Genre: Dark Mafia Romance
Cliffhanger: each book ends with a cliffhanger and pick back up from the ending of prior book
Narrators: Heather Firth & Fernando Guerra
Narration Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Audiobook Length: each ranging from roughly 8h 30m to 10h 45m
Spice level: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Overall series rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Binge read this series in two days because this will no longer be included in the Audible Plus category as of May 3rd, 2024.
As always, I will start with the tropes and content warming/trigger warning before moving into my review.
Tropes:
✔️ Dark Mafia Romance (set in Ibiza)
✔️ Extreme morally grey hero (Rafael is absolutely unhinged 🤣)
✔️ Age gap (hero stalked heroine until she turns 18)
✔️ 'Touch her and you die' hero, 'my wife', 'my husband'
✔️ Spicy (breeding, dubcon, primal play/chase, rough, spanking, virgin heroine)
✔️ Dual POV
CW/TW: violence, gore, grief over loved ones, toxic family relationship, NC branding
Isabel Adamik (heroine), Isa, turned 18 and received a supposedly all expenses paid trip to Ibiza with her friends Chloe and Hugo. She proceed to have a whirlwind time with the handsome Rafael.
Rafael Ibarra aka El Diablo (Hero) is the head of a crime organization based in Spain Ibiza and he's absolutely unhinged. One look at our heroine, he became obsessed and possessive over Isa and stalked her until she turns legal before he made his move. He is definitely a morally grey hero and will do absolutely anything to get what he wants without any boundaries. The sky is not even the limit to him.
Overall, this was another amazing dark mafia with amazing spice series from Adelaide Forrest and pretty sure one of the most unhinged hero I read from her. However, this wasn't my favourite because the back and forth between the couple was dragged out so long and also, some context such has the forced branding while the heroine explicitly begged him to not do it... it did leave a little bit of bad taste in my mouth and I read a lot of mafia romance and high tolerance to different contents. It definitely got better in Until Retribution Burns (book 3) when they finally decided to work together as a team until the last one, the push and pull came back in a vengeance at the beginning. I got frustrated at some point throughout the series because of how frustrating this couple was.
The audiobooks were great! The male narrator accent used was a bit of an adjustment at first but it was well-performed! The whole series is included in Audible Plus category until May 3rd, 2024!
