Broken Beauty by Ketley Allison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The charmer.
Broken Beauty
The stalker.
The tortured leader.
The unhinged psychopath.
I never believed in love – until I met them . The four enigmatic men who would change my life forever.
When I discover the existence of a hidden fortune of an accused witch from the 1700s on Titan Falls campus – a woman executed for poisoning noblewomen’s husbands – I had no idea it would force me to choose between my own desires and the safety of those I loved.
Morgan, Xavier, Rio and Rossi are all after the treasure, too.
Their growing attraction to me complicates things. I can’t help but feel drawn to each of their dark habits in a way that threatens to destroy me. I sense these men are hiding something, but every time I almost uncover the answer, they call to the darkness inside me as a distraction, the one I thought my morals consumed a long time ago.
As I get closer to the centuries-forgotten fortune, I know I’m playing a dangerous game. But when bloody trinkets start being left at my door, I realize I’ve gotten too close. Not to the accused witch’s secret, but to theirs.
I find myself caught up in a web of power and desire that I’m ashamed to admit, thrills me. But as I struggle to navigate their treacherous games, I begin to question everything I know about love, lust, and the human heart.
And in the end, I’m not sure if I’ll be the one left standing.
“You don’t want a Prince Charming; you want a monster.”
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙🖤💜❤️💖
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍
Character development: 😟🤭😤☺️🥰
The heroine: Clover – she attends Titan Falls University. She considers herself a sorceress and can see the dead. She is fascinated by Sarah Anderton, the Titan Falls witch who died in the 1700’s. Clover keeps trying to summon her to find out the name of her secret daughter and where she was buried. Clover hadn’t spoken best friend Ardyn in two years before they came to Titan Falls, and since Ardyn kept a secret from her that she was dating Clover’s brother Tempest. Though they recently made up and are somewhat friends again, though secrets still separate them.
The Heroes: Morgan, Rio, Rossi and Xavier – These guys, plus Tempest are the Vultures at Titan Falls, they are mafia assassins whose job it is to dispose of the Dons enemies.
Rossi – he is the hot professor at Titan Falls University. He is cool and intense and walks around with a scowl. He is always looking at Clover, and she him.
Rio (a.k.a. Riordan) – He is friends and roommates of Clover’s brother Tempest. He has known clover for years. He is a stalker that suffers from Fatal Attraction Syndrome. His sights are now fully and completely set on Clover.
Hunter Morgan – a professor of occult studies at Titan Falls University and a roommate of Tempest and Rio though he hates Tempest. He is a bit dark and primal, a psychopath, who is also the nephew of the Mafia Don Marco Bianchi. He has daily fantasies about Clover.
Xaviar – he is a former soccer star from England who seduced a mafia princess and was taken captive by her father. He was tortured and had legs broken and his ring finger cut off only to be later reattached. He enrolled in Titan Falls University, and he hooks up with Clover on his first night in town and can’t get her out of his head after that. `
The Story: Clover lives at Camden House, the female dorm at TF University and most of the girls hate her, bully her and call her a witch. She doesn’t tell her brother, whom they all swoon over and who would fix things for her, because she wants to keep a low profile and live her own life. She is under Tempest’s thumb enough and he is way too overprotective.
“Thinking back on it now, it’s funny I didn’t contemplate how much danger she was putting herself in, bunking near us, the exiles, the unwanted, the most talented executioners the world doesn’t know about, dragging around our chains and using them as garrotes instead of weights.”
Rossi had a plan for him Tempest, and Rio, to “ruin the mafia don, Marco Bianchi, then take his place.” Though when Hunter, who is the don’s nephew, came to town to get his fetishes under control, it through a bit of a wrench in their plans. Though they do not know of how much Morgan hates his uncle for abusing and controlling him most of his life. Now his uncle wants him to find the treasure Sarah Anderton is supposed to have hidden somewhere in Titan Falls.
The story was very intricate and certainly held my attention. I also really enjoyed the backstory of Sarah Anderton and her hidden cache of jewels paid to her by her wealthy patrons who wanted their enemies poisoned and cursed. The part about her daughter was also very interesting. Though I really did like how these four dangerous men each had a thing for Clover and all of them paid attention to her in their own way, while she thought she wasn’t worthy of any of their attention. Especially since she was constantly bullied by the beautiful girls in her dorm.
Goodreads doesn’t show that this is just book one of two, and I didn’t see that on Amazon until I had already started reading this one and was well into the story. So there was a cliffhanger and now I have to buy the next book which I am not too happy about. Though it is a great story and a terrific mystery, so I want to find out how it all ends. I also want to read the first book in this series which was the story of Tempest and Ardyn falling in love.
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