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    REVIEW: Take Me Apart by Brea Alepou & Skyler Snow

    Vitale Brothers: Take Me Apart – Brea Alepou & Skylar Snow

    I have only one goal in life: Become a detective. It’s there, just out of reach, so close I can taste it. When I find out the Vitale family is about to be investigated again, I do what I do best.

    Jump in head first.

    There’s just one problem; Enzo Vitale. The man is red hot danger, every word a dare from his lips. And I never was one to turn away from a challenge…

    But when things get rough, lies reign and deceit is around every corner. I find myself drawn to the one man I should be running from. The criminal whose hands are bathed in blood.

    Am I falling for the enemy?


    Take Me Apart is a siren song of dark, delicious things, and I’m here for it!

    This is the opener for Vitale Brothers, a mafia romance series by Brea Alepou and Skyler Snow. I’ve known Brea Alepou for her poly romances, and this is my first Skyler Snow. They immediately got me hooked on the series.

    The premise is similar to my last weeks’ read, Pretty Policeman. Here we have another cop falling for a mafioso in a forbidden love that might just destroy them both. Rookie cop Tex Castor, desperate to become a detective, took it upon himself to investigate the Vitale Family as the short cut to his dreams.

    While in a club owned by the mob, Enzo Vitale took one look at Tex, knew he was a cop, but latched on to him anyway. Enzo didn’t tell Tex he knew, and launched into a single minded pursuit of the man. This despite a previous fatally disastrous affair with a guy eerily similar to Tex.

    Early on, it’s apparent that Enzo is neurodivergent. It’s never explicitly mentioned, but there were lots of hints, such as his tendency to dissociate or hyper-fixate, as well as his inability to process emotions.

    Enzo is described as a non-threatening looking guy with eye glasses and lean build who loves reading, doing projects, and most of all, cleaning. In my head, I pictured him looking like a university professor. He could have been had he not been born a Vitale. Being the younger Vitale and exceptionally adept at torture, he the enforcer and interrogator of the family. This is a neat freak who likes blood and gore.

    Tex isn’t TSTL, just a cop with poor impulse control and a reformed drug addict dangerously close to slipping. Torn between his dream of becoming a detective and his growing feelings for the mafioso, Tex is a hot mess with nowhere to go but run, the dork!

    Admittedly, the first few chapters were not as riveting as I hoped. Only the enticing performance of Declan Winters kept me going. He’s one of those gifted narrators who could read a grocery list, and I’ll be listening. I highly recommend audiobooking this. He’s the same guy who brought C.S. Poe‘s Magic & Steam series to life.

    Things picked up a third way in. Enzo got his claws out and firmly sank them into Tex. I loved his voice!, The narrator gave him this calm, emotionless voice that gets growly when he’s being extra emotional. No wonder Tex can’t keep away!

    Enzo is everything here! Dominant, possessive and obsessive, he’s a psychopath, confident in himself and his abilities. He knows what he wants and has no qualms handcuffing the object of his desire to keep it there. The fluffy parts come when he shows his soft side because he’s crazy in love with Tex and would do anything to make him happy.

    Meanwhile, Tex needs to make up his mind because he can’t play both sides. I wasn’t impress with our boy stringing Enzo along. I liked him better after he made up his mind. Also, his cat Penelope is a star.

    I can’t say the pace is fast, but after moving past the opening chapters, the plot moved in a steady, engaging manner. The authors kept the tension tight and intense most parts of the story. The dysfunctional romance was both frustrating and compelling, cute at certain moments but mostly as deliciously dark as promised.

    “From now on, I’m the only one allowed to hurt you or make you cry. Every inch of you belongs to me.” I bit his lip. “Even your life.”

    Tex groaned. “Yeah. Where do I sign, Satan?”

    The rest of the story gives us violence, graphic torture, domestic abuse, childhood trauma, and betrayal. It’s not pitch black, just dark grey, but reader discretion is advised. The vibe of Vitale Brothers reminded me of my favorite Criminal Delights books. If you like that series, the Vitales will do it for you.

    I don’t have a favorite Vitale yet. Each brother is pretty memorable. While Enzo is usually preternaturally calm and expressionless, Giancarlo, a.k.a. Gin, wears his emotions on his sleeve. He’s the easy going playboy who goes beast mode on a hair trigger. Benito is the oldest and the deadliest, and I’m so excited for his book. He’s forced to marry a yakuza boss’s son! What a merger!

