Beast

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

Omg, I am at a loss as to how to express just how good this book is, it is worth every single one of the five stars that I can give in this review and then a whole heap more!

I loved Frankie, an honourable young woman who was willing to give her life in order to save the man she loved most in the world, her father but little does she know that despite the fact that the debt is owed to the Mafia, it may not be as bad as she anticipated because when Beast decides that the situation with Frankie is best handled personally, the connection between the two of them has unexpected consequences.

Now Beast knows that the last thing he needs is a woman complicating his life, after all there are forces that would rather he didn’t become the new boss, letting his guard down enough to let Frankie in is likely to leave an opportunity for those that oppose him to strike…especially when he puts paid to the deal that has been arranged and make sit known that he intends to keep her for himself.

There is so much of this story that is dealt with in the shadows that being able to pick out the bits that stand out most is almost impossible – it all does. As daft as that sounds, the cloak and dagger elements of the story really brought so much angst into play that I wondered just how they both would cope.

I thought that Beast’s personality brought so much out to play that I didn’t know if what Frankie was feeling was going to be enough to protect her. Life with him was conflicted but reconciling that with her situation meant that she had to make allowances and while it was touch and go as to how their situation would play out but once it became clear that what they had was worth the fight I never doubted them.

I loved the fact that as time passed and she grew accustomed to his ways, Frankie felt able to stand up to Beast and his antics, but it was definitely a two-way street and as fast s she built walls, Beast used every trick in his formidable repertoire to tear them down.

The struggles that they both carried were fearsome but that inner strength gave them the fortitude to stand up to the forces that were being applied to the both. After all this is the Mafia!

At times, the story was soul destroying, I wanted so much for them that I wasn’t sure that I was going to get, but what a journey the author took me on in order to understand just how much they had to suffer to get what they were working towards.

As I said earlier there is so much going on in this book that you will have to pay attention, the characters leave so much of themselves on the page that I felt cruel taking a break from them. It was almost as if they were imploring me to stick with them to see what they were going to get up top next. I could barely take a step away from the story – so it wasn’t exactly conducive to fitting around a work day …I wanted to spend my time with them and couldn’t wait to get back to them, so I implore you…give yourself time to fall for what is an addictive story and some astonishingly addictive characters