Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Tropes/Themes: Arranged Marriage, Mafia Romance
Amount of spice: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Explicitness: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

My thoughts
Bound by Honor will always have an extra special place in my heart but I loved Bound by Duty almost as much (occasionally even more). Val and Dante are a completely different vibe to Aria and Luca. They are much more calculating and careful with their emotions and response to things. In saying that, I think this is a more emotional story than Bound by Honor. My heart broke a little for Val because she’s so tough but feels like she isn’t good enough for someone to love and was let down twice in marriages where she had no real choice.

Val doesn’t take any shit from Dante which is refreshing and the sexual tension in this one is some of the best Cora has written in my opinion. It's a slow burn and takes them a long time to really trust and love each other which is right up my alley. I will say that I don’t think this book will age well because there are a few problematic themes - although this is consistent with the mafia romance genre I guess. I would say always check TWs for Cora’s books.

I loved it and will probably read it a thousand more times.

Content Warnings

secretuser_12's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

immediately read this one because i saw the synopsis and said 'oh my god, groveling!' because duh

so i was really disappointed when there was NONE. i mean, he could've done something better but it's still lacking considering the amount of pain he made her go through. spoiler alert!! he's so painfully and incredibly hung up on his dead wife imo, and i felt like he was just using her and stuff. he's also super prideful so i should've known already that he wasn't the type who grovels but it still somehow made me hope that there's atleast a little groveling he can do, but it is what it is ig

the main character stands up for herself, yes, but she folds everytime and its so annoying because she deserves so much better!!

talks of misogyny, abuse and homophobia was here as well, but its so so so much better than the first book

Content Warnings

dearfeeh's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I EXPECTED WAY MORE OK!?

Almost the same rating as "Luca Vitiello" but I know it deserves more. I even feel bad for giving Bound by Duty a lower rating than Honor/Luca.
The problem is that I had really high expectations for this one because I saw A LOT of people who love the series (and people that don't) saying that Luca and Aria were terrible, Bound by Duty is WAY better etc etc. I shouldn't have paid attention to that but I accepted these expectations and the book didn't attend it.

I didn't want to compare the two couples/books but I feel like giving my opinion about it. What I saw the most was "Dante and Valentina have a lot of chemistry, different from Aria and Luca that doesn't have it". I completely disagree and I tried to see that throughout the book. Also, I hate to compare couples and all that but, oh, well, here I am.

Now, focusing on Bound by Duty only:
Dante and Valentina do make a good couple and Dante really is very sweet but we keep getting the cold shoulder from him throughout the whole book, for this reason, I feel like the book would've been better if it was from his point of view.
As a reader, I understood Dante's whys and all, just by Valentina's pov but I got bored a lot of times, even sleepy, and really annoyed with both of them.

PS. Important to say that I liked how we got a little more understanding of the mafia world.

Even so, I really liked it and I'll read the next one (I'm hoping it's Gianna's book because for now I'm really irritated with her and a bit with Matteo too).

Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles - reviewed:

0.5 - Luca Vitiello:

TSG - https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/57f24b82-8331-460a-bd4d-ae02fc323861
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4561568230

1.0 - Bound by Honor:
TSG - https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/eb670dd1-294d-4e23-9bab-bc9c11aef33f
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4558103572

2.0 - Bound by Duty:
TSG - https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/a71e2654-573c-4d41-a224-363bbfb62ba0
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3021719736

3.0 - Bound by Hatred:
TSG - https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8e3fc6be-670e-4ae3-8bf1-eba71c361dcd
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4578787289

4.0 - Bound by Temptation:
TSG - https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e0ad773e-86e3-46fc-a250-df3cc60c318b
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4585687182

5.0 - Bound by Vengeance:
TSG - https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/902ff414-f764-429f-b3a2-dfcd8fd35d0b
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4593389597

Content Warnings

lh_reads's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

rachaelboyd's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

carolzinh4's review against another edition

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challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Dante was just so cold and distant — I wished he had “melted” more towards Valentina sooner… She was the one to put a lot of effort in making the relationship work and tell him the truths he needed to hear. It was just a “meh” book overall but engaging enough to make me want to read it until the end and discover what would happen.

Content Warnings

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