Cruel Beast

A Dark Forced Marriage Mafia Romance (Dark Lies, Book 3)

By: J.L. Beck, S. Rena

Narrated by: Heather Firth, Curt Bonnem

Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Money. It’s the root of all evil and I need it bad.

You could call it the wrong place, wrong time.

To me the day I met Enzo was the day the old me died.

When he kidnaps me thinking I’m the daughter of his enemy, the only thing I can do is pretend to be something I’m not.

But the more I pretend, the deeper I fall.

Enzo is dark, cruel, and menacing, but he’s protective, fierce, and determined.

Soon he wants to forge a contract between our families, making me his bride, but he has no idea I’m not whom he thinks I am and when he finds out … well, I know I’m as good as dead.

©2022 Bleeding Heart Press (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

Entertaining not Amazing

Ok story- not great. The first two books of this series are better. The narration is a bit hard to enjoy. The story is interesting enough that I finished it and will listen to the next book. Worth a credit? Hmm only if you don't have a better option. Plenty of other J L Beck books that are way better. Definitely worth listening for free though!

Enzo is deliciously cruel!

I don’t know where to begin. I enjoyed reading this book, but feel like it moved very slow. Great story line though! I have a feeling that this was just setting up the story for the next book. Just like the first book in this duet (the 3rd in the series), this book also ended on a cliffhanger. The romance parts were such a slow burn though… Every time something started, I got excited, only to be like “ugghhhh why did it stop?!” Finally when it actually happened, it was hot!🔥

Starting Savage Vow now. I need to know what happens!!

Tropes:
Kidnapping
Virgin FMC
Forced proximity
Mistaken identity
Forced Marriage
Mafia

Terrible male narrator

DNF I just couldn’t get past the male narrator’s horrible Italian accent. His female impersonation is so cringy. I couldn’t understand 80 percent of what he was saying.

Extremely good story

The book description was right. Enzo was a cruel man based on how he was raised by his grandfather. His mother's mother was the start of his difficult upbringing and the fact that there wasn't a grandmother or mother figure in his life made him even worse. Along come Alisha with a heartbreaking story of financial woes being a student.Her decision to continue the lie until the end was a bad one but I'm not surprised she found love in Enzo. The ending was unexpected and the author did a great job tying in the fake dad. This story had intrigue, sexy scenes and a and unhappy ending that left my jaw dropping. The narrators made everything seen so real. Can't wait for the next book

Savage, cruel, unhinged and betrayal

Enzo is one unhinged MF… and I loved every minute of it. It only is the MMC soo cruel and f up to the FMC, she is also Fd in the head. We finally start to see a light at the end of the tunnel with Enzo … but then …. He does a 360 .. the Betrayal !
She had every chance to tell him.

The spice = 5 stars

Good, but…

Although I felt the first book in this series was way to violent with rape and trafficking, it was still a better story than this one.

Enzo is clearly a better man than Christian was which is nice.. one of the things I didn’t like about this story was how unrealistic it was at times. She could have escaped and didn’t. Also the marriage was unbelievable as she wasn’t even using her real name.

All that being said I enjoyed this book overall and felt the narrators both did great jobs.

enjoyable story, but the accents

I don't like the male voice. the accent is supposed to be heavily Italian, yet it goes more between Jamaican & count dracula

Worst narration ever

Guys. Accents are not necessary - especially when they are this bad. The male character voices were the absolute worst. I had to finish this book early because of it.

Far reaching

I didn’t like the male narrator, it was too much. And the whole time, as the plot snowballs, all
I could think was: all this for ONE brick of coke? 😂 These families are rivals and they are causing this much trouble over one brick. I found it hard to get into the story because it was just so unrealistic. The idea that this woman is pretending to be the daughter of a mobster but neither family can figure it out before the wedding day?? I also thought the story could have been told in half the time. I don’t want to listen to the next book because I can already tell it’s going to be too long. Neither main character was relatable and I couldn’t get behind either one.

Finished out of curiosity of the story but wish I never started

The FMC totally lost sight of her real life. like did no one think to report her as missing? did she not have her license on her? there are so many holes that book 1 didn't have and I just can't. I listened to this on and off for a week because I kept getting frustrated but also needed to just hear the ending.

Curt's female voice is.... not very good. but Heather did great! I love seeing her name on audiobooks.