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beesandbooks 's review for:
Sinners Condemned
by Somme Sketcher
Excerpt:
Rapid fire, here are all the reasons why the second part of the book saved its first part: the sex scenes. They’re a lot more fun than in the first book, possibly because sex is a bigger deal to the FMC in the first book. It’s subtle, but you can literally watch Rafe fall in love with Penny which is a delight lemme tell you. And even better, Penny has a character trait I absolutely adore in a FMC: she is terrified of being loved and will literally run away at the first sign of it. Chef’s kiss right there. I also love that Penny’s biggest internal conflict gets solved so damn easily because, well, Rafe is capable of murder. Tee-hee.
We also get a lot more of Penny spending time with other women than we did with Rory in book one! Rory is even one of those other women!! Granted, a big factor in Rory’s story was that she was being isolated from all of her loved ones by the creepy man she was supposed to marry, so I’m not saying that’s a flaw in book one it’s more of a feature. But Penny, who does not know how to be a girls’ girl, spending time with Rory and Rory’s friends is a delight.
I also enjoy Rafe’s weird little superstitious thing a lot. This is a character trait he inherited from his mother, and was set up for in the first book by all the brothers discussing this trait of their mother’s. It’s such an interesting flaw to give to the most polished, most publicly presentable member of their mafia family. And it should have zero consequence on his life, but I love that even as he repeats logical statements to himself about what’s happening he can’t stop himself from being weird about it all. It makes him so much more compelling than if his flaw was just that he doesn’t think he’s capable of falling in love despite all the signs that he is doing just that. A clever little through-thread that gives the author a chance to flex some narrative muscles, add a few more interesting pieces of detail, and really flesh out the character.
I do want to say that I think the author has some serious talent in their writing. The first book it was a bit more subtle, but the real reason I think this book is so much more popular with fans is because it feels like the author took their training wheels off and let loose their top skills. Sketcher has some fantastic talent for dialogue, descriptions, and genuinely good setup for payoff later. In the mafia romance genre, you can get away with a lot of reliance on tropes and genre contrivances to get you out of plot holes that happened while you were busy focusing on the relationship. Sketcher doesn’t need to fall back on this, because they are actually writing a consistent story in the background. It’s very less is more in that instead of trying to get things to be bigger and bigger and inevitably reaching a plateau, Sketcher sweeps you up by focusing on the reason you’re there (the romance) and sprinkles in the pieces of plot just often enough that it makes total sense when a real plot moment does happen. Honestly, it speaks of not just mastery of writing itself but mastery of the genre, too.
And the one contrivance that I can’t quite wrap my head around, which is the apparent presence of an honest-to-god chapter of the cosa nostra in the Pacific Northwest, is just so fun that I can’t be mad that it confuses me. It shouldn’t work but it does.
Anyways. TikTok comments were right for once, this book was really good, and you should all go read this one (right after book one, set yourself up for success here).
To read the full review, click here to read it on my book blog.
Rapid fire, here are all the reasons why the second part of the book saved its first part: the sex scenes. They’re a lot more fun than in the first book, possibly because sex is a bigger deal to the FMC in the first book. It’s subtle, but you can literally watch Rafe fall in love with Penny which is a delight lemme tell you. And even better, Penny has a character trait I absolutely adore in a FMC: she is terrified of being loved and will literally run away at the first sign of it. Chef’s kiss right there. I also love that Penny’s biggest internal conflict gets solved so damn easily because, well, Rafe is capable of murder. Tee-hee.
We also get a lot more of Penny spending time with other women than we did with Rory in book one! Rory is even one of those other women!! Granted, a big factor in Rory’s story was that she was being isolated from all of her loved ones by the creepy man she was supposed to marry, so I’m not saying that’s a flaw in book one it’s more of a feature. But Penny, who does not know how to be a girls’ girl, spending time with Rory and Rory’s friends is a delight.
I also enjoy Rafe’s weird little superstitious thing a lot. This is a character trait he inherited from his mother, and was set up for in the first book by all the brothers discussing this trait of their mother’s. It’s such an interesting flaw to give to the most polished, most publicly presentable member of their mafia family. And it should have zero consequence on his life, but I love that even as he repeats logical statements to himself about what’s happening he can’t stop himself from being weird about it all. It makes him so much more compelling than if his flaw was just that he doesn’t think he’s capable of falling in love despite all the signs that he is doing just that. A clever little through-thread that gives the author a chance to flex some narrative muscles, add a few more interesting pieces of detail, and really flesh out the character.
I do want to say that I think the author has some serious talent in their writing. The first book it was a bit more subtle, but the real reason I think this book is so much more popular with fans is because it feels like the author took their training wheels off and let loose their top skills. Sketcher has some fantastic talent for dialogue, descriptions, and genuinely good setup for payoff later. In the mafia romance genre, you can get away with a lot of reliance on tropes and genre contrivances to get you out of plot holes that happened while you were busy focusing on the relationship. Sketcher doesn’t need to fall back on this, because they are actually writing a consistent story in the background. It’s very less is more in that instead of trying to get things to be bigger and bigger and inevitably reaching a plateau, Sketcher sweeps you up by focusing on the reason you’re there (the romance) and sprinkles in the pieces of plot just often enough that it makes total sense when a real plot moment does happen. Honestly, it speaks of not just mastery of writing itself but mastery of the genre, too.
And the one contrivance that I can’t quite wrap my head around, which is the apparent presence of an honest-to-god chapter of the cosa nostra in the Pacific Northwest, is just so fun that I can’t be mad that it confuses me. It shouldn’t work but it does.
Anyways. TikTok comments were right for once, this book was really good, and you should all go read this one (right after book one, set yourself up for success here).
To read the full review, click here to read it on my book blog.