    Take Me Apart is about a cop following his dream and stumbles into a seductive nightmare he’s helpless to resist. Gritty, violent, wild and all the raw intensity of a monster growling, “MINE!

    Rating:
    4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bits

    Soundtrack: Pieces
    Artist: Andrew Belle
    Album: Black Bear


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    REVIEW: Pretty Policeman: The Case of the Suspicious Stripper by Fifer Rose

    Pretty Policeman: The Case of the Suspicious Stripper – Fifer Rose

    Going undercover at a strip club owned by your mafioso boyfriend without running it past him first? Not the best idea. (Then again, a few spankings never hurt anyone… much.)

    Micah Hart had learned a few things the first few months of officially dating Damon Romano, a vicious mafioso/ridiculously rich billionaire, infamous throughout New York City for his cut-throat “business”

    1. Damon was soft for nothing and no one… except Micah (and maybe his sisters).
    2. His domineering tendencies definitely extended to the bedroom.
    3. Damon didn’t trust him – not completely.

    That last one shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. After all, there were bound to be certain obstacles to overcome in a relationship when one person was a mafia don and the other was a police-detective-turned-PI.

    Damon keeps Micah far away from anything related to his “work”, and Micah allows it… at least until a stripper named Ginger waltzes into his struggling detective agency, claiming that her boyfriend – also a stripper – is trying to kill her. Ginger just so happens to work at Lust, the most infamous of a chain of clubs Damon has specifically warned Micah away from.

    Taking the job would require him to go undercover at Lust, and he should say no.

    But Damon is out of town for the weekend.

    And Micah’s been salivating for an actually worthwhile case for weeks now.

    What’s the worst that could happen?

    (Psst. Spankings.)


    Pretty Policeman is a fantastic brain candy written in the vein of Pretty Woman but with an undercover cop posing as a rent boy and a ruthless mafia don hellbent on being his sugar daddy. Against all odds and common sense, the two made it work.

    Fast forward to the present day, former detective Micah Hart is now working as a private investigator with his partner, also former detective, Tessa Gallagher. One particularly interesting case came their way, and the two were eager to jump on it.

    Pretty Policeman: The Case of the Suspicious Stripper has Micah and Tessa investigating claims by Ginger, a stripper, that her boyfriend and fellow stripper, Tommy, is trying to kill her. To do this, the detectives have to work undercover as employees of the club owned by Damon Romano and managed by his sister Joelle. And Micah has to do it secretly because everyone knows Damon’s possessive caveman tendencies.

    As with the first book, its best to suspend disbelief, grain of salt, etc. Also, read Pretty Policeman before diving into this to get the lay of land, so to speak, because this installment assumes you had done just that. The plot moves fast and doesn’t waste time explaining who’s who. Previous events were vaguely referenced, as well.

    The new case is interesting but can hardly hold water. It runs on the miscommunication gag where a character says one thing, and Micah thinks another. The people involved could have sorted it out themselves had Joelle not been scheming about Micah and her brother.

    Micah is still our lovable TSTL hero with spectacularly bad self-preservation instincts, has a look of wide-eyed innocence only seen in lambs, and a heart of gold as bright as his smile. The doofus still makes me laugh with his internal dialogues, this time written with less mini-explanations in parentheses. I kinda miss those because they show how Micah’s mind works.

    The story is in Micah’s POV. One of the things that makes it entertaining is that there is a constant sense of impending disaster, or anticipation of the other shoe dropping, whenever Micah makes god awful decisions or is talked into doing dumbass things. We as the reader see the approaching trainwreck a mile away while Micah doesn’t or does but forges on anyway.

    Our boy is all good intentions and saving the people, and we root hard for him, but also, yikes! As cute as he is, I would l love to see Micah’s character develop. When he was still a detective, he convinced me he was good at what he does. Here, his investigations skills were a joke.

    Damon, on the other hand, effortlessly kept the growly, possessive, soft-for-no-one-but-you moments as delicious and swoony as possible. The romance focused more on Damon being a Daddy rather than a Sugar Daddy, though he still loves pampering his precious tesoro. Fuck knows why the man latched on to Micah the way he did, but the mafia don had some of the most intensely romantic lines in the book!

    “You’re my heart, tesoro, and it’s terrifying having to watch it walk outside my body.”

