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Publication date: December 26th, 2022
Pages: 406
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Synopsis:
Hey,
Over here.
No, look up.
Yeah, I'm the one they talk about. The headmaster's prized possession, locked away in the bell tower of NotreDame Parochial College. To most of the students I was just a myth.
An urban legend.
The girl who rings the bells up in the tower, the one who talks to gargoyles.
Frollo's secret
Then they showed up, those heartless heathens. Outcasts, just like me. But these men aren't just dangerous, they're heartless. They won't abide or bend to the rules of this deranged school and the secrets it keeps from the world.
But now that they've found me, they may never let me go.
And maybe I wouldn't want them to...
Heartless Heathens: Sanctuary
Is a Why Choose Gothic Romance in an academy setting loosely inspired from major points of Victor Hugo's Notredame De Paris. This is NOT retelling, it is NOT a fractured fairy tale or a reimagining. All characters are adults.
Available at:
Review:
Romina has only ever known cruelty as her form of loving care. Her caregiver, Father Frollo, would no sooner spit on her if she were on fire than watch her burn right before his eyes. He makes sure she is well aware of the burden she has been for him all the years he has raised her and kept her his secret charge in the bell tower of the chapel. She is mostly content to live out her days with her gargoyle friends and watching the students bustle around the campus unaware of their rapt audience.
But one day her world is turned upside down when three men, heathens Father Frollo calls them, show up in her chapel home and take it over for themselves. She remains in hiding for a weeks time before she has to venture out for food lest she perish in her captivity. When she is caught sneaking out one of the bedroom windows she is thrown into a new world where the cruelty seems almost kindly as opposed to what she has experienced. She remains in the care of the three men and made to do their bidding as their faithful pet. But somewhere along the way she started to develop feelings for her captors and started to see them for what they were: wounded, just like her.
But one day her world is turned upside down when three men, heathens Father Frollo calls them, show up in her chapel home and take it over for themselves. She remains in hiding for a weeks time before she has to venture out for food lest she perish in her captivity. When she is caught sneaking out one of the bedroom windows she is thrown into a new world where the cruelty seems almost kindly as opposed to what she has experienced. She remains in the care of the three men and made to do their bidding as their faithful pet. But somewhere along the way she started to develop feelings for her captors and started to see them for what they were: wounded, just like her.
As Romina gets deeper into their world she starts to question everything she had ever been taught by Father Frollo and starts to wonder if there is a way for her to finally be free of her abusive caregiver and her bell tower prison?
This book was like a romanticized, reverse harem Hunchback of Notre Dame but where the girl is smoking and only deformed socially due to isolation. I found Romina to be interesting. She was innocent but no so innocent that she wasn't curious or open to new ideas and suggestions. She just longed to be cared for by someone, anyone, and had to weather the pitfalls of the wounded men she demanded this from. I think that it was amazing to watch them mold her into the person she always long to be while accepting her flaws fully. She also helped them to grow and overcome their crippling fear about caring for someone only for that person to disappear.
The spice in this book practically singled my eyebrows off. I have read a lot of spicy books but this one was a while 'nother level. If you are squeamish though about menstrual blood when coupled with sex you may want to go into this with a little bit of care. There was one scene in particular that even I had to put my kindle down to gather myself and I have seen it all in smut. But it did not stop me from DEVOURING this book in almost one sitting.
Heartless Heathens will test your boundaries and give you a brand new romantic experience when these four come together. It has the spice that keeps on burning all the way until the end.
Heartless Heathens will test your boundaries and give you a brand new romantic experience when these four come together. It has the spice that keeps on burning all the way until the end.
