalove/instalust with the same sex scenes as always except he quivers a little at the beginning.
The only major drama with a kidnapping is clearly only there to introduce (or revisit? I don't know I haven't read anything else in this series) what is obviously a bunch of MCs from an RH book.
I don't think the author knows much about autism or whatever condition they were drawing from, medicine or even basic wound care, anything about kink, or even honestly about what an appealing relationship looks like. I did not get the impression they understood the appeal of the tropes they tried to deploy with the crime/stalking/red flag setup and therefore didn't really follow through enough to explain deploying them. This needed an editor badly, some research, and probably a sensitivity reader.
On the other hand the quivering we did get from the MMC, the likeable characters, and fun scenario was enough to get me through to the end even though I am not shy about DNFing, so I'm just going to hope that this author improves and maybe one day does this sort of thing in a more enjoyable book.
Unfortunately this book had a lot of quality issues, the choppy writing devolved into some completely unedited and error strewn chapters in what felt like a rushed ending.
There's also some icky stuff: the descriptions of the MMC's condition were confusing and magically resolved with the FMC, which is a fairly problematic trope, and despite otherwise being characterized as sweet and caretaking he has sex with her without a condom even though she absolutely did not consent to that and is upset when she realizes (although he assured her that he looked at her medical records and she has an IUD and theyre both clean so it's fine, and she decides thats ok I guess), that's just categorically assault.
I'm pretty forgiving of errors and writing for fun ideas though, but the execution of these ideas also stumbled pretty hard. There's a bunch of inconsistencies, stuff is established and then never mentioned again (if he's so obsessed with her voice why does it literally never come up after the first chapter??), chekovs guns that go nowhere, weird choices seemingly made just for the vibes (why can't a billionaire accountant go to the hospital for a random attack outside the club he openly owns, regardless of his secret financial crimes?). Their selling point personality traits are barely present or disappear, it shakes out mostly as a bog standard instalove/instalust with the same sex scenes as always except he quivers a little at the beginning.
The only major drama with a kidnapping is clearly only there to introduce (or revisit? I don't know I haven't read anything else in this series) what is obviously a bunch of MCs from an RH book.
I don't think the author knows much about autism or whatever condition they were drawing from, medicine or even basic wound care, anything about kink, or even honestly about what an appealing relationship looks like. I did not get the impression they understood the appeal of the tropes they tried to deploy with the crime/stalking/red flag setup and therefore didn't really follow through enough to explain deploying them. This needed an editor badly, some research, and probably a sensitivity reader.
On the other hand the quivering we did get from the MMC, the likeable characters, and fun scenario was enough to get me through to the end even though I am not shy about DNFing, so I'm just going to hope that this author improves and maybe one day does this sort of thing in a more enjoyable book.
August 4, 2025
I bought this book because it a reddit comment saying the mmc was clingy and adorable…. I want to find the person who wrote that comment and commit heinous crimes against them.
The chemistry between the fmc and mmc was non existent and she had more interest and passion with her Thai food.
The chemistry between the fmc and mmc was non existent and she had more interest and passion with her Thai food.
December 1, 2024
For a guy that is inexperienced, Nathan sure can do stuff with his tongue 👅
The spice was epic and the spicy talk was even better 🤤
Nathan and Lark are perfect for each other and I loved how honest and obsessive he was!
There was not much on her background but what was there, was actually enough to understand what was happening and I loved how it was focused on them both.
I also loved how the other couples had their moments here and there!
Nathan is a green flag with red stripes cause this man can do both and will do both and only for Lark and I loved it 🥰
The spice was epic and the spicy talk was even better 🤤
Nathan and Lark are perfect for each other and I loved how honest and obsessive he was!
There was not much on her background but what was there, was actually enough to understand what was happening and I loved how it was focused on them both.
I also loved how the other couples had their moments here and there!
Nathan is a green flag with red stripes cause this man can do both and will do both and only for Lark and I loved it 🥰
March 31, 2024
I was looking forward to Nathan's story, and it did not disappoint. He's neurodivergent, doesn't like being touched and is a virgin. He sees Lark one night at one of their clubs and she's the first person that's not irritating. He stops her from getting attacked and ends up being stabbed. He actually likes her touch, and after that starts stalking her. Someone is trying to kill her, and their relationship builds from there. I loved how they were protective of each other from the beginning. I also liked that there weren't secrets, and he didn't try to lie about tye stalking he was doing. She was a take charge fmc in the bedroom. A lot of "good boys"
This whole series is very good, and wrapped up some side stories.
This whole series is very good, and wrapped up some side stories.
May 1, 2024
It’s really cute. I like the dynamics between the characters. The ending got predictably boring but I loved the relationship too much to care.
dnf
June 8, 2024DNF at 35%
August 6, 2024
Are we going to talk about the medical inaccuracies in this book
Why is she making a tourniquet for an abdominal wound…
Why is she making a tourniquet for an abdominal wound…
January 6, 2025
Nathan
May 28, 2025
I can’t figure out why this didn’t hit.. it has so many themes I love, and yet it felt lacking..
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews