Book Review : Sparrow by L.J Shen

Author:  L.J Shen
Title: Sparrow
Genre: dark romance,
Publisher:
Publication date: March 1st 2016
Format: kindle
pages: 305

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“TROY BRENNAN: EVERY SOUTHIE IN BOSTON KNOWS THAT NAME. THE SON OF A DEAD MOBSTER. THE HEART-THROB WITH STEEL-BLUE EYES. “THE FIXER” WHO CAN MAKE OR BREAK YOU IN THIS CITY. OH, AND MY NEW HUSBAND.

SPARROW RAYNES: THAT’S ME. NO ONE SEEMED TO REMEMBER MY NAME UP UNTIL HE BARGED INTO MY LIFE. BUT THEN HE CAGED ME. KIDNAPPED ME. AND KILLED EVERY CHANCE I HAD TO RUN AWAY FROM THE PLACE WHERE WE GREW UP. PUT SIMPLY, TROY BRENNAN CLIPPED MY WINGS. I HAVE DREAMS, BIG ONES, BUT I DOUBT HE’LL EVER LET ME CHASE THEM. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY HE DECIDED TO TAKE ME AS HIS WIFE. BUT I DO KNOW THIS: PISSING OFF THIS MAN WILL NOT DO ME ANY GOOD. AT ALL.

synopsis: goodreads

I stumbled upon this book by chance thanks to KindleUnlimited. I was skimming trough the various titles, when this one attracted me – cover and title did the thing mostly. At first, I was skeptical, I wondered more than once what I was doing and if I was sure to read a Romance Novel, but then I decided to give it a try. I wanted to free myself from the many boundaries I’ve stuck in the past years.

I approached the book as a Romance so I was ready to demolish it. I thought I was going to DNF or just hate it. I wasn’t ready to love it so darn much. It turned out to be so much more than I expected. Although I dreaded till the end that something sloppily romantic would’ve happened, but was lucky.

Anyhow..

Sparrow is a dark romance/mobster romance stand-alone novel written by L.J Shen.

The book recounted the story of Sparrow Raynes a twenty-two naive girl, who was forced into a marriage by Troy Brennan a powerful son of a dead Irish mobster.Sparrow had little to no idea why Troy had chosen her to be his wife. She was nowhere perfect. She was a normal girl, a tomboy one and no rich at all. Yet, here she was forced to get married and share her life with a total stranger, or worse with a man without moral, a criminal, a murderer..a soulless manwhore. However, she was scared she refused to play the role of the nice wife troy expected her to be. Instead, she fought back at any chance.

‘I was feeding myself even more lies. Because I told myself I didn’t care. While slowly, he crept under my skin. Piercing through layers. Clawing his way deeper into me. And I knew it was only a matter of time before he reached the most dangerous place in my body. My heart.’

Troy is a twisted, reckless, cocky and unapologetic bastard. He doesn’t explain himself nor the things he does and why he does that. He’s a layered character which slowly is revealed to us as the novel progresses. For many might be hard to love him, but here I am loving this a****e since the start. As I said earlier, he’s multilayered, he has secrets and his action – for the most part – are driven by revenge. Because he’s do anything to protect his “possessions” aka what/who he most loves, and nothing and no one would stop him to achieve what he so much long.. Vengeance.

I love how he acts towards people, and especially towards Sparrow; he’s upfront till the start and clear about what she shouldn’t expect from him. He’s a dickhead. He’s a cheater and he does nothing to hid it. After all, he made clear to Sparrow from the start that their relationship would never be real but only a facade… or so he thought. Sometimes what our mind wants/believes he’s never what our heart long for.

Sparrow is a kick-ass girl. A tomboy. She knows how to protect herself. She is strong, determined, resilient and knows how to confront with Troy. She’s not scared at all, she doesn’t back off. She has a backbone and stood her ground in front of him. I adore her because she doesn’t play the victim role. She could’ve done that easily, instead to she keeps fighting. She makes the best of her situation and search for normality in that crazy ass world. She accepts Tory and his antics. Although she makes clear to him she wouldn’t let him touch her– or at least its what her mind think.

‘You can hate me and still love how I make you feel’

I want to make clear that Romance novels are not my cup of tea, at least not much. I’ve never fully enjoyed this genre, but this..this one is another Story. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the way the writer’s written the book and how she developed Troy and Sparrow relationship. Nothing was rushed. Everything too is path and pace, giving them the time to understand themselves and each other. The story is crude, sometimes violent but nonetheless endearing and fun to read.

The characters chemistry is explosive. They are in a odd way perfect together. They are darn kinky and passionate, and the hate/love/hate situations made me flips my shits. The balance was ecstatic. I feel the need to thank the Author for how she has written this perfect yet imperfect characters and for how she has treated the secondary characters too. She delineated them, she didn’t only sketch them like many Authors do.  They are all so beautiful written, so much to complete the picture perfectly.

‘Real love doesn’t disappear. It can turn into hate, and hate can turn into love, but those feelings won’t ever turn into indifference.’

Sparrow held my attention from the beginning. The way it has been written didn’t tire me, it was fast paced and for the genre, some how real too. This mix of steam, action, suspense, sex and the right amount of drama, positively surprised me. I LOVED it! It was far better and far more complex than anything I could’ve imagined it to be. I haven’t had pretense on this one and maybe that’s why it hadn’t deluded me. I couldn’t stop reading even when my eyes beg me to stop. Yet, the cherry on the cake was missing. I wanted more mobster action, even more action..anyway a well-done job.

I’d totally recommend it to whoever love a good dark romance. I’d probably re-read it and by the physical book as well.

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