What do you think?
Rate this book
it's a gang!
Follow the new generation of a crime family proving itself and getting over years of abuse.
This is a story about found family and making connections, choosing your people and fighting for them. It's about persevering and making things work against all odds. It's about waking up every morning when you don't want to because you have people depending on you.
It's about love.
This is a story about found family and making connections, choosing your people and fighting for them. It's about persevering and making things work against all odds. It's about waking up every morning when you don't want to because you have people depending on you.
It's about love.
455 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 19, 2025
About the author
Katrina Cross
1 book6 followersKatrina Cross is a queer poet and writer from Bulgaria.
She was born in Karlovo and currently lives in the capital city of Sofia. She's of mixed Bulgarian and Sarakatsan ethnicity.
She works in data and has been writing in her free time since high school.
She was born in Karlovo and currently lives in the capital city of Sofia. She's of mixed Bulgarian and Sarakatsan ethnicity.
She works in data and has been writing in her free time since high school.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 7, 2025
3.75 ⭐️
What a great debut!
This is going to be a fantastic read for character-driven readers. It delves into so many kinds of relationships and has a lot of diverse representation which I loved. There were some truly outstanding scenes filled with tension and suspense, and Katrina is a very skilled writer.
For me, I would have loved more of the plot (which I liked) to be spread more evenly through the book - it started off powerfully, then stalled a bit until halfway through. But that is just due to my personal taste! I also would have liked to know a bit more about the beef between certain family members and the 'business' itself.
What really shone through, and what I loved most, was how much Katrina evidently adores and cares about these characters - not something that I find all authors do. They really come to life through the pages. Please keep writing, I want to read more, Katrina!
What a great debut!
This is going to be a fantastic read for character-driven readers. It delves into so many kinds of relationships and has a lot of diverse representation which I loved. There were some truly outstanding scenes filled with tension and suspense, and Katrina is a very skilled writer.
For me, I would have loved more of the plot (which I liked) to be spread more evenly through the book - it started off powerfully, then stalled a bit until halfway through. But that is just due to my personal taste! I also would have liked to know a bit more about the beef between certain family members and the 'business' itself.
What really shone through, and what I loved most, was how much Katrina evidently adores and cares about these characters - not something that I find all authors do. They really come to life through the pages. Please keep writing, I want to read more, Katrina!
June 7, 2025
I really enjoyed this book.
Found family is one of my favorite tropes in stories and Katrina did such an incredible job with this.
Absolutely loved the characters especially Mercy.
Overall this story hooked me from page one and while it took a minute to get a handle on the large cast of characters, it very quickly turned into such a fun ride.
Found family is one of my favorite tropes in stories and Katrina did such an incredible job with this.
Absolutely loved the characters especially Mercy.
Overall this story hooked me from page one and while it took a minute to get a handle on the large cast of characters, it very quickly turned into such a fun ride.
August 15, 2025
4.5☆
Firstly thank you so much to Katrina for kindly giving me an e-copy of It's a gang!
Overall I really enjoyed this book, it is a very strong debut and I look forward to reading more of Katrina's work. I found this book to be a bit slow to begin with, but once I got invested I was hooked! There is very strong found family elements, and while the plot has its dark moments the banter between characters had me laughing to myself (especially Sara and Mercy's quips at each other). I found that all of the action scenes flowed really well, and you could feel how tense everything was very clearly. I enjoyed the pacing of this book, and while I felt it could have been longer, everything was wrapped up well by the end of the book.
The only drawbacks I have for this book is that a couple of the scene changes mid chapter felt a little bit disorientating, but any confusion I had was quickly cleared up.
TWs: Gun violence, Abuse, Medical content, Knife violence, Unhealthy coping mechanisms (pain seeking), Child death, Trafficking
Firstly thank you so much to Katrina for kindly giving me an e-copy of It's a gang!
Overall I really enjoyed this book, it is a very strong debut and I look forward to reading more of Katrina's work. I found this book to be a bit slow to begin with, but once I got invested I was hooked! There is very strong found family elements, and while the plot has its dark moments the banter between characters had me laughing to myself (especially Sara and Mercy's quips at each other). I found that all of the action scenes flowed really well, and you could feel how tense everything was very clearly. I enjoyed the pacing of this book, and while I felt it could have been longer, everything was wrapped up well by the end of the book.
