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A review by tangochick6969
Dead Man Walking by Giana Darling
3.0
3.5 stars for Priest & his “Little Shadow” Bea!
"I'll ruin you," I promised boldly, excitement in my balls, in my chest, a percussion beat like ceremonial drums.
"So ruin me," she agreed. "Pull my hair, bite my neck, leave me bruised and ruined by your love until every inch of my body is singing for you."
I first read [b:Welcome to the Dark Side|51480780|Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men, #2)|Giana Darling|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1582152627l/51480780._SY75_.jpg|59337897] and it instantly became my absolute favorite MC read. Loulou and Zeus were angsty, emotional, & hot af, so when I saw that her little sister Bea is getting a book and it would be with our resident psychopath and club enforcer Priest, I was all over that shit!
First things first, I adored Priest Mckenna. He is a dark and tortured man who re-discovered his beating heart and puts his everything into it. I loved how he didn't shy away from his dark nature or strive to change, he was unapologetically himself, and the love he showed Bea was perfectly obsessive.
Bea was interesting, she has felt that she was not as alluring as her sister, and more overlooked as Lou overshadowed her, but it was Priest she truly shadowed, who noticed her from the start and always watched her. Bea was the total opposite of Priest who was a bearded, flame-haired, knife-wielding madman whereas she was a pink princess, with a taste for girly things, but it was her dark mind and tortured heart that she shared with Priest. She was always drawn to the dark and Priest allowed her a way to indulge in those fantasies.
"You wanna see dark mo cuishle? I'll show you every inch of it. Just remember, you begged me for it."
But having said all that I didn't feel as strongly for Bea and Priest as I did for Zeus and Loulou, their connection didn't really cement until about 70% of the way and the book seemed to drag on too long with a lot of inner monologues from Bea that was quite repetitive of her talking about how dark Priest is.
There was a lot of telling more than showing. Priest's abuse was told quite quickly at the end and not really explored much. There was a lot of fetishizing of Bea being girly that kind of annoyed me, LIKE WE GET IT BEA LOVES THE COLOR PINK AND IS THE GIRLIEST GIRL EVER! I don't want to compare them to Lou and Zeus, but Priest and Bea's love didn't feel as authentic as Lou and Zeus's??? They just felt more bonded by circumstance, whereas Zeus felt for Lou the way every girl wants a man to feel for them.
Also, the religious aspect of the book and some of the subplots were quite reminiscent of [b:Souls Unfractured|22107214|Souls Unfractured (Hades Hangmen, #3)|Tillie Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429054401l/22107214._SY75_.jpg|41452434] by Tillie Cole.
In fact, Priest is very similar to Flame, they both grew up with someone abusive and were tortured by the same demons, and Maddie is similar to Bea in that they are both quite innocent girls who have been heavily influenced by religion. The religious cult in this story was similar to The Order from the Hades Hangmen series, as both had a religious zealot who believed in a prophecy that deemed a young woman to be their bride.
So overall for me, as much as I wanted to really love this book, it didn't quite meet up to my expectations. If the book lost about 100 pages of some of the religious scenes, Bea's inner monologues, and got straight into the action of finding the serial killer, it could've been rated a lot higher, but having said that I did enjoy this couple, the cute Zeus and Loulou scenes with the twins (I mean how can you not love Angel and Monster who is a mini Zeus???) and the way the MC was portrayed, with a whole band of brothers working together to protect their own.
"I'll ruin you," I promised boldly, excitement in my balls, in my chest, a percussion beat like ceremonial drums.
"So ruin me," she agreed. "Pull my hair, bite my neck, leave me bruised and ruined by your love until every inch of my body is singing for you."
I first read [b:Welcome to the Dark Side|51480780|Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men, #2)|Giana Darling|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1582152627l/51480780._SY75_.jpg|59337897] and it instantly became my absolute favorite MC read. Loulou and Zeus were angsty, emotional, & hot af, so when I saw that her little sister Bea is getting a book and it would be with our resident psychopath and club enforcer Priest, I was all over that shit!
First things first, I adored Priest Mckenna. He is a dark and tortured man who re-discovered his beating heart and puts his everything into it. I loved how he didn't shy away from his dark nature or strive to change, he was unapologetically himself, and the love he showed Bea was perfectly obsessive.
Bea was interesting, she has felt that she was not as alluring as her sister, and more overlooked as Lou overshadowed her, but it was Priest she truly shadowed, who noticed her from the start and always watched her. Bea was the total opposite of Priest who was a bearded, flame-haired, knife-wielding madman whereas she was a pink princess, with a taste for girly things, but it was her dark mind and tortured heart that she shared with Priest. She was always drawn to the dark and Priest allowed her a way to indulge in those fantasies.
"You wanna see dark mo cuishle? I'll show you every inch of it. Just remember, you begged me for it."
But having said all that I didn't feel as strongly for Bea and Priest as I did for Zeus and Loulou, their connection didn't really cement until about 70% of the way and the book seemed to drag on too long with a lot of inner monologues from Bea that was quite repetitive of her talking about how dark Priest is.
There was a lot of telling more than showing. Priest's abuse was told quite quickly at the end and not really explored much. There was a lot of fetishizing of Bea being girly that kind of annoyed me, LIKE WE GET IT BEA LOVES THE COLOR PINK AND IS THE GIRLIEST GIRL EVER! I don't want to compare them to Lou and Zeus, but Priest and Bea's love didn't feel as authentic as Lou and Zeus's??? They just felt more bonded by circumstance, whereas Zeus felt for Lou the way every girl wants a man to feel for them.
Also, the religious aspect of the book and some of the subplots were quite reminiscent of [b:Souls Unfractured|22107214|Souls Unfractured (Hades Hangmen, #3)|Tillie Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429054401l/22107214._SY75_.jpg|41452434] by Tillie Cole.
In fact, Priest is very similar to Flame, they both grew up with someone abusive and were tortured by the same demons, and Maddie is similar to Bea in that they are both quite innocent girls who have been heavily influenced by religion. The religious cult in this story was similar to The Order from the Hades Hangmen series, as both had a religious zealot who believed in a prophecy that deemed a young woman to be their bride.
So overall for me, as much as I wanted to really love this book, it didn't quite meet up to my expectations. If the book lost about 100 pages of some of the religious scenes, Bea's inner monologues, and got straight into the action of finding the serial killer, it could've been rated a lot higher, but having said that I did enjoy this couple, the cute Zeus and Loulou scenes with the twins (I mean how can you not love Angel and Monster who is a mini Zeus???) and the way the MC was portrayed, with a whole band of brothers working together to protect their own.