    My favorite part is Geoffrey’s POV. He is Damon’s loyal chauffer and bodyguard who notes the changes in his boss since Damon had Micah. Through him we see a different side of Damon, the much-feared mafioso part, and the more recent besotted boyfriend side that few ever see. Geoffrey’s internal dialogues were more cynical than Micah’s but no less hilarious.

    Pretty Policeman: The Case of the Suspicious Stripper is a shorter read than its predecessor. The plot may be thin, our hero might lack common sense, but the writing made me chuckle, and the romance is high on squees. All in all, fun, light-hearted, and super swoony!

    Rating:
    4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bits

    Soundtrack: Treasure
    Artist: Port Duo feat. Jonathan Ogden
    Album: Far Away

    P.S.

    Pretty Policeman the series is should be read in order. Find out how the unlikely pair of a mafia don and police detective came together in Book 1, Pretty Policeman.


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    REVIEW: Confetti Hearts by Lily Morton

    Confetti Hitched: Confetti Hearts – Lily Morton

    Joe Bagshaw doesn’t believe in love or marriage anymore, which is rather a hindrance for a wedding planner.

    His own marriage was a whirlwind affair that ended before the ink could dry on the wedding certificate. Nevertheless, even with his divorce pending, he’s getting by. Or at least he was until he finds himself snowed in at a remote Scottish hotel with the wedding party from hell, a terrible ABBA tribute band, and his soon-to-be ex-husband.

    Lachlan has missed Joe from the second his husband walked away. He wants Joe back and is prepared to do anything to get him. Being snowed in together seems to offer the chance Lachlan needs, but does he have what it takes to get Joe to trust in love and their marriage again?

    From bestselling author Lily Morton, comes a romantic comedy about love, matrimony, and the best of second chances.

    This is the first book in the Confetti Hitched series.


    One of my favorite tropes is the second-chance romance between estranged husbands. There’s not a lot of that around, so when Confetti Hearts was released, I was ecstatic!

    Confetti Hearts is the opener of Confetti Hitched, a wedding planning company. Joe Bagshaw is one of its top wedding planners, spectacularly adept at putting out fires and averting impending bridal disasters. His biggest secret is that he and his husband, forensic accountant Lachlan Moore, is about to be divorced a few months after a whirlwind romance and a Vegas wedding. Not something someone in the business of making happy ever afters want known.

    The story is told mostly in Joe’s POV, with a couple chapters in Lachlan’s. Right from the get go, Joe had my sympathies. Our boy was thoroughly swept off his feet. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the relationship and only pulled back when he felt he was being shut out by Lachlan. The other shoe dropped when he discovered Lachlan and his PA kissing.

    For second chances for estranged husbands to work, I need both parties to be worth rooting for. Sadly, Lachlan didn’t do it for me. His character lacked depth. Sure, he was making all these grand gestures and saying romantic things, but I didn’t feel any genuine spark between him and Joe.

    Add to that him being describe as capable of charming everyone, including Joe’s anti-social cat, but being a twat to Joe in private, I don’t know, but the word sociopath came to mind. And if it was by design that his character had his wall up in the first parts, I’m still left unconvinced in the latter parts despite him supposedly a changed man and making all these grandiose vows.

    Another issue I had with their relationship and the story, as a whole, is that Joe was such a doormat. The “power dynamics” was heavily skewed in Lachlan’s favor. And it irritates me how Joe and the story were oh so quick to absolve Lachlan of any wrongdoings, despite not redeeming himself satisfactorily. He needs to grovel more, damn it!

    I think the book could benefit from more of Lachlan’s POV. Having his perspective could also give his character dimension. The main conflict here is miscommunication, one of my least favorites. Knowing Lachlan’s side sooner might make him more sympathetic. And I think the plot and Lachlan’s secret scheme to get Joe back could work better with this, rather than keep things in the dark until the end.

    I also wasn’t a fan of the dialogues. Snark is the author’s signature, but here, I feel the characters talk for the sake of being snarky. I didn’t find any of their lines particularly funny. This was the same issue with another book by the author, which I couldn’t finish due to the dialogues.

    Confetti Hearts wasn’t quite what I expected. I was prepared to squee but, instead, ended up wanting to yeet the damn book out the window. Our boy Joe was the only reason I kept going, plus I really like the book model as him on the cover. Joe deserves better!

    Rating:
    2 Stars – it’s a struggle to finish the damn book

    Soundtrack: Confetti
    Artist: Grand Lotus
    Album: The Vibrant Migrant


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