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A review by its_aislinn
Cruel Lies by Lilian Harris
4.0
“Cruel Lies” is the delicious second book in the Messina mafia series! While it contains the same characters you met on book one, “Cruel Lies” can be read as a standalone novel.
For the sake of my review, let’s assume that you did read book one. “Cruel Lies” doesn’t pick up at the ending of the first book, and instead you spend about 45% of the book going over the events from Raph’s POV. He and Nicolette connect quickly on in the first book, and it was enjoyable watching them suffer in silence around each other.
Important to note is Raph’s relation to Nicolette. Raph married Nicolette’s sister, Bianca, and despite this, Nicolette has been infatuated with Raph. With her sister dead, Nicolette wants to be with Raph, yet he struggles with what he wants. He feels strongly for Nicolette himself, but internally he sees himself like his father for having feelings for a much younger woman. Naturally, with one cabin and one bed, Raph and Nicolette butt heads more often than not, all the while growing more obsessed with each other.
The turning point in the story was predictable yet I found myself completely caught off guard by the plot twist. Truthfully, I did skim a lot of the dialogue post-twist, because it got to be repetitive and I knew that to have a HEA that things would be changing again.
Tropes in this book are: forced proximity, one bed, age gap, late sisters husband
This series has been so fun to read and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in reading mafia romance!
For the sake of my review, let’s assume that you did read book one. “Cruel Lies” doesn’t pick up at the ending of the first book, and instead you spend about 45% of the book going over the events from Raph’s POV. He and Nicolette connect quickly on in the first book, and it was enjoyable watching them suffer in silence around each other.
Important to note is Raph’s relation to Nicolette. Raph married Nicolette’s sister, Bianca, and despite this, Nicolette has been infatuated with Raph. With her sister dead, Nicolette wants to be with Raph, yet he struggles with what he wants. He feels strongly for Nicolette himself, but internally he sees himself like his father for having feelings for a much younger woman. Naturally, with one cabin and one bed, Raph and Nicolette butt heads more often than not, all the while growing more obsessed with each other.
The turning point in the story was predictable yet I found myself completely caught off guard by the plot twist. Truthfully, I did skim a lot of the dialogue post-twist, because it got to be repetitive and I knew that to have a HEA that things would be changing again.
Tropes in this book are: forced proximity, one bed, age gap, late sisters husband
This series has been so fun to read and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in reading mafia romance!