BEAUTIFUL BROKEN VENGEANCE (Bratva Bound 2) by Fiona Murphy -review tour

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO / Google Play /

About the book: Release Date December 20, 2022

Phoenix Raymond is a puzzle. Despite her father selling her to a sick man when she was only a child, she’s a true virgin at twenty-four. Somehow she’s an FBI agent without ever having set foot in Quantico. And most importantly, she wants to destroy my family—but she’s my wife.

She wants us to pay for the skin trade we dealt in. It doesn’t matter we got out of that a long time ago. The debt for her is personal. The woman is tenacious, a problem who refuses to go away. Two weeks ago I demanded my brother allow me to end her as a problem. He denied my request and told me to figure out another way. One week ago he told me to find a wife. When she shows up on my doorstep broken and bleeding, I solve her problem and mine.

Once she’s healed, she thinks she can walk away—that she has to walk away. She thinks because her…needs are different that I won’t want her, won’t be the daddy she craves, that I’ll leave her the way everyone else has. What she doesn’t understand is she belongs to me. She is mine to keep, to protect, to be whatever she needs. I will never let her go. Not even a bullet and blood will buy her freedom. I’m a Levin, Bratva, and we keep what’s ours.

••••••

REVIEW: BEAUTIFUL BROKEN VENGEANCE is the second instalment in Fiona Murphy’s contemporary adult BRATVA BOUND dark, erotic, Bratva age-gap romance series-a spin off from the author’s THE SABATINI FAMILY series. This is thirty eight year old Aleksander Levin, and twenty-three year old computer hacker turned FBI agent Phoenix Raymond’s story line. BEAUTIFUL BROKEN VENGEANCE can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story line is revealed where necessary.

NOTE: Most of the events run parallel to, and cross over with, most of the events of book one BEAUTIFUL BROKEN OBSESSION.

WARNING: Due to the nature of the story line premise there WILL be triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from dual first person perspectives (Aleksander and Phoenix) BEAUTIFUL BROKEN VENGEANCE follows computer hacker turned FBI agent Phoenix Raymond on her quest for revenge against the Levin family. Several years earlier Phoenix’s foster father was murdered, and our heroine believes someone in the Levin family was responsible. Determined to take down the Levin empire, Phoenix works her way into a position within the FBI in an effort to ferret out information about the Levin family but our heroine isn’t the brightest bulb in the house, and finds herself at the mercy of Aleksander Levin. Battered and broken from a fact finding mission gone wrong, Phoenix wakes up days later, only to discover she is married to Aleksander Levin, and there is a price on our heroine’s head. What ensues is the building but contemptuous relationship between Aleksander and Phoenix, and the potential fall-out when the truth is revealed.

Phoenix Raymond is a young woman whose determination to destroy the Levin family is single minded, and eventually lands her in the proverbial hot water. Phoenix’s goal is to take down all child and human trafficking rings, beginning with what she believes to be the Levin Bratva connection. Phoenix doesn’t act, she reacts; she is oblivious to the social norms of the real world, and intricacies of Bratva life; her issues of low self-esteem are exacerbated by years of trauma and abuse, self-hatred, and a lack of self-worth, and the fine line between strong-willed and annoying is cross several times. Aleksander Levin needs a wife but doesn’t want an arranged marriage with someone else. Having watched his brother suffer without the woman he loved, Aleksander takes control, claiming our heroine as his own but Aleksander’s relationship with Phoenix quickly evolves into Daddy-dynamic kink, as our heroine struggles to let go of the past. As Aleksander and his brothers deal with the business of Bratva life, Phoenix often battles between head and heart believing she is unworthy of Aleksander’s love.

The relationship between Phoenix and Aleksander begins acrimoniously as our heroine continues to threaten the Levin family. Aware yet oblivious to the criminal underworld, Phoenix often finds herself at a disadvantage, believing she is capable of controlling the situation yet not. As the relationship between Phoenix and Aleksander becomes sexual, our heroine must come to terms with what she wants moving forward. The $ex scene are intimate, erotic, provocative including a scene of questionable consent, domination and power. Once again, I do not like the use of a certain four letter word-used 60 times throughout the story-although I accept the word in my MC and Mafia romances, I found the overuse distracting, excessive and disruptive (again) including 25 instances of the word sl*t.

The secondary and supporting characters include cartel members Manuel Rodriguez, and Richie Angelo: Aleksander’s right hand man David; FBI Agents Presley and John. We are re-introduced to Aleksander Levin’s brothers Maxim, Damien, Nikita, and Milos and Celia, as well as their mother; Tony, Luca and Dominic Sabatini. The requisite evil has many faces.

BEAUTIFUL BROKEN VENGEANCE is a story of power and control, betrayal and vengeance, murder and abuse, acceptance and love. The premise is dark and dramatic; the romance is Daddy-kink dynamic focused; the characters are broken yet determined.

Take note of the trigger warning as some scenes may not be tolerated by more sensitive readers.

Click HERE for Sandy’s review of book one BEAUTIFUL BROKEN OBSESSION

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

Due to commitment issues I have lived in many different cities and my favorite is Chicago but I have managed to settle into Austin and perhaps my commitment issues are behind me. 

I have enjoyed reading from a very young age and it wasn’t long before the children books bored me and I read the books my mother enjoyed Stephen King and Dean Koontz and I didn’t sleep without the light on until I was about ten.

I came across my first Harlequin by accident and it was love at first read, no one died and happy endings? It was a whole new world and I loved it.

I wrote my first story at eight and everyone died, of course. Since then I would like to think I’ve gotten better and now I’m writing the happily ever afters I first fell in love with, with some hot sex thrown in along the way. 

As a plus size woman myself, I have started writing the stories I always wanted to see myself in but never did. And now I’m ecstatic to give BBWs the happily ever afters with hot Alphas I want to read.

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/fionainamurphy
Website: https://www.fionamurphywrites.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fionaainamurphy
Email: fionaainamurphy@gmail.com