“I’ll love you in your darkest hour, I’ll love you even when you are weak, and if you need me to be your light, I will. I love every piece of you, Luca.”
Luca and Aria are back and how! In the 6th book of the series, Cora Reilly is revisiting the story of Famiglia Capo and his princiseppa. Hold on, you aren’t the only one thinking, “we already know they found their love, what else is there to read about?”. Turns out there is A LOT. Here, instead of just love, the author is taking turns in writing about other aspects of relationships and that is BETRAYAL. My happiness knew no bounds for two reasons:
- I was reading something Born in blood mafia chronicles related that featured the OG characters in majority
- And mostly because of its underlying theme.
THE COUPLE-
Is it weird that I actually like this couple now? Especially when I didn’t exactly love them in their own book. Luca and Aria have been that couple whose relationship built so gradually, in the most beautiful manner over the course of sequels in the series that it’s almost like a poem. While in the Bound by Honor, I couldn’t find the chemistry between them worthy of any praise, reading their exchange and thoughts later on in this book and 3rd and 4th parts made me realize how incorrect my decision was.
“I will follow you anywhere. Your darkness doesn’t scare me. I love you, your strength and loyalty, your tenderness and protectiveness. I love your gentle side, but just as much I love your darkness.”
As far as the character development goes, the writing was true to their core nature, if not only better and more refined.
In comparison to the first novel, this part is a hundred thousand times better.
WHAT I LIKED-
I liked how it is well-known for the mobsters to do anything to protect and honor the ones they love, however it was refreshing and borderline necessary to show that females aren’t the weak ones either. Luca casts off the evil from his and Aria’s life in a conventional male protective way, but Aria being the yin to his yang protects her siblings in the most sisterly manner.
“Love. The root of weakness.”
While many would blatantly accuse Aria of being stupid for betraying Luca in that again and again, I find it a bit hypocritical since if the sides were switched and it were Luca protecting his brother, the reaction would’ve been diametrically opposite.
“So I’m practically Capo,” she said teasingly, and I chuckled.
“You rule over my heart, so in some ways yes.”
A good chunk of the story is Aria and Luca’s POVs of accounts that happened right after the Bratva attack on their mansion, be it Gianna and Matteo’s major relationship breakthroughs or Lily and Romero’s romance fiasco. While it doesn’t reveal anything further, it sort of fits in the missing pieces and metaphorically wraps the gift in quite a presentable fashion.
Even the smutty parts were hot. The nuanced emotions of need, lust, anger, heartbreak, and anger are very well depicted. The biggest advantage Bound by Love has is the fact that their relationship has been making its appearance in so many other books, that readers’ prediction on how the respective characters would react is so spot on, it automatically leads to developing a new connection.
“In our life we were often dealt shitty cards.”
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER-
Honestly, there is almost absolutely nothing I would change in the storyline, except for one teeny tiny detail, which is the impending war between New York’s Cosa Nostra and Chicago’s Outfit. The clock has been ticking on it right after Romero killed Lily’s husband and tossed a time bomb between the two gangs’ relations. I had high hopes to get insights on the war and its planning from both Luca’s and Dante’s sides, but there wasn’t anything much on this topic.
Fingers crossed that Bound by the Past satiates my hunger for some violence and clash.
DO I RECOMMEND?
Yes, yes and a thousand times yes. I enjoyed every minute of this story. It was fun, sweet, dangerous, angsty, and sexy all jam packed.
RATING- 3.5/5
Now, you know the drill. This is my ranking order for individual books in the series in descending order-
- BOUND BY HATRED
- BOUND BY DUTY
- BOUND BY LOVE
- BOUND BY HONOR
- BOUND BY VENGEANCE
- BOUND BY TEMPTATION
Book Reviews by Preesha Agarwal 