Blood of My Monster

De: Rina Kent

Narrado por: Sebastian York, Brooke Daniels

From USA Today best-selling author Rina Kent comes a new dark mafia romance.

I’m out for revenge. He’s out to rule the world.

Kirill and I are as different as day and night. We shouldn’t have been in the same frame or universe.

But we meet under the strangest circumstances.

He’s my superior in the military and the man who’ll introduce me to carnage.

His charm and exterior perfection shouldn’t have tempted me.

Behind the smokescreen lurks a manipulative emotionless monster.

And that monster might find out all my secrets, including the reason why I’m pretending to be a man.

He might also lure me to the point of no return.

This book is part of a trilogy and can't be listened to on its own.

©2023 Rina Kent (P)2023 Rina Kent

Love it 🔥

Been waiting for Kiril’s and Sasha’s story, my goodness… amazing 🤩 just want the rest now. Also hoping it picks up what she went through with Rai. March needs to get here now .

Oh My Gosh

Jesus she did again!! We tried to get away but she pulled us back in. You hold your breath throughout this book. You want to know what coming but you don’t want the book to End.
JH is phenomenal, narration perfect. Buy the book

Powerful, Dark, and Intoxicating!

What a thrilling start to Rent's new Monster Trilogy! Aleksander (Sasha/Aleksandra) is in the military disguised as a man. She is determined to find the truth while keeping her own secrets. Her superior, Kirill, catches on to who she/he is, but not her true secrets. He keeps her close, challenging her to be a stronger soldier, and then on his team of personal guards. Kirill's family is in upheaval, and he must return home to take over the family business. There are those who want him out of the way, and Aleksandra proves to be helpful in many ways. As they get closer, Aleksandra gives him a peace he hasn't had, and a desire that makes him want to own her completely. Aleksandra wants him as well, but she has so many secrets, she can't let her guard down to trust anyone, even Kirill, completely. Unfortunately, the one she thought she could trust, may have betrayed her the worst. This fast paced, gripping story is an exciting and steamy romance with plot twists that will have you on edge trying to figure out what will happen next. I am completely invested in Aleksandra and Kirill and hoping for a HEA.
This riveting, thrilling, and sizzling story is brought to life by the amazing talents of Sebastian York, Brooke Daniels. Both narrators made this story even more powerful, dark, and intoxicating! I was so stunned at the ending that I need the second book of this trilogy, Lies of My Monster!

Blood of my Monster

Narrators: Sesbastian York and Brooke Daniels

I would love ghis audiobook more if the narrators voices sounded more Russian. But there are some light accents but off and on. Anyways, Kirill’s is the boss of his establishment, where he must be at guard at all times. He finds a soldier Sasha pretending to be a man wanting to be one of his guards. But he wonders why she is hiding her identity but respects it when he see she doesn’t back down her demeanor. But Sasha wants revenage for the death of her family. She believes Kirill has information hidden in his office. Can she get close enough to him to find out and get access to the office. But nothing is all to simple. And not all the steps she takes are careful. Can she act as cold he can be?

I’m so ready for the second book!

Okay this took me a minute to get into. It’s very different than her other books but that’s what makes her such an amazing author. She’s not afraid to change it up. The ending was a shock and I’m so freaking excited for the second book!

Amazing and different story from Rina told in duet

Story:
I live for Rina Kent mafia. Oh, don’t mistake, I love everything that she writes- but her mafia always consumes me. I am ravenous for it, and anytime I find we’re going back to that world I am beside myself with anticipation. Especially when it involves two enigmatic secondary characters that clearly had a compelling and unusual backstory. Two characters that have sparkled from the periphery of other stories that had me longing to know just what was going on behind the scenes. And now we get their story- or at least the beginning of it. And what a creatively fresh, adrenaline packed, mesmerizing beginning it is.

What I love about Rina’s writing is that she takes what (or who) we think are known entities and flips it on its head. The mysterious bodyguard, the conniving Kirill, the thinly veiled affection between them. We saw it, and I was thirsty for more- and I had so many questions. Just why was Sasha in this position- by choice? By design? And why would the detached but psychotic Kirill knowingly allow it? What was their game? I had an idea about what I thought Sasha and Kirill’s story would be like/ Yup, dead wrong. I had a feeling how the tropes of this book (women in hiding, woman playing as man) would unfold. Yup wrong again. And I thought I knew a bit about who these characters might be- and yeh, you guessed it, I