The only drawbacks I have for this book is that a couple of the scene changes mid chapter felt a little bit disorientating, but any confusion I had was quickly cleared up.
TWs: Gun violence, Abuse, Medical content, Knife violence, Unhealthy coping mechanisms (pain seeking), Child death, Trafficking
June 3, 2025
Please excuse me, but I will never be normal about this novel.
I got to know Katrina this year, in a shared online space and all I can say is that she is a sweetheart, who can weave a banging story that held my interest all the way through, even though this story doesn't have magic (and that's a high achievement, coming from me).
This is the most information I have known about a book going in, for many years, and I expected to like it, because I do have a certain fondness for found family, hurt/comfort and friends to lovers, queer (specifically ace!) protagonists, but I was unsure about the mafia part. I don't mind violence in books, but I am not interested in weapons or drugs or other activities the mafia does.
To my surprise, my experience with the book went something like this:
- Prologue - heart in my throat, feral grin
- Chapter 1 - got into protective mode
- Chapter 3 - got mad and very concerned about the implications
- Chapter 5 - looked up how to get orders from Amazon to my country
- Chapter 7 - I wrote to Katrina, asking if she thinks fictional characters take up less space in a couch, because I only have so many spaces, blankets and mugs available. I need to be able to see them at all times, so that I know they are okay
And so it went, until I've finished it and I ended up craving more. She had to cut out some parts, so there will be a novella (please imagine grabby hand gestures here), but it will not be enough for me. I am now greedy for more of Katrina's works and what else can I say?
I didn't like the novel, I loved it!
If you are still reading this, please let me influence you, just this once. READ IT'S A GANG! or else.
I got to know Katrina this year, in a shared online space and all I can say is that she is a sweetheart, who can weave a banging story that held my interest all the way through, even though this story doesn't have magic (and that's a high achievement, coming from me).
This is the most information I have known about a book going in, for many years, and I expected to like it, because I do have a certain fondness for found family, hurt/comfort and friends to lovers, queer (specifically ace!) protagonists, but I was unsure about the mafia part. I don't mind violence in books, but I am not interested in weapons or drugs or other activities the mafia does.
To my surprise, my experience with the book went something like this:
- Prologue - heart in my throat, feral grin
- Chapter 1 - got into protective mode
- Chapter 3 - got mad and very concerned about the implications
- Chapter 5 - looked up how to get orders from Amazon to my country
- Chapter 7 - I wrote to Katrina, asking if she thinks fictional characters take up less space in a couch, because I only have so many spaces, blankets and mugs available. I need to be able to see them at all times, so that I know they are okay
And so it went, until I've finished it and I ended up craving more. She had to cut out some parts, so there will be a novella (please imagine grabby hand gestures here), but it will not be enough for me. I am now greedy for more of Katrina's works and what else can I say?
I didn't like the novel, I loved it!
If you are still reading this, please let me influence you, just this once. READ IT'S A GANG! or else.
January 28, 2026
2.75 stars rounded up!
I want to say first and foremost that writing a book is such a huge achievement in and of itself, it's absolutely mindblowing that people can be so into their story and their characters' heads it feels like breathing.
It simply wasn't the book for me. I gave it the good old 100-ish pages try, and decided to put it aside for now. Maybe I'll revisit it later, who knows. The rating is based off what I observed in the 100-something pages I've read.
Katrina has a beautiful handle on her characters: she poured so much love into them and their relationships it shows. The prologue was, to me, probably the strongest part of the 100 pages I've read: action packed, fast paced, and high stakes. Crime family at its best.
Then it all slowed down to a crawl with establishing characters, family dynamics, and so on, and so forth. The plot was slow to start, and although I love found family, it was hard for me to stay interested in characters when events seemed to slowly trickle day by day—a very stark contrast to what the prologue set up. The weaving of the web of same-but-not-same family rivalries was there, but it took its time before I could see any of the tapestry forming. The amount of detail in discussion felt like being unable to see the forest, for I was being so focused on the trees. (Also, miss me with Silver insisting on some ✨loving✨ when he's been told no. I understand flawed characters but he just rubbed me the wrong way, I wanted to slap him, even if he's very much able to kill me. Good on Mercy for standing her ground.)
