Book review: SAVED BY A GOD, by Michelle Heard

Kings of Mafia # 10

Enzo & Rosie

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This story felt like a beautiful farewell gift to the whole series. At the center of it all is Rosie, the bright, funny heart of the Cosa Nostra. She grew up surrounded by danger and power, yet she’s still the girl who loves pranks, jokes, and making every capo say “pretty please with a cherry on top” before she helps them. She’s their little sister, their genius hacker, and the one person everyone protects without question.

And then there’s Enzo, the man who feels everything too deeply and hides it behind discipline and silence. He has always cared for Rosie in his own quiet way, even when he convinced himself he couldn’t have her. Their bond—this strange mix of comfort, routine, and unspoken longing—was one of my favorite parts of the book.

What struck me most was how emotional this story is. Rosie goes through something terrifying and life‑changing, and the book handles her journey with so much heart. Watching the Cosa Nostra rally around her, watching Enzo fall apart and then pull himself back together for her, watching Rosie slowly return to herself—it all hit me so hard. I cried more than once.

The romance is tender and slow, full of care and patience. Enzo’s love shows in the way he protects her, the way he listens, the way he gives her space to heal. Rosie’s love shows in the way she trusts him and lets him lead, little by little, until she’s strong enough to stand on her feet and tease him like she used to. Their connection feels earned, deep, and incredibly sweet.

I also loved the family moments. The capos, the parents, the friends from all the different mafia groups—they all come together in a way that made my heart swell. When Rosie returns and everyone celebrates her, you can feel how much she means to them. It was one of the most touching scenes in the whole series.

By the end, everything comes full circle. Love, loyalty, healing, and family all wrap together in a perfect final chapter. The wedding had me in tears—happy ones.

This was an epic, emotional, beautiful ending to the Kings of Mafia series. I loved Rosie, I loved Enzo, and I loved every moment of their journey.

Purchase links

Amazon: https://geni.us/aSw9

About the author

Michelle Heard is a Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling Author who loves creating stories her readers can get lost in. She resides in South Africa with her son where she's always planning her next book to write, and trip to take.

 

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Book review: UP TO NO GOOD, by Abbi Glines

Mississippi Smoke #10

Forge & Elsie

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This story delivers that perfect blend of angst, vulnerability, and slow‑burn emotional intimacy that I love reading. It follows two people, Forge and Elsie, who are each carrying their own brand of heartbreak, and the magic is in how they slowly—almost reluctantly—become each other’s safe place. The author captures grief and anxiety with such clarity that you feel it in your chest, but she balances it with moments of warmth, humor, and family reunions that make the heaviness worth it.

What really worked for me is how naturally the relationship unfolds. There’s no insta‑love, no forced drama—just two wounded souls finding unexpected comfort in each other. Watching one character rediscover laughter and the other finally breathe without feeling like the world is collapsing… it’s tender, intimate, and deeply satisfying. And yes, the sexy times are potent, but it never overshadows the emotional core. It enhances it.

The pacing is tight, the tension delicious, and the emotional payoff absolutely worth the ride. My only complaint? I could’ve used a few more pages of pure, indulgent swoon at the end—but that’s just because I wasn’t ready to let them go.

A heartfelt, addictive romance that leaves you warm, delighted, and wanting just one more chapter.

Purchase links

https://geni.us/UTNG

About the author

Abbi Glines is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Rosemary Beach, Sea Breeze, Vincent Boys, Field Party, and Existence series. She never cooks unless baking during the Christmas holiday counts. She believes in ghosts and has a habit of asking people if their house is haunted before she goes in it. She finally moved to New England into a home that is 200 + years old with it's own ghosts. She drinks afternoon tea because she wants to be British but alas she being born in Alabama, her life in New England is as close as she will get. When asked how many books she has written she has to stop and count on her fingers. When she’s not locked away writing, she is reading, and/or watching Netflix like the introvert that she is. 

You can connect with Abbi online in several different ways:

www.abbiglinesbooks.com

TikTok @abbiglines

Twitter: @abbiglines

Instagram: @abbiglines

Snapchat: abbiglines

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abbiglinesauthor

Book review: A HATEFUL NEGOTIATION, by Tijan

Some love stories start with sparks. Creighton and Blake’s starts with bruises. Both products of the foster system, they carry that bone‑deep sense of being unwanted—the kind that stains every instinct, every reaction, every belief about themselves. And in Creighton’s case, that ache is amplified by his own self‑diagnosed “psychopath tendencies.” By fourteen he’s already a young criminal, numb to right and wrong, convinced he has no soul. And then an eight‑year‑old girl with a bruised face steps out of a car and jump‑starts the dead organ in his chest.

From that moment on, Blake becomes his axis.

His purpose.

His line in the sand.

Creighton protects her with a ferocity that terrifies everyone else. If someone hurts her feelings, he reacts. If someone threatens her, he eliminates the threat. The world calls it obsession. I call it devotion—because Blake is also his conscience. She sets one rule: “No one good and no one innocent.” And he follows it for years, not because he believes in morality, but because she does.

Blake’s dream has always been painfully simple: a normal life. Normal people. No foster‑kid stigma. No shadow of Creighton’s world. So they strike a deal—she can leave, study in New York, live her life, as long as she accepts a disguised bodyguard and the occasional financial help she pretends she doesn’t need. Creighton stays in Cincinnati… until he doesn’t. Because where Blake goes, he follows, even from a distance.

And then come the territorial clashes with the Kings of New York—Tristian West and Ashton Walden—and suddenly Blake’s quiet brownstone life with her four housemates collides with Creighton’s underworld. Parties turn into danger. Coincidences turn into chaos. And the mayhem is delicious.

What unfolds is a roller coaster of mafia politics, kidnappings, torture, threats, and turf wars. Through it all, Blake proves she’s no fragile flower—she can handle herself. But with Creighton? She melts. And that contrast is everything.

Her resistance to him finally makes sense: she wanted him to change. To be better. To be normal. But Creighton only has a heart where she’s concerned, and once she accepts that, she adapts. She grows. She realizes the power she holds over him and uses it—not manipulatively, but lovingly—to shape the life they can actually have.

Creighton’s devotion is absolute. He would burn the world for her.

Blake’s love is quieter, slower to bloom, but just as fierce.

And for a man who claims he has no soul, he shows more integrity than half the “good” people in his world. No sex trafficking. Children protected. Employees’ families cared for even after death. He says it’s about loyalty. I say it’s the soul he swears he doesn’t have.

The action never stops.

The romance is slow burn but emotionally loaded.

And watching Blake come into her own—accepting what she can’t change him and bending the rest to her terms—was incredibly satisfying. Watching Creighton be tamed by a girl who is beautiful inside and out? Even better.

My only gripe: seeing West and Walden at war with Creighton hurt my heart, because I loved them in their own books. Walden especially got a little too intense at times. But peace eventually comes, so I forgave it.

Tijan always delivers: riveting characters, twisty plots, humor, emotion, and flawed people trying to be good enough for the one person who matters. Creighton embodies that perfectly. He knows he’s not good—but he loves Blake too much to ever let her go.

Sigh.

Purchase links

FREE with #kindleunlimited! 

Amazon: https://bit.ly/4forSch

Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/B2HZ

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/46K8Z1w 

Listen to the audiobook!

Narrated by: Benjamin Sands & Mia Madison

Audible: https://bit.ly/3MUJSkB

About the author

Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable

novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of

sass on the side. Tijan began writing after college and once she started, she was hooked.

She's written multi-bestsellers including the Fallen Crest series, Ryan's Bed, Enemies

and others.

She is currently writing many new books and series with an English Cocker she

adores.

Connect with Tijan

Website: http://www.tijansbooks.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4851199.Tijan

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tijan/e/B00DJG52QE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tijansbooks/

Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/tijansreadergroup

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X/Twitter: www.twitter.com/tijansbooks

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Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/tijan

Book review: HELL OF A CHRISTMAS, by Abbi Glines

Mississippi Smoke # 9

Kash & Cressida

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Abbi Glines really knows how to grab me by the throat and the heart at the same time. She’s one of the few authors who can make me drop every other book I’m reading, sit down, and disappear into her world until I’ve inhaled the last page. And this story reminded me exactly why.

Kash and Cressida were the kind of high school sweethearts who burned too hot, too fast, and then detonated in spectacular fashion. One betrayal, one night, and suddenly he’s exiled to Alabama and she’s shipped off to Arizona, both of them shattered in ways they didn’t have the language for at seventeen.

Fast‑forward four years, and Cressida is back in Madison, Mississippi, not as the ambitious girl she once was, but as a waitress in a greasy spoon, scraping together enough money to survive. She’s running from a home that stopped being safe a long time ago, and you feel that ache in your bones. Then a glamorous woman walks into the diner and offers her a lifeline—room, board, a salary, and a chance to breathe again. Of course she takes it. Who wouldn’t?

And then Kash sees her. One moment on the street, one look, and everything they buried comes roaring back. Nothing is said, but everything is felt. And that’s the thing about first loves that never healed — they don’t stay dead. They wait.

But Madison is still controlled by the Southern Mafia, and when an anonymous text hits her new phone telling her to stay away from Kash, Cressida realizes she’s not just living quietly… she’s being monitored. Tracked. Controlled. Again.

What follows is a tangle of midnight visits, half-truths, and the kind of emotional tension that makes you want to shake both of them. Kash breaks into her room, demanding answers. She gives him pieces, but not the whole truth — not yet. And when they finally fall into each other again, it’s raw, painful, and so full of history that you can feel the weight of every unsaid word. He calls it closure. She’s left alone on the patio, heart cracked open all over again.

Cressida’s journey is especially compelling. She’s strong in that quiet, resilient way that makes you root for her from page one. Kash is the morally gray, emotionally intense hero Glines writes so well — the kind who loves with his whole soul and doesn’t always know what to do with that much feeling.

And the chemistry? Off the charts. The kind that makes you pause, breathe, and then dive right back in.

By the end, you’re left with that signature Abbi Glines cocktail: angst, passion, loyalty, and a love that feels both hard‑won and deeply deserved. Abbi Glines is one of those authors who hijacks my entire life the moment I open one of her books. Her morally gray heroes are deliciously unhinged in the best way. Her heroines are strong, vulnerable, and fighting for their own survival. The angst and passion hit at the same intensity, and the emotional bonds she builds between her couples feel like lifelines.

Purchase links

https://geni.us/HellofaChristmas

About the author

Abbi Glines is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Rosemary Beach, Sea Breeze, Vincent Boys, Field Party, and Existence series. She never cooks unless baking during the Christmas holiday counts. She believes in ghosts and has a habit of asking people if their house is haunted before she goes in it. She finally moved to New England into a home that is 200 + years old with it's own ghosts. She drinks afternoon tea because she wants to be British but alas she being born in Alabama, her life in New England is as close as she will get. When asked how many books she has written she has to stop and count on her fingers. When she’s not locked away writing, she is reading, and/or watching Netflix like the introvert that she is. 

You can connect with Abbi online in several different ways:

www.abbiglinesbooks.com

TikTok @abbiglines

Twitter: @abbiglines

Instagram: @abbiglines

Snapchat: abbiglines

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abbiglinesauthor