What do you think?
Rate this book
The Devil I Know
Young widow Julia Hamilton reluctantly falls for modern-day Chicago mobster Adrian De Luca. As their relationship turns serious, Julia acclimates to a drastic change in lifestyle, allowing her sense of normal to shift and the difference between right and wrong to blur. But her most shocking and dangerous decision of all arrives when she discovers the hidden connection between her new fiancé and her late husband.
A game of shadows ensues, pushing Julia and Adrian—and everyone close to them—into a dilemma of loyalty. All are forced to protect, and simultaneously choose between, the people they love most while deciding how far they’ll go to honor their allegiances and, ultimately, what happens once those lines have been crossed.
A game of shadows ensues, pushing Julia and Adrian—and everyone close to them—into a dilemma of loyalty. All are forced to protect, and simultaneously choose between, the people they love most while deciding how far they’ll go to honor their allegiances and, ultimately, what happens once those lines have been crossed.
- GenresRomance
265 pages, Paperback
Published August 30, 2016
1 person is currently reading
639 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 9, 2016
2.5 stars
This book has high ratings, but it just wasn’t for me. The plot was just too convoluted and I couldn’t connect with the characters.
This book has high ratings, but it just wasn’t for me. The plot was just too convoluted and I couldn’t connect with the characters.
August 28, 2016
Wow, this was one great book! I absolutely loved it! The flow of the book is intense! This is one of those books you pick up and cannot set back down until you have finished reading it. Even then, the story stays with you. Yes, it's that good!
August 18, 2016
This book surprised me! I thought at first it was going to be a simple devastation turns into love kinda story. It was way more in depth than that. A story about love, family and trust. Kind of fun with some killer witty remarks & fabulous characters. I loved it!
May 10, 2017
3/5 stars
Sigh... where do I begin with this one? So many high highs and low lows.
Plot: 4/5 - I really enjoyed the idea of this plot, but became even MORE of a fan once I realized there was even more to it than I had expected. The concept of a woman unknowingly entering a relationship with the man who was essentially responsible for her late husband's death sounded super spicy. The twists and turns that came AFTER that realization were what really gripped me and what made the middle third of the book so immensely readable and enjoyable for me. The ending, however, disappointed me greatly.
Characters: 2.5/5 - Yep, only half marks on the characters. Our main character is Julia, a 6th grade teacher who recently lost her husband. Now, as a teacher also named Julia, I may be biased, but I really really wanted to love Julia. And, for most of the book, I gave her a lot of leeway. But here's where it gets difficult... in a book with a contemporary setting, I have a very difficult time suspending my disbelief. So to watch as other characters complemented how smart she was while she was making REALLY DUMB CHOICES was tough. In fact, there was a moment when she was thinking about how she agreed with a sexist thought of Adrian's and her narration literally went " but [I] wondered when I started being such a letdown to women across the nation." Let me tell you, Julia... it was a while ago. All I wanted was for her to have some agency and stand up for herself and when she FINALLY appeared to be doing that... well, she blew it. "With Patrick, I'd been one woman, and with Adrian, another. Now who was I without either of them?" I don't know, Julia. The sad thing is I truly don't know.
Then we have her love interest, Adrian. Adrian is a modern day gangster but talks like he's out of a movie (hey, I don't have any personal connections with the mob so maybe that's how they really still talk?). I didn't like Adrian when we first met him and- surprise!- I still didn't like him at the end. It would be easy to dismiss him purely based on career but I happen to LOVE his best friend and coworker Dom (who I'll get to in a moment) so it's not just that. I couldn't stand Adrian because I found his behavior toward Julia controlling and borderline abusive. I'm not saying he beat her or was even verbally abusive during their relationship, but the way he manipulated her was NOT the makings of a healthy relationship. Before they were even dating he pursued her relentlessly, never giving up, essentially stalking her because he knew she'd be back at the diner sooner or later. When they were actually together he stole, ahem, got her gifts she didn't ask for and often didn't want, but didn't seem to care about her feelings on them. There's one scene where Julia says she might break up with him and he replies matter-of-factly that she wouldn't. She suggests she would move far away and he relies that he'd find her. This, to me, read as a terrifying threat. But all it did in the scene was soften Julia and it ended with a kiss. Yikes. In terms of the ending...
