The Firm: Covenant – Cora Rose & Lark Taylor

The Firm can make any wish come true.
Money. A job promotion. Murder.
Whatever you desire can be yours—for a price.

The Firm has ruled St. Dismas for generations. To most, they’re just a myth.
But in truth, they are the last resort of the desperate.

I never understood why anyone would go to The Firm. There’s always a price to pay—a price you won’t discover until your request has been granted.
It was a path I swore I’d never walk.
Or so I thought.

When my brother is gravely injured, everything changes.
I have no choice but to go to The Firm.
I don’t know what they’ll ask of me, but I’ll give anything to save Jackson.
He has his whole life ahead of him, and I’ll make sure he gets to live it.

But when my price comes due, it’s nothing like I expected.
Not drug smuggling or murder. Not the darkness I braced myself for.
No, this is worse.

My price is to fulfill someone else’s request.
To give them what they asked for.

A marriage.

For anyone else, it may seem simple. But not for me.
Because the man I must marry is my worst enemy.
My rival.
The man I once trusted above all others—until he shattered that trust and threw it back in my face.

The idea of pretending to be Matthias’s doting husband for a year is my worst nightmare.
But I won’t do it for me.
I’ll do it for Jackson.
For my brother, I’ll pay the price.

Even if it means condemning myself.

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The Firm is a very, very promising new series by authors Cora Rose and Lark Taylor, giving us another lovable band of brothers. The Buckingham brothers are billionaires, gorgeous, memorable, and neck-deep in secrets and danger. Insta-faves!

Covenant opens the series with a second chance, arranged marriage romance between childhood friends-turned-enemies-to-lovers.

Wyatt Malone came from the trailer park and managed to build himself up as a top lawyer at a prestigious firm, only for everything to come crashing down when his brother, Jackson, was in a near-fatal accident. Barely affording food, much less physical therapy for Jackson, who lost a leg, he was forced to go to The Firm in a desperate bid to provide for his brother.

The Firm, the secret society ruling St. Dismas, grants requests for a price. They are more urban legend than reality for Wyatt, until that fateful day he made a request and they accepted it in exchange for marrying Matthias Buckingham who needs a husband to claim his inheritance.

Wyatt and Matthias were childhood friends looking forward to spending college together when a betrayal almost cost Wyatt his dream of becoming a lawyer. He never forgave Matt and never saw him again until 10 years later, when Matthias brought the firm Wyatt was working for.

The story is in Wyatt’s POV, with a few chapters in Matthias’s. I don’t encounter many stories where the POV is from the person experiencing bisexual awakening and is the top, so it’s a treat to read Wyatt’s thoughts. His internal dialogues were repetitive at some points, but the writing kept me hooked from start to finish.

As much as I enjoyed the story, I have to admit but as it progressed, we see Wyatt being spectacularly naive and whiney and Matthias’s remarkable selflessness. I low-key thought Wyatt doesn’t deserve Matthias.

The miscommunication trope was somewhat annoying as Matthias clearly wanted to explain his side of the story several times but Wyatt wasn’t ready to listen. I get he hates Matthias for what he thought his childhood friend had done, and being forced to be his husband is a punishment. But is it really?

Meanwhile, our boy Matthias is feeding the underfed Wyatt the most delicious food his chef concocts, housing him in the most sumptuous room, whisking him to a tropical island paradise, a.k.a. spoiling the heck out of the bratty Wyatt, and didn’t even require him to consummate the marriage. Just pretend to be a doting husband for a year.

My low-key thoughts became high-key annoyance at Wyatt when I learned that’s not all Matt was doing for him. Since the beginning, Matt was deeply in love with the oblivious Wyatt and had quietly taken care of him, even sacrificing his soul to the devil, a.k.a. his evil dad, to save his friend, who again had no clue. So I was incredibly pissed at the third arc break-up scene where Wyatt demanded Matt fight harder for them.

The way Matthias’s POV comes in flashbacks makes his connection to Wyatt even more compelling and heightens the mysterious way they fell apart and Matt’s return to Wyatt’s life. Matt’s perspective is angsty and heartbreaking, his loyalty to Wyatt unbreakable, and it made me root so hard for him!

Matt gave Wyatt everything he could, but I think it’s Matt who deserved the world.

Meh at Wyatt aside, his chemistry with Matt is undeniable. From the beginning, their interactions were positively electric, and watching them fall in love was a joy. It even made me forget there was a shoe waiting to drop. When it did, it exploded like a bomb!

The last chapters whiplashed from one shocking reveal after another. Keeping details to a minimum because finding out is the most fun part. That and the tear-jerking groveling from Wyatt tied everything into one hell of an emotional rollercoaster conclusion and the hard-earned happy ending the boys deserve.

Overall, Covenant is a poignant story of friendship, sacrifice, second chances, and awakening, beautifully weaving beloved tropes into a moving narrative, that even with a flawed MC, it’s worth the price!

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

Soundtrack: Dare
Artist: The Mary Onettes
Album: Islands

P.S.

Oooh, the Buckinghams! These boys made my day!

Wylder – the eldest and so very serious. He talked the least and intrigued me the most

Cade – the psychopath. His book is next and the epilogue in Covenant teases us with his pretty twink love interest.

Samson -the grump so I’d love to see him get soft for a sunshiney love interest

Matthias – arrogant, also serious, but really a self-sacrificing cinnamon roll

Dalton – klepto and pervy. He’s a fun character who loves pushing Matty’s buttons

Harley – the spoiled and coddled youngest who’s thirsting after Matty’s chef

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