Review: Four by Sara Cate & Rachel Leigh

Four by Sara Cate & Rachel Leigh

Series: Black Hearts #1

Publication date: January 5th, 2022

Pages: 310

Spice Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 

Synopsis:

They say family is a circle of strength.

But when mine is ripped away from me at the hands of a monster,

My strength is all that's left.

I'll give my last breath before they take anything else from me.

Even if I'm the one they wanted all along.

Find Silas Black.

Those were my father's last words.

So I did.

Only, I found so much more than just a man who was prepared to help me get my revenge.

I found a tortured soul who in return gave me hope.

But I also found his broken sons.

One hates me.

One desires me.

And Silas wants to save me.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but if I keep getting caught up in the heat of the moment, I'll be my own demise.

Available at:

Review:

Iris was a spoiled rotten Mafia princess who spent her days wandering her mansion and sleeping with her father's guards to pass the time. That was until her father's life was ended in a blaze of bullets. The last thing he said was to find Silas Black. As she escaped into the night after her entire family was eradicated she wondered whether she should keep running or adhere to her father's request. Unable to begrudge the man who raised her in his final hours she made her way to the Black household. When she entered the house the man she met was not who she expected. She expected an older man her father's age who would be able to find her a way to escape her potential fate. However, she finds a dangerously sexy man bent on getting her out of his house as soon as possible and two deranged sons. The first of his sons was maniacal and skilled at torture and her second had a silent sense of evil radiating off him. This was not where she had thought her life would end up.

But Iris is a fighter and so she implores the men to train her to exact her revenge on the man who lead the assassination of her father. Along the way she finds pleasure in the arms and beds of the three men at varying degrees. But is she prepared for one of them to potentially betray her and for the man determine to make her his to find her once more?

I've read a widespread spectrum of taboo-esk reads over the years... but this one is a bit much for even me. I have read stepbrother romance. Even some stepfather romance. I have read adoptive daughters/sons and siblings. A wide spectrum. But I have not read one where a biological son shares a girl with his father. That was a big much to me and felt a little... incest-y. I do appreciate that the authors chose to kind of titillate their readers by toying with the idea of the father and son actively sharing the girl at the same time, it never crosses that line. That may be considered a spoiler but I feel it is a bit of a comfort to the potential trigger warning. This biological parent/child sharing is what turned off initially to the book. But it wasn't the only reason for my rating.

The book felt like it was more focused on the romance then it was the actual plot of the story. The story wrapped extremely easily which made even the character go, "this seems far too easy why wasn't this done earlier?" If even the character can recognize it, I feel that it maybe should have been fleshed out a bit more so that it wasn't so simply. I felt that the quick falling action and conclusion felt rushed and that tipped me towards the opposite side of the fence I was riding.

The book was decent if you are looking for some taboo smut reverse harem, but if you want more than that in a story, this may not be the one for you.