Review: Sinner Anonymous by Somme Sketcher

Sinner Anonymous by Somme Sketcher

Series: Sinners Anonymous #1

Publication date: December 24th, 2021

Pages: 348

Spice: 🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

My fiancé's nephew knows every sin I've ever committed. He's about to become the deepest and darkest of them all.

My name is Rory Carter and I do bad things.

There's a charred soul under this angelic exterior and sometimes, I wonder if my weekly confessions to the Sinners Anonymous hotline will be enough to heal it.

Marrying the seventy-something head of the Cosa Nostra to save my father is the only good deed I've ever done.

I'm burning and bitter under the fake smile and tight dresses, but I was keeping it together.

Was.

Until my fiancé's nephew turns up to dinner uninvited.

Angelo 'Vicious' Visconti.

A beautiful monster with cheekbones as sharp as his tongue.

They say I shouldn't be scared of him, because nine years ago, he went straight.

He's barely a Made Man anymore.

But I say, he's the most dangerous Visconti of all.

It's not just because his cold sneer makes my pulse flutter.

Or the way his syrupy drawl trickles down my spine.

No. He holds all of my sins in his big, rough hands.

And the only sins darker than mine are his own.

Available at:

Review:

For a girl who only curses in bird words, Aurora finds herself to be one of the ultimate sinners. Every week when she goes to visit her father she calls the hotline Sinners Anonymous to confess all the petty sins she had caused in retribution for the horrible people she had tethered herself to. Aurora has hooked her wagon to the capo of one of the biggest territories around. She had to. If she didn't her father would pay the price. Her fiancé's nephew showing up should have been safe. He was no longer in the family business and had gone straight. But the more time she spends around him the more she sees him leaning into his Made Man status and a lot of the time it centers around her. Aurora is in danger of committing the biggest sin of all: falling for the nephew of the man she was meant to marry.

First, I would like to discuss how well written the book was. The vocabulary and grammar as well as the ability to set a scene was really on point for the author. The characters were developed well and it was easy to visualize them and understand their mannerisms. However, I struggled a little with this book. I loved Angelo as a character even if I didn't completely understand his whole decisions to come back to town at that particular time nor why someone who acts firsts and asks questions later would wait so long to do what he should have done years ago. It doesn't seem like he would be the type to really sit on something like that for that long. And Rory's reasoning for marrying Angelo's uncle is also a bit shaky. I can understand the underlining reason for it but she was from the town that she was fighting to protect, so shouldn't she have known who was in charge of it? I think that the characters motivations for their actions or the way they carried them out was hard to be believable. But the characters were so likeable that you tend to kind of overlook it.

I think that this book could have been better as a series that followed the main characters for a while instead of switching it up to another couple for the second book while also (probably) trying to reconnect the main characters into the plot. I will be waiting to read the second book until I wish to delve into the other characters as they find love. As is, I am fine leaving it where it is. I feel like this book could have been great if the plot line was smoother. But the characters and the love story scored it some points to save it.

Review: Too Far by Abby Millsaps

Too Far by Abby Millsaps

Series: Boys of Lake Chapel #3

Publication date: December 29th, 2023

Pages: 431

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

I never considered how far I'd go to protect those I love.

Not until now.

Not until them.

Locke. Kylian. Kendrick. Decker.

The boys of Lake Chapel own me: mind and body, heart and soul.

I'll fight for them. Wait for them. Root for them and support them through anything.

Because what we're building together is a forever kind of love.

Every word will be dissected, every move recorded, but the cameras and media scrutiny are temporary.

We cling to private moments away from the mansion and hold out hope that life won't always be this hard.

But when a terrifying encounter with parallels to the past leaves us shaken, Decker takes drastic action.

And despite our whispered promises and dreams for the future, what we share may not be enough to survive the pressure of what comes next.

The boys of Lake Chapel taught me that love can be limitless.

No one warned me what can happen when love is pushed too far.

TOO FAR is the third and final book in the Boys of Lake Chapel series. It is a full-length why choose sports romance featuring darker themes and high heat.

Available at:

Review:

How could Joey not realize that being with four of the most sought after men of her college would put her directly in the spotlight that she so badly wanted to avoid? She learned that eventually her past would come back to bite her if she didn't get ahead of it and so she let down her guard and let her men know what had happened to her that sent her running away to their hometown. She thought they would judge her or be upset with her for hiding it but instead they only wanted to support her through it and make things better for her. They all truly love her on a depth that it hurts them to see her hurt. However, when they are meant to be followed around by cameras for a week and a half due to one of Decker's contracts, the apprehension grows palpable. Can the girl who longs to live a quiet life in solitude put herself back in the public eye despite her trauma for the men she loves? And when the paparazzi seem to take it a step too far, it might threaten everything they had built between them.

I liked this installment in the series a lot better than the last. This one wasn't just about battling the "should I or shouldn't I" of revealing past trauma to the people the FMC was involved with. This had action, intrigue, and more of Decker's pigheadedness. I swear, that man loves to make things difficult for himself. He really outdid himself this time. He ended up hurting Joey beyond what was considered good taste. How can a man sleep with a woman for the first time and in the light of the morning do that to her? That urge to strangle him never went away. I really wish the author would have just... had him eaten by rabid badgers or something. About the only thing he didn't do was bang another girl or allude to doing so to hurt Joey and push her away. I have zero love for Decker. Even when he tried to redeem himself. Nope.

I did like the ebb and flow of the story. It didn't purely focus on the smut. It didn't purely focus on the stressors and problems they all had to deal with. It was a good mix of all of the components from both books. It even surpassed the first book in my favor. There were a distinct lessening of "fuck/hell yeah" sentiments in the sex scenes which gave me a sigh of relief. I liked watching how they each complimented Joey in their own way. They had their roles and they played them well. Even Dickhead Decker.

Again I ran into the issue of 4-5 epilogue-like time skips at the end of the book. I understand the author wants to give more depth and also give the reader time to say goodbye to the characters. I get that readers want to know what happens after the credits start to roll and the characters are presented with a happily ever after. But when it starts saying, "four years later, one year later, two years later, four years later" I start having to pause and do math. I hate math. I don't want to do math while reading! It all becomes a series of me trying to figure out what time period we're in, how old the characters are, hold old any kids or pets are, and like we're Marty McFly-ing our way through their lives at the speed of sound. I felt, personally, it would have been better with just one slightly longer epilogue encompassing everything that happened between the end of the book and the end of the epilogue choo-choo train. But... I loved the characters so much that even the abundance of time skips didn't detract too much from my opinion of this final book.