Review: Leather & Lark by Brynne Weaver

Name: Leather & Lark
Series: The Ruinous Love Trilogy #2
Author: Brynne Weaver
Publisher: Piatkus
Format: Kindle (available through Kindle Unlimited)
Genres: Adult, Dark Romance, Contemporary, Fiction, Thriller
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Explicit Open Door

Rating:

Synopsis: Goodreads
Every killer claims a soul.
Every phantom wants revenge.

All contract killer Lachlan Kane wants is a quiet life. But when he botches a job for his boss’s biggest client, Lachlan knows he’ll never claw his way out of the underworld. At least, not until Lark Montague offers him a use his skills to hunt down a killer and she’ll find a way to secure his freedom.

The catch? He has to marry her first. And they can’t stand each other.

Indie singer-songwriter Lark may seem like sunshine and glitter personified but she has her own secrets hiding in the shadows. With her formidable family in a tailspin and her best friend’s happiness on the line, she’s willing to make a vow to the man she’s determined to hate, no matter how tempting the broody assassin might be.

As Lachlan and Lark navigate the dark world that binds them together, it becomes impossible to discern their fake marriage from a real one. But it’s not just familiar dangers that haunt them. There’s another phantom lurking on their doorstep . . . And this one has come for blood.

Review:

Leather & Lark is the second book in The Ruinous Love trilogy which means there are possibly going to be spoilers for Butcher & Blackbird in the review below, but if there are any spoilers specifically to Leather & Lark in the review, they will be hidden, in order to keep the review spoiler free. Please read your trigger warnings at the start of the book before you read this book / trilogy.

Well well well. I bet you weren’t expecting to see Leather & Lark so soon after I read Butcher & Blackbird! And honestly, I wasn’t expecting to be doing this either. I didn’t think I was going to break my October TBR and yet, here is the proof that I actually did let myself drive my own month and read a book that I wanted to read. So, let’s talk about Leather & Lark!

This was the sequel I was really excited for because I really liked the snippets we got of both Lachlan (yes I keep trying to write Leather whenever I refer to Lachlan…) and Lark from the first book! But I do think there was an element that I struggled with and that was these two away from Rowan and Sloane! As a result of that I did struggle to get into L&L but that quickly disapated as I got used to Lachlan and Lark being together away from Rowan and Sloane.

I grew to love these two, very quickly – quite embarassingly quickly actually! They had excellent banter – similar to Rowan and Sloane – and I did love their chosen nicknames for each other! Every time they popped up, they cracked me up. The humour with these characters is the ‘comedy’ part of the rom-com genre used to describe these books which was the main reason I put this series off, but I loved it. Not only did I love them and find them to be really funny, but I also loved Lark’s grandmother – she had me laughing as I read as well! And of course we did get some from interactions with Lachlan and his brothers – and I’ll never be sad to see Rowan and Fionn appear as these three together are pretty damn funny.

I really enjoyed the mystery element in the story as well – it was teased at the end of Butcher & Blackbird – and what I honestly liked the most was the fact that we didn’t have the typical ‘third act break up’ that is in contemporary romances that I just can’t stand. And the ‘third act event’ is connected to the mystery that is throughout the book and I think it’s really well written!

I am so glad that the prompt I picked gave me the chance to read this trilogy (even though I only picked Butcher & Blackbird for the prompt) because I had been putting it off because of the ‘dark rom-com’ genre! It does go to show that sometimes that branching out will lead you to a new favourite! As I mentioned earlier, it did take longer to get into when compared to Butcher & Blackbird and that is the sole reason for the lower rating! Otherwise, I loved it and I loved Lachlan and Lark!

“You’re brave as hell. But you’re my person, Lark. I can’t do this without you.”

Reading With Tyler