Onto the good stuff... Dom. Dom was the most likeable character in the whole book and honestly he was barely featured. His role in all of the events were the elements that I most didn't see coming and honestly I was rooting for him SO MUCH. I loved hearing about him when he was younger, and I think his relationships with both Adrian and Julia were infinitely more dynamic, complex, and realistic than the one between Adrian and Julia.
Pacing: 4/5 - The first half of this book was pretty slow for me, until things in their relationship started escalating so quickly that it became way too fast. This pacing made more sense around the halfway point, when I realized there was much more to the plot. From there the book was compulsively readable and I flew through the second half of the book!
Writing: 3/5 - Not bad but nothing incredibly remarkable. There were a lot of perspectives being juggled around- too many, in fact. I think frankly the whole narrative could have been more effective from only Julia's point of view because then there would have been more mystery- I skimmed all of Adrian's sections because I was annoyed by both his voice and personality, which meant that I wasn't at all intrigued to hear his thoughts on how gangsters were actually doing work God approved of (CHILL OUT, ADRIAN, HONESTLY). His portions also didn't seem to add anything to the narrative until much later in the story anyways, so I didn't miss out on much. There were also scenes from the perspective of Dom (loved them but didn't technically need them to tell the story), one time his mom for some reason (????), and Agent Bradshaw. It was just random and unnecessary to switch POV in my opinion.
Enjoyment: 3/5 - I think I've made this pretty clear so I'll keep this section short. The first half was meh, the third section of the book (it's divided into four parts) was THE BOMB, so full of twists and surprises and decisions that I actually approved of, and it remained gripping until the very end, which I'm actually trying to actively wipe out of my memory. If this book had ended the way I wanted, I would have bumped my enjoyment up to a 4 or 4.5... as it is, I just can't say I'm satisfied enough to go higher than that middle ground. It was like a Lifetime movie (which I love to watch, so no judgement!!!!) but without a real lesson learned for the protagonist.
Oh, and I do want to thank the author Bess Richards for sending me a copy of your book! There may have been a few choices I disagreed with, but you're still the sweetest for sending your Julia to this Julia :)
Sigh... where do I begin with this one? So many high highs and low lows.
Plot: 4/5 - I really enjoyed the idea of this plot, but became even MORE of a fan once I realized there was even more to it than I had expected. The concept of a woman unknowingly entering a relationship with the man who was essentially responsible for her late husband's death sounded super spicy. The twists and turns that came AFTER that realization were what really gripped me and what made the middle third of the book so immensely readable and enjoyable for me. The ending, however, disappointed me greatly.
Characters: 2.5/5 - Yep, only half marks on the characters. Our main character is Julia, a 6th grade teacher who recently lost her husband. Now, as a teacher also named Julia, I may be biased, but I really really wanted to love Julia. And, for most of the book, I gave her a lot of leeway. But here's where it gets difficult... in a book with a contemporary setting, I have a very difficult time suspending my disbelief. So to watch as other characters complemented how smart she was while she was making REALLY DUMB CHOICES was tough. In fact, there was a moment when she was thinking about how she agreed with a sexist thought of Adrian's and her narration literally went " but [I] wondered when I started being such a letdown to women across the nation." Let me tell you, Julia... it was a while ago. All I wanted was for her to have some agency and stand up for herself and when she FINALLY appeared to be doing that... well, she blew it. "With Patrick, I'd been one woman, and with Adrian, another. Now who was I without either of them?" I don't know, Julia. The sad thing is I truly don't know.
Then we have her love interest, Adrian. Adrian is a modern day gangster but talks like he's out of a movie (hey, I don't have any personal connections with the mob so maybe that's how they really still talk?). I didn't like Adrian when we first met him and- surprise!- I still didn't like him at the end. It would be easy to dismiss him purely based on career but I happen to LOVE his best friend and coworker Dom (who I'll get to in a moment) so it's not just that. I couldn't stand Adrian because I found his behavior toward Julia controlling and borderline abusive. I'm not saying he beat her or was even verbally abusive during their relationship, but the way he manipulated her was NOT the makings of a healthy relationship. Before they were even dating he pursued her relentlessly, never giving up, essentially stalking her because he knew she'd be back at the diner sooner or later. When they were actually together he stole, ahem, got her gifts she didn't ask for and often didn't want, but didn't seem to care about her feelings on them. There's one scene where Julia says she might break up with him and he replies matter-of-factly that she wouldn't. She suggests she would move far away and he relies that he'd find her. This, to me, read as a terrifying threat. But all it did in the scene was soften Julia and it ended with a kiss. Yikes. In terms of the ending...
Onto the good stuff... Dom. Dom was the most likeable character in the whole book and honestly he was barely featured. His role in all of the events were the elements that I most didn't see coming and honestly I was rooting for him SO MUCH. I loved hearing about him when he was younger, and I think his relationships with both Adrian and Julia were infinitely more dynamic, complex, and realistic than the one between Adrian and Julia.
Pacing: 4/5 - The first half of this book was pretty slow for me, until things in their relationship started escalating so quickly that it became way too fast. This pacing made more sense around the halfway point, when I realized there was much more to the plot. From there the book was compulsively readable and I flew through the second half of the book!
Writing: 3/5 - Not bad but nothing incredibly remarkable. There were a lot of perspectives being juggled around- too many, in fact. I think frankly the whole narrative could have been more effective from only Julia's point of view because then there would have been more mystery- I skimmed all of Adrian's sections because I was annoyed by both his voice and personality, which meant that I wasn't at all intrigued to hear his thoughts on how gangsters were actually doing work God approved of (CHILL OUT, ADRIAN, HONESTLY). His portions also didn't seem to add anything to the narrative until much later in the story anyways, so I didn't miss out on much. There were also scenes from the perspective of Dom (loved them but didn't technically need them to tell the story), one time his mom for some reason (????), and Agent Bradshaw. It was just random and unnecessary to switch POV in my opinion.
Enjoyment: 3/5 - I think I've made this pretty clear so I'll keep this section short. The first half was meh, the third section of the book (it's divided into four parts) was THE BOMB, so full of twists and surprises and decisions that I actually approved of, and it remained gripping until the very end, which I'm actually trying to actively wipe out of my memory. If this book had ended the way I wanted, I would have bumped my enjoyment up to a 4 or 4.5... as it is, I just can't say I'm satisfied enough to go higher than that middle ground. It was like a Lifetime movie (which I love to watch, so no judgement!!!!) but without a real lesson learned for the protagonist.
Oh, and I do want to thank the author Bess Richards for sending me a copy of your book! There may have been a few choices I disagreed with, but you're still the sweetest for sending your Julia to this Julia :)
September 10, 2016
A thoroughly enjoyable read. The Devil I Know has it all. An unforgettable and intelligent heroine in Julia with real life relatable characters. The story engages you from the start but continues to surprise and keeps you reading late into the night.
September 10, 2016
I read The Devil I Know last night. . The whole thing. In 1 sitting. I skipped dinner and snack (lol) bc I couldn't quit reading!
It was fabulous! I laughed, gasped, got teary eyed and breathed sighs of relief... Bess Richards simply did awesome and I can't wait for what she does next!
It was fabulous! I laughed, gasped, got teary eyed and breathed sighs of relief... Bess Richards simply did awesome and I can't wait for what she does next!
May 31, 2017
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.
The book is only 265 pages so it's a quick read. This story is about Julia, her husband is killed suddenly and she finds herself a young widow. Quickly Adrian has his eyes on her. She blows him off at first, but it's not long before they're falling in love. But Adrian in a mobster. and worse off he might have something to do with her husbands death.
The book is only 265 pages so it's a quick read. This story is about Julia, her husband is killed suddenly and she finds herself a young widow. Quickly Adrian has his eyes on her. She blows him off at first, but it's not long before they're falling in love. But Adrian in a mobster. and worse off he might have something to do with her husbands death.
October 29, 2016
At under 300 pages this is a fast read. Julia's husband is killed suddenly and she finds herself a young widow. Quickly (and I mean within a week, quickly) Adrian has his eyes on her. She blows him off at first, but it's not long before they're falling in love. The catch? Adrian is part of the mob.
I was worried the mobster part of this book would be cheesy, and it was in some ways. But this was a book that was hard to put down. It moves pretty fast and the story isn't too bad.
The characters all fell a little flat. The ending was rushed. This book would have been longer if it had been developed more. And it definitely needed more development!
I was worried the mobster part of this book would be cheesy, and it was in some ways. But this was a book that was hard to put down. It moves pretty fast and the story isn't too bad.
The characters all fell a little flat. The ending was rushed. This book would have been longer if it had been developed more. And it definitely needed more development!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews