This is one of my favourite romance novels that I’ve read this year!!!
Satisfies my dark craving, but not vulgar or crass. Such a good writing style, not simple and minimal prose to the point of formulaic emptiness, but really draws you in from the first chapter. Only gross bits are the violent acts, but it makes the mafia setting mean something beyond location setting. It’s not exactly angst-y, but there is good psychological work on the characters, and a hint of yearning. The love that Alic has for Olive is very, very sweet and tender. There is banter, some humourous, witty exchanges.
The blurb was so enticing so I decided to jump around this Bratva series and go for this one. IT LIVED UP AND THEN SOME. I’ve got a book hangover. Not even sure what I want to say because I loved everything about it. I adore Olive!!! Olive is the real MVP and that ending is just everything that I needed.
I don’t want to harp on too much about this but thank you for letting Olive, the heroine be smart, even smarter than the hero, and not have the hero be weird about it.
I truly am over how heroes in romance novels are written to be gods, they know everything and everything works out for them while the heroines never catch a break. It is not realistic. It is normal for a heroine to be smarter or solve a problem first. It is okay. Romance novels either course-correct this to the extreme, a turn-off as well as again one person is perfect which makes things boring, or they just keep staying the course, with the hero in a superior role.
I love the pacing and the psychology. This one didn’t have a lot of notable steamy scenes or the intensity of slow burn. It was sexy when it needed to be, but I absolutely loved the development of their relationship. Something I noticed in Luka and now in Alic is that the heroes have very good character growth that makes their falling for the heroine very believable.