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A review by kfriend
Filthy Disciple by Cassandra Robbins, Serena Akeroyd
4.0
Five Points meets the Disciples MC?! Serena Akeroyd and Cassandra Robbins?! Two of my favorite dark and smutty worlds, two authors who build stories and explosive steam like no other?! Uhm yes please. I was all about this, so excited to see how Serena and Cassandra wove together their worlds and characters, excited to see how their emotional intense and emotionally evocative writing styles would fuse to create what I knew would be a super sexy, hella emotional, and utterly addictive page turner. Filthy Disciple was utterly delicious.
I knew I’d love the marriage of this world and these two authors in this collaboration. But, where I was torn was in their choice of heroine. Fans of Robbins’ Disciples series will likely have mixed thoughts about our heroine going into this story- Cindy, a problematic and needy addict who has been nothing but trouble (including to those she purports to care about) in prior Disciples books. I wasn’t really sure I wanted her story- and I went into this no WANTING to like her. But Serena and Cassandra set her on a path of empathy and redemption- helping us see the broken, insecure, lacking any self-worth or direction. I can’t FULLY let go of the harm she’s caused others, but I also can reconcile her own issues and pain being the driver of much of her actions. Seeing her fall in love with another, finally finding a healthy and physically and emotionally safe space with love and support was the catalyst we needed as readers to see her in a different light- to see her find her strength and grow. To fight not just her addiction but her demons. I might not FULLY be team Cindy overall, but I wanted to see in her what Cade clearly did, I wanted to believe she was worthy- and I do think she got there. She’s made a lot of mistakes to try to cope with her pain- but she’s more than the sum of her actions.
Cade is a delicious Serena mafia alpha pseudo anti-hero. Darkly swoony, charismatic and captivating, and kinda sweet. He has done dark things but he has a big loving family that gives him a softness to his edge, and while he has his own past pain to battle, I love how fiercely he protects Cindy. He may not open his heart to her fully at first, but he shows his care by saving her and shielding her, by acknowledging her pain. I really did like them for each other and together- perhaps more than I liked them individually, and that just shows the magic of how these two authors create chemistry.
We have some MC and some Five Points, and we have a whole heck of a lot of steam. That seemed to be part of Cindy and Cade’s journey- to find out how to connect NOT just physically, but it also shockingly made the little run a bit slow because of the heavy amounts of hotness. I’ll never say too much sexy time is an issue because give me all my smut, but I think here it did impact story flow slightly. But, damn can these women write some steam!
All in all a wondrous collaboration- a great melding of worlds and points of view!
I knew I’d love the marriage of this world and these two authors in this collaboration. But, where I was torn was in their choice of heroine. Fans of Robbins’ Disciples series will likely have mixed thoughts about our heroine going into this story- Cindy, a problematic and needy addict who has been nothing but trouble (including to those she purports to care about) in prior Disciples books. I wasn’t really sure I wanted her story- and I went into this no WANTING to like her. But Serena and Cassandra set her on a path of empathy and redemption- helping us see the broken, insecure, lacking any self-worth or direction. I can’t FULLY let go of the harm she’s caused others, but I also can reconcile her own issues and pain being the driver of much of her actions. Seeing her fall in love with another, finally finding a healthy and physically and emotionally safe space with love and support was the catalyst we needed as readers to see her in a different light- to see her find her strength and grow. To fight not just her addiction but her demons. I might not FULLY be team Cindy overall, but I wanted to see in her what Cade clearly did, I wanted to believe she was worthy- and I do think she got there. She’s made a lot of mistakes to try to cope with her pain- but she’s more than the sum of her actions.
Cade is a delicious Serena mafia alpha pseudo anti-hero. Darkly swoony, charismatic and captivating, and kinda sweet. He has done dark things but he has a big loving family that gives him a softness to his edge, and while he has his own past pain to battle, I love how fiercely he protects Cindy. He may not open his heart to her fully at first, but he shows his care by saving her and shielding her, by acknowledging her pain. I really did like them for each other and together- perhaps more than I liked them individually, and that just shows the magic of how these two authors create chemistry.
We have some MC and some Five Points, and we have a whole heck of a lot of steam. That seemed to be part of Cindy and Cade’s journey- to find out how to connect NOT just physically, but it also shockingly made the little run a bit slow because of the heavy amounts of hotness. I’ll never say too much sexy time is an issue because give me all my smut, but I think here it did impact story flow slightly. But, damn can these women write some steam!
All in all a wondrous collaboration- a great melding of worlds and points of view!