Beautiful Monster by J.L. Beck

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought I knew the truth.

I thought he was my savior.

I’d spent my entire life running from him, only to become trapped in his web.

He says I’ll become his wife, that I’ll provide him an heir.

I’ll do both of those things, under one condition.

His father must die.

Beautiful Monster

Dark and good!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙💚❤️
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌍
Character development: ☺️🤭😳😘
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Siân Guiliani – she was the daughter of a mafia family that was one of the most powerful in Italy. The Guiliani’s and Russo’s have been at war for a long time. Her mother brokered a deal for peace between the families. Though her father didn’t know about the agreement and planned to renege on the deal. The whole family was murdered by the Russo’s, but her father had sent her away first. Siân has been in hiding for many years, with her guardian. Though Christian has been one step behind her all the way.

The Hero: Christian Russo – He wanted Siân from the first time he saw her, and he knew she would one day be his. He let her escape the murder and was determined to find her one day and make her his. At one point he lost her for nearly five years but found her again as a graduate student at university. He played a long game to get her to trust him, all the while stalking her, scaring her and attacking her. Just when he nearly had her where he wanted her, she found out that he killed her ex-boyfriend and her best friend.

The Story: We find out at the beginning of this book, that not everything that went down all those years ago in Italy was as we had thought during the last book. It was actually Christian who killed Siân’s father and if it wasn’t for him, she would have died that day as well. He had been stalking her even then, when she was little, in hopes of gaining early entry into his father’s organization at the tender age of fourteen. Now Siân knows he was her stalker, and he has taken her with him to Italy.

Christian is certainly an antiHero in this story. He does a lot of terrible things, though I think that underneath it all he has some good qualities and motives. He can be very unlikable in how he treats Siân, but there are things behind it all that he keeps very close to his vest. I liked him at times and hated him at times. Siân was a decent character, she behaved how she should for the most part, though a few times she was stupid, like when she fought agains Christian in front of his father when he told her that he was keeping her safe from his father.

This audiobook was told in dual points of view via dual narration. It was narrated by Anastasia Watley and Curt Bonnem. I don’t think I had heard either of these narrators before, but I quite liked them. Anastasia has a soft and intelligent sounding voice while Curt has a deep gravelly voice which is perfect for Christian. He speaks with an American accent but does a great job with all the Italian words.

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