Never Hollowed By The Stare

Park Avenue Kings: Savage by Brooke Blaine & Ella Frank

Who are we? Nobody really knows. We’re the seven most powerful heirs to empires, ruling Manhattan from our thrones on Park Avenue. By day, we’re the elite, untouchable, and more connected than you could ever imagine. By night, we revel in the darkness of our secrets, pulling strings that make the city bow to our whims.

Ruthless.

Dangerous.

We’re the Park Avenue Kings.

In this city of power and desire, where the line between love and obsession blurs, nothing is off-limits—and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

He’s the shadow they send to make problems disappear.

Lachlan Stone thrives in the shadows, ruling his world of secrets and power with savage precision. As the most lethal of the Park Avenue Kings, he can’t afford the luxury of attachments. But when a mission takes an unexpected turn, he finds himself saving Cooper Patterson—a determined journalist who stumbles into a dangerous world far bigger than he ever imagined.

Cooper is everything Lachlan should avoid: relentless, curious, and far too tempting for his own good. Worse, his profession threatens to unravel everything Lachlan and his fellow Kings have built. Yet the pull between them is impossible to ignore, even as it sparks a firestorm of desire and danger.

With enemies closing in and the line between truth and lies growing thinner by the second, Lachlan must choose: protect his secrets, or risk it all for the man who sees the humanity in his darkness.

Savage is the first book of Park Avenue Kings by bestselling authors Brooke Blaine and Ella Frank. This is the spin-off of Park Avenue Princes, featuring 30-something billionaire MCs.

The Princes didn’t really pique my interest, but the Kings certainly did, especially the part of the blurb that spoke of a shadowy antihero. I was immediately intrigued by hints that this was something more than a billionaire meet-cute.

The Kings turned out to be a brotherhood, a very secretive, badass one at that. We are introduced to each King and their imposing leader Tyrone Kingston, star of Notorious Park Avenue Prince. Each King had his specialty, and their personalities stood out.

I’m super excited for Alessio’s story since he’s paired with a priest, and as early as now, there’s some hardcore pining going on.

I’ll keep details of the brotherhood to a minimum and let you have fun finding out if you’re new to the Park Avenue royalties. This is certainly the best part and for this alone, I’m sticking with the series.

Today’s King is Lachlan Stone, owner of a security firm. Kings’ business brought him to a dark alley just in time to rescue journalist Cooper Patterson from bad guys. Lachlan was wearing a mask since he was on Kings’ business.

Intrigued by the clearly fish-out-of-water Cooper, he started stalking the journalist and learned Cooper was investigating the same bad guys the Kings were after. Lachlan was also strongly drawn to the other man, so much so that he stalked him both with the mask and as himself.

Our naive boy, Coop, had no idea that the mysterious masked man and the gorgeous man he met at the coffee shop were one and the same. He’s thirsting after both.

The book model of Lachlan is spot on. He even got the ring and the bracelets. Another reason why I picked up the book. Lachlan is your typical dominant alpha male, and sadly, his character didn’t veer much from that. His masked alter ego reminded me of Batman dressed like an all-black Rorschach, and this is my favorite version of Lachlan.

Cooper is a recent New York transplant from the Mid-West. He might be naive but he’s determined to get to the bottom of things and give his friend, who was a victim of the bad guys, justice. Like Lachlan, his characterization lacked depth but he’s got that cute, innocent vibe going so he’s alright.

It is easy to see that the book was written by veteran romance writers. The vibe was intense, the sexual tension off the charts, the pacing was tight, and the writing flowed smoothly. But as much as Lachlan and Cooper were burning up the pages, their romance wasn’t really memorable.

The story focused too much on romance and sex. While the sex scenes blended seamlessly with the plot and the romantic development was believable, they detracted from the more important, more exciting parts, which were either glossed over or rushed. It’s a missed opportunity to showcase the Kings’ badassery.

Overall, I felt Savage should have been written as a romantic suspense with greater emphasis on the suspenseful, action-packed scenes and Kings’ business. However, YMMV because many readers like it the way it is.

Still, there are a lot of potential in this series so on to the next King.

Rating:
3 Stars – not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked it

Soundtrack: Masquerade
Artist: Robosoul feat. Cid Fox
Album: Masquerade

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SAVAGE: Kindle | Audiobook

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