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RELEASE BLITZ: The Office Bet by Eden Finley (Giveaway)
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PROMO BLITZ: He Should Be Mine by Jessica Jackman
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COVER REVEAL: Troubled Skies by Marie Sinclair (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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RELEASE BLITZ: Rescuing Dr. Marian by Lucy Lennox
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PROMO BLITZ: Twister by Kayla Halleur
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REVIEW: His Bane by Courtney W. Dixon
The District: His Bane by Courtney W. Dixon
PLEASE READ THE BLURB AND WARNINGS IF YOU’RE SENSITIVE TO TRIGGERS! And please, please be careful of spoilers and giving away endings of books. Use spoiler tags.
He is mine. I don’t care how long it takes. I will have Malik Amin.
Sullivan Beauchamp
Some people call me a monster. A psychopath. As if I care what others think. So what if I relish in the mayhem of slaughter or enjoy feeling the life blink out of someone? I am who I am. It was Malik who eventually brought me to his home and trained me to hone my skills to work under him as an assassin. Malik Amin is my equal, and he will be mine in all ways as soon as I can chip away at his ridiculous and completely unnecessary self-loathing.
Malik Amin
Sully lost everything as a teenager on my order. When I found him covered in blood four years later, I should have put him down, knowing what he was. Instead, I took him in to train him. It works for us until he wants me more than as a mentor. I cannot allow it. But if Sully is anything, he is a master at persuasiveness and discovering my weaknesses.
Reading in order will add more pleasure to the reading experience since some of the books end in a series cliffhanger. But they can technically be read as standalones.
CW: internalized homophobia of MC, murder of family, off-page molestation and rape, psychopathy, murder, torture, consensual sexual mutilation between MCs, betrayal.
His Bane is the second book of the dark assassin romance series, The District, by Courtney W. Dixon. This is a found family of queer assassins founded by Malik Amin and Sid Virgil that takes any jobs, no questions asked. The only rule is no hits on children.
Sullivan Beauchamp is the only survivor of an assassination of his family when he was 12 years old. He was put in foster care only to be sexually abused by his foster father. When the abusive asshole killed Sully’s favorite foster brother, Sully took immense pleasure in ending the bastard. While on the run, he was tracked down by Malik and taken under the older man’s wing.
Malik has been monitoring Sully since he went in foster care, but not close enough to know about his home life. Noticing the teen’s psychopathy and his potential, he offered the 16-year-old board, lodging, and training. He might have gotten more than he had bargained for because Sully kept pushing his buttons and pursued the older man with the kind of obsessive-possessive determination only psychopaths possess.
I loved Sully from the get-go! With so many bad things done to him at a young age, from his cold, harsh father to the abusive foster parent, Sully learned to rely on his instincts and intellect, harnessing his rage as a physical force to defeat bullies and bad guys. His favorite weapon is his 25,000$ knife gifted to him by Malik. His favorite music genre is disco.
Sully is immensely self-aware, constantly evaluating himself and learning about emotions and relationships so he can give Malik what he needs. He doesn’t expect other people to understand him. But far from angsting about it, I loved how unapologetic Sully is about who he is. Malik gets him, and that’s all Sully cares about.
Malik is of Syrian descent and a former member of a Syrian gang. The man is 19 years older than Sully, and unlike his self-assured protege, Malik is a mass of self-pity and woes rooted in childhood trauma.
It’s one of the reasons he keeps putting Sully at arm’s length, even though he wants the younger man. He’s also carrying the guilt from a big secret that he should have revealed to his mentee early on, but he didn’t, so it came to bite him in the ass in the form of a Sully meltdown.
Compared to the first book, His Death Bringer, this is a tad less disturbing but still as dark. Please heed the content warnings, especially if blood play is not your thing, because Malik and Sully are heavily into that.
This is not a romance of warm fuzzies. This is a complicated relationship between a traumatized older man who’s touch-starved and hungry for affection, even if he has a hard time admitting it, and a psychopath who doesn’t feel many emotions. This is a slow-burn of 13 stubborn years and a hot/cold dance of one step forward, two steps back, where the hurt comfort comes with a knife and scars are tokens of love.
Sully did all the heavy lifting while Malik is mired in what Sully calls “pathetic self-pity.” There were hardly any private interactions that didn’t devolve to sex, while Malik hopes they can be a normal couple that is more than just sex, a.k.a. the old man needed hugs and cuddles.
There were hardly any proper communications. I say this one is on Malik, who has his electric fences up while Sully was asking Luca (His Death Bringer) for advice and reading romance novels, trying to grasp the mechanics of being in love and the to-dos in a relationship. Our boy was really trying, bless his psychopathic heart!