All in all, I still see a lot of promise. Those characters were very well developed from what I've seen, with complex dynamics. Nothing is what it seems, and we can't take anything at face value. The book would've benefitted from some more copy editing, I noticed little discrepancies here and there, but indie publishing is such a hard game, I can only extend my congratulations.
Tl;Dr: Maybe it's just me and this book not being for me, and it's alright like that 🙏
I want to say first and foremost that writing a book is such a huge achievement in and of itself, it's absolutely mindblowing that people can be so into their story and their characters' heads it feels like breathing.
It simply wasn't the book for me. I gave it the good old 100-ish pages try, and decided to put it aside for now. Maybe I'll revisit it later, who knows. The rating is based off what I observed in the 100-something pages I've read.
Katrina has a beautiful handle on her characters: she poured so much love into them and their relationships it shows. The prologue was, to me, probably the strongest part of the 100 pages I've read: action packed, fast paced, and high stakes. Crime family at its best.
Then it all slowed down to a crawl with establishing characters, family dynamics, and so on, and so forth. The plot was slow to start, and although I love found family, it was hard for me to stay interested in characters when events seemed to slowly trickle day by day—a very stark contrast to what the prologue set up. The weaving of the web of same-but-not-same family rivalries was there, but it took its time before I could see any of the tapestry forming. The amount of detail in discussion felt like being unable to see the forest, for I was being so focused on the trees. (Also, miss me with Silver insisting on some ✨loving✨ when he's been told no. I understand flawed characters but he just rubbed me the wrong way, I wanted to slap him, even if he's very much able to kill me. Good on Mercy for standing her ground.)
All in all, I still see a lot of promise. Those characters were very well developed from what I've seen, with complex dynamics. Nothing is what it seems, and we can't take anything at face value. The book would've benefitted from some more copy editing, I noticed little discrepancies here and there, but indie publishing is such a hard game, I can only extend my congratulations.
Tl;Dr: Maybe it's just me and this book not being for me, and it's alright like that 🙏
January 20, 2026
4.5/5
What would you do for the ones you love?
Mercy can and does anything and everything to protect the loved ones she's found with the drug running family she's helped to build. She absolutely kills, she's really good at it, but she also insists on bearing the responsibility of everyone around her.
This is her family, and she will look after every single one of them.
This was endearing and brutal. Mercy is such a troubled character and she really is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her love, when she loves someone, is complete and 100%, but she's also very hard on herself (seriously, I need her to be more kind to herself lol).
There are a great many complex relationships in this and the pace of the story has it's ebbs and flows but it moves. There is some great work at going into the minds of these characters. Not all of these relationships are healthy, but there is love in abundance amongst them.
Some of the characters are really hard headed though <3
If you're looking for something that deals with the inner politics of rival gang factions, and dips into the personal histories and motivations of the characters and the complex nature of their relationships, this is definitely worth the time to read.
Thank you Lowardy and Katrina <3
What would you do for the ones you love?
Mercy can and does anything and everything to protect the loved ones she's found with the drug running family she's helped to build. She absolutely kills, she's really good at it, but she also insists on bearing the responsibility of everyone around her.
This is her family, and she will look after every single one of them.
This was endearing and brutal. Mercy is such a troubled character and she really is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her love, when she loves someone, is complete and 100%, but she's also very hard on herself (seriously, I need her to be more kind to herself lol).
There are a great many complex relationships in this and the pace of the story has it's ebbs and flows but it moves. There is some great work at going into the minds of these characters. Not all of these relationships are healthy, but there is love in abundance amongst them.
Some of the characters are really hard headed though <3
If you're looking for something that deals with the inner politics of rival gang factions, and dips into the personal histories and motivations of the characters and the complex nature of their relationships, this is definitely worth the time to read.
Thank you Lowardy and Katrina <3
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews