King Reece

Crescent Crew #2

by Shaun Sinclair

They led the Dirty South’s most infamous crew. One became a rap superstar. One ruled the streets. But when the king comes back hard for his throne, who will be left standing? Life couldn’t get better for the Crescent Crew. With an exclusive Mexican pipeline, they’ve got the Southern drug trade on lock. Former founder Qwess is leveraging rap superstardom to break the music industry’s commercial stranglehold. And former leader Reece is fresh off a five-year prison bid—and out to forever secure the Crew’s dominance. But as Reece is working a brutal vendetta, a Crew mutiny will drag him back into all-out street war. Now, between the ambitious young Crew and ruthless OG Reece, only one can live to reign . . . Praise for THE CRESCENT CREW SERIES “Shaun Sinclair taps into the new code and DNA of black and urban life in America, where there’s one foot in the rap game and another foot still out in the mean and hungry streets of capitalism.” —Omar Tyree, New York Times bestselling author and creator of The American Disease ebook series “A bone-chilling tale that will keep the readers longing for more, while revaluating every choice they make.” —NeNe Capri, author of The G Street Chronicles

274 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 25, 2019

Reviews

[Kelsie Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

King Reece
Shaun Sinclair

King Reece is urban fiction from author Shaun Sinclair. The novel is second in his Crescent Crew series but works well as a standalone. Sinclair provides more than adequate details of the story to-date.

The Crescent Crew is a gangster organization that rivals the Italian mob. It’s founders, rappers King Reece and Qwess, own the streets even when they’re locked up. King Reece is nearing the end of his nearly five year incarceration, and he has big plans for both friend and foe. He and his crew operate from both the street and legit sides of business. They have embraced the life and legend as gangster rappers and street thugs.

Shaun Sinclair’s characters are well-developed and have significant backstories. These are characters that you love to hate and hate to love. Sinclair introduces us to more ruthless killers with fleeting hints of humanity. The Crescent Crew continues to embody their motto - Death Before Dishonor.

Sinclair has risen to his own standard. He has once again successfully utilized his literary formulation that mixes ghetto life and affluence. King Reece delivers what is expected from a gritty urban novel: over-the-top gangsters, violence, sex, drugs and more violence.

I throughly enjoyed every aspect of this novel. Again, the plot is exquisite and the betrayals are stunning. King Reece is a definite 5 out of 5 stars. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys urban fiction, however the explicit sexual content and violence may be disturbing to some readers.

My thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. However, the opinions expressed in this review are 100% mine and mine alone.

[Yellagirlgc · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Kya Ione · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting off, I feel like I should preface that I didn't read the first book of this series. I had no idea what I was getting into when I opened the book, but I was immediately interested. All of the characters in this book are bad, that's just a fact. It was hard to really find a character I liked, but I found myself liking Reece as I neared the ending of the book. It was a bit hard to follow at times, with all the characters and settings and different important names you needed to know. With all of that being said, I did thoroughly enjoy this book and found out there is going to be a third book released in September... ahhhh. I didn't think I would enjoy this book nearly as much as I did. I found myself rooting for other characters and relationships way more than others, but that was only the half of it. The one big critique I would give this book is the NSFW scenes; there are too many. They never added much to the book, limiting them would have made my experience reading exactly the same. Loved this book!

[Katrina E · Rating 2 out of 5]

The bar was set high for this book. It was supposed to be good since the 1st one was amazing. This book had only half of the first books engery. And the ending wheeeeeewwww chile this made it a complete waste of time.

[Cassandra Baker-Durham · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I really tried to like this book. But honestly, it fell flat for me.
We meet King Reece as he is on the cusp of completing a five-year prison sentence. He is a kingpin even behind the walls. His friend Qwess is an award-winning rap star who King has taken the fall for.  King Reese has big plans for the people who betrayed him upon his release. And this is where things went left. As a huge fan of urban lit, I didn’t care a single thing about these characters, which make it difficult to continue reading.
Once King is released he begins to execute his plan along with The Crescent Crew, but the trouble is even brewing over there. This man cannot catch a break. I really want to dig into it but I don't like to post spoilers. 
The character development was off. A character would show up and I’d know nothing about them. I then researched and found out this book is part of a series and although it is presented as a standalone, I do believe you need to read the first book.
There are no such things as a bad book, but this one wasn’t for me at all.

My thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. However, the opinions expressed in this review are 100% mine and mine alone.

[Shoshana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reece and Qwess are closer than brothers, to the extent that Reece spent five years in jail to protect Qwess. During that time Qwess continued building his rap empire while Reece had his gangster underlings running drugs and the Crescent Crew. Now that Reece is on the outside, adjustment isn’t going as smoothly as he thought. Being pulled between three different versions of himself – King Reece, Rapper Reece, and Reece – he doesn’t know which person to become. Will Reece allow his dark, ambitious, vengeful side to lead or find happiness with his son? Sinclair has created another heart pounding storyline, set to the unrelenting beat of life in the urban south. Each suspenseful twist in this deeply engrossing story will keep readers on the edge of their seats clamoring for more. Fans of Kwame Teague and Jihad will be sure to enjoy Sinclair’s latest addition to the Crescent Crew series.

[Sheryl Boyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was good like the 1st one. Qwess is ready to retire from rapping and work more on the business side of his label company. He got out of his contract and he wanted Niya out of hers so she could switch labels. Reece is released from prison and he gets to meet his son he has with Destiny. He is out for revenge from her but has a change of heart. The ending of this book was unexpected. Read it to find out who dies. I'm on to the next one!

[Erica (The Literary Apothecary) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mark of a truly good story is that it is capable of invoking emotion well after the last chapter is finished. A tremendous amount of talent and polish went into writing this story. With a consistent style and tone not commonly seen in the urban fiction genre and efficient descriptions that didn't slow the pace, Shaun's work it extremely original and an excellent addition to the genre.

[Vnunez-Ms_luv2read · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the 1st book in this series. I was happy to read the second installment. This book was a bit better than the first. So far, good series. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book to the Cresent crew series. While you don't HAVE to read the 1st one to understand this one I highly suggest it. I loved the 1st one and I loved this one even more. Fair warning tho the ending will have you crying real tears!

[William Walter · Rating 2 out of 5]

marginally better than crescent crew series book 1--not surprised the limited readership for these low value works

[Jacques · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read, but the story was predictable.