Something to watch out for is the content-warning confrontation scene between Malik and Sully. It was nothing short of powerful and cathartic! Sully’s jumble of emotions was intensely palpable, and his breakdown was heartwrenching. Malik finally pulled his head out of his ass, but still left me partly unconvinced.
So I didn’t squee, but I rooted hard for Sully. His growth and resilience as a character, his single-minded determination to go after what he wants, and his willingness to go beyond his “limitations” as a psychopath for Malik are what made the book 4 stars for me.
His Bane is a story of kindred souls, warring feelings, and lifelong devotion. It is not a fairytale romance, but love at knife’s edge, painful, intense, and all-consuming.
Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bitsSoundtrack: Knife’s Edge
Artist: Tiger Army
Album: V…_P.S.
I’m ridiculously thrilled about how spot on the book model is! Red hair, copper penny eyes, and all black suit: that’s our Sully!
The District is best enjoyed in chronological order. Meet Luca, survivor, bunny cuddler, and sweetest soul ever, and his dark angel, Dante, in His Death Bringer.
If you like my content, please consider using my Amazon affiliate links below to buy your copy of His Bane. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases at no additional cost to you.
If you like my content, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi or PayPal. Your donations will help keep this website going. Thank you so much!
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COVER REVEAL: The Office Bet by Eden Finlay (Excerpt & Giveaway)
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RELEASE TOUR: Nine-Tenths by J.M. Frey (Excerpt)
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REVIEW: Lights, Camera, Passion by Isabel Lucero
Lights, Camera, Passion – Isabel Lucero
Playing a lead role in a book-to-movie adaptation with a wild fan base? Sign me up! The only downside is that I’m cast alongside Jacoby “Heartthrob” Hart—Hollywood’s golden boy. If only they knew he was an uppity, pompous snob.
We don’t get along, and if you’re reading the tabloids, you’d assume it was because I “stole” his girlfriend, but they have it all wrong. Jacoby and his cold shoulder started this, and now we’re set to play lovers. The only thing I’d love to do is strangle him, but I’m a professional.
Behind the scenes, we’re either bickering or avoiding each other, but when the cameras start rolling, I can’t believe how much chemistry we have.
One night, during a passionate argument, something happens that I never anticipated. The chemistry that started out as an act turns into much more behind closed doors, but we both have secrets, and Hollywood is a hard place to keep those.
Contains mature themes.
Lights, Camera, Passion is a Hollywood contemporary romance by Isabel Lucero, author of the intense and bloody Dysfunctional.
The plot is life imitating art when two antagonistic actors, Jacoby Hart, and Roman Black, are paired in a live-action adaptation of In Another Life, a popular queer contemporary romance novel. The novel is a love story between the openly gay Andrew and the closeted Will, forced to keep their relationship a secret due to Will’s conservative religious background.
The story hits so close to home that it’s right on Jacoby’s and Roman’s doorsteps. And we witness these two A-listers’s clandestine trysts while dodging friends and co-workers.
The first part where the two actors were thrown in a cabin to get to know each other followed by the filming where they discovered their connection was the most fun! The author brilliantly captured the dynamics and the explosive chemistry between Jacoby and Rome. The long-time secret crushes and mutual pining made things even more delicious!
The book is in their dual POVs and I loved the contrast between their public and private personalities.
Jacoby is reserved and formal, a black-suit-only kind of guy. But when he can be himself, he snarks, likes to take charge, and has a romantic streak that makes Rome swoon.
Rome is a cocky, outgoing, colorful-suits-and-lace-shirts kind of guy. When he’s alone with Jacoby, he’s surprisingly shy and likes to take orders.
The succeeding parts were not necessarily boring, but they were not that exciting either. It was Jacoby and Rome going about their daily lives, meeting family, and doing actor things. The mundane everyday alternates with some intensely passionate alone time, and angstying about coming out.
Most stories about closeted celebrities usually have their coming out moments wrenched out of them, typically through a scene where they’re discovered before they’re ready.
Here, Jacoby and Rome came out on their own terms, prepared, confident, and just happy to let the world know they were together. I really liked how the author executed the coming-out scene. It was cute, sweet, and so ridiculously romantic. The lack of drama made it even more refreshing!
Lights, Camera, Passion is a romance that when from reel to real. While there was a lull, it’s emotional, thrilling and heartfelt on the moments that matter most!
Rating:
3.5 Stars – that place between like and loveSoundtrack: Another Life
Artist: Dirty Nice
Album: Planet Weekend
If you like my content, please consider using my Amazon affiliate links below to buy your copy of Lights, Camera, Passion. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases at no additional cost to you.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, PASSION: Kindle | Audiobook
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