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A review by thebritishbibliophile
Sinful Vows by Lilian Harris
5.0
'One of the best mafia romance novels I've read in a very long time! Lilian Harris is on fire, giving us every single drop of sinful goodness.' - The British Bibliophile
Thank you to Grey's Promotions for sending me an ebook ARC for me to read and leave an honest review
Sinful Vows (Messina Crime Family #1) is the first novel in this sinfully promising new mafia romance series from Lilian Harris. As a fan of mafia romance, I knew I had to request a copy to read this the moment I spotted it on the new list of sign-ups at the time. Time to meet the mafia mobster!
Not wanting a wife, Michael Marino promises not a safe environment for any woman who so happens to come his way. The only exception? His six-year-old daughter. She is the apple of his eye and perhaps the only girl to have ever wormed her way into his closed-off heart. But for how long? One woman unknowingly might change that, and Michael is powerless--not something he is used to being-- to stop it.
Time is not on Michael's side. Two weeks is all he has to find not only a bride, but place for one in his life. Resisting something he's never wanted to have, or even thought he would have, is thrust upon him when the right woman hijacks his life and breaks into his house. Who better to fit into the lifestyle he leads, than a woman who got in under his nose? Cue Elsie.
Elsie is the opportunity that skips knocking on the door, instead letting herself right on in. Michael needs a wife, Elsie needs a life. Two birds are being killed with the same stone that is the impending marriage that benefits them both. Although it begins as a marriage of convince, will it end that way? Will it end at all? There's only one way for you to find out.
A year is what Michael contracts Elsie to. A year of being his wife then he's free to run his empire as she goes about living a life she's been withheld from doing--not at Michael's doing--for almost a decade. A lot can happen in a year, but in the corrupt world Michael lives, breathes and was born into, a lot can happen in only a day. The days Elsie and Michael spend together will be far from dull, that's a promise. A war is brewing, and Michael is on the front line. And so is his family.
Elsie manages to win one person over immediately, and it's not her soon-to-be husband. It's his daughter. The girl has a big heart and loves fiercely without question, including a stranger suddenly in her life which Elsie very much is. She takes Michael's daughter into her arms and her heart without question and the more she is seen with her, the more Michael wonders if she's really meant to be his instead of a pawn in the game he's playing. She touches him like she's not afraid to be bitten by the hand that feeds her, and she sees the man behind the metaphorical mask that everyone else sees.
But is Elsie enough to make everything better, tick all the boxes and be the magical cure to cure all the ills plaguing Michael? She's put to the test, as is everyone around her, when the impending war lands right on their doorstep and she's plunged once more into the world she has so bravely escaped. Her life is once more thrown into jeopardy and as a consequence, so is Michael and his daughter's. It's a dangerous an sinful domino effect.
Was Michael right all along? Is no woman safe in his world, even the woman who--as his now wife--should be the safest kept woman of them all?
Sinful Vows is as it says on the tin, sinful in every sense of the word. Lilian Harris delivers a story that is both gripping, sexy, sinful and suspenseful. Everything that I know and love about mafia romance books has been done to the highest level of perfection, producing something that blew my literary socks off. It's been a hot minute since I've enjoyed such a book like this, one that possesses deep, dark undertones and a storyline, and I'm glad that her efforts paid off because I have been coloured most impressed.
Though this is the end of Michael & Elsie's story, this is not the end of the series. I'm in it for the long haul and am buckled in for the next ride we will put through when we dive back in, sometime in the near future.
Thank you, Lilian, for creating something I'm very proud to put as a top read. A must read for all.
Five stars.
Thank you to Grey's Promotions for sending me an ebook ARC for me to read and leave an honest review
Sinful Vows (Messina Crime Family #1) is the first novel in this sinfully promising new mafia romance series from Lilian Harris. As a fan of mafia romance, I knew I had to request a copy to read this the moment I spotted it on the new list of sign-ups at the time. Time to meet the mafia mobster!
Not wanting a wife, Michael Marino promises not a safe environment for any woman who so happens to come his way. The only exception? His six-year-old daughter. She is the apple of his eye and perhaps the only girl to have ever wormed her way into his closed-off heart. But for how long? One woman unknowingly might change that, and Michael is powerless--not something he is used to being-- to stop it.
Time is not on Michael's side. Two weeks is all he has to find not only a bride, but place for one in his life. Resisting something he's never wanted to have, or even thought he would have, is thrust upon him when the right woman hijacks his life and breaks into his house. Who better to fit into the lifestyle he leads, than a woman who got in under his nose? Cue Elsie.
Elsie is the opportunity that skips knocking on the door, instead letting herself right on in. Michael needs a wife, Elsie needs a life. Two birds are being killed with the same stone that is the impending marriage that benefits them both. Although it begins as a marriage of convince, will it end that way? Will it end at all? There's only one way for you to find out.
A year is what Michael contracts Elsie to. A year of being his wife then he's free to run his empire as she goes about living a life she's been withheld from doing--not at Michael's doing--for almost a decade. A lot can happen in a year, but in the corrupt world Michael lives, breathes and was born into, a lot can happen in only a day. The days Elsie and Michael spend together will be far from dull, that's a promise. A war is brewing, and Michael is on the front line. And so is his family.
Elsie manages to win one person over immediately, and it's not her soon-to-be husband. It's his daughter. The girl has a big heart and loves fiercely without question, including a stranger suddenly in her life which Elsie very much is. She takes Michael's daughter into her arms and her heart without question and the more she is seen with her, the more Michael wonders if she's really meant to be his instead of a pawn in the game he's playing. She touches him like she's not afraid to be bitten by the hand that feeds her, and she sees the man behind the metaphorical mask that everyone else sees.
But is Elsie enough to make everything better, tick all the boxes and be the magical cure to cure all the ills plaguing Michael? She's put to the test, as is everyone around her, when the impending war lands right on their doorstep and she's plunged once more into the world she has so bravely escaped. Her life is once more thrown into jeopardy and as a consequence, so is Michael and his daughter's. It's a dangerous an sinful domino effect.
Was Michael right all along? Is no woman safe in his world, even the woman who--as his now wife--should be the safest kept woman of them all?
Sinful Vows is as it says on the tin, sinful in every sense of the word. Lilian Harris delivers a story that is both gripping, sexy, sinful and suspenseful. Everything that I know and love about mafia romance books has been done to the highest level of perfection, producing something that blew my literary socks off. It's been a hot minute since I've enjoyed such a book like this, one that possesses deep, dark undertones and a storyline, and I'm glad that her efforts paid off because I have been coloured most impressed.
Though this is the end of Michael & Elsie's story, this is not the end of the series. I'm in it for the long haul and am buckled in for the next ride we will put through when we dive back in, sometime in the near future.
Thank you, Lilian, for creating something I'm very proud to put as a top read. A must read for all.
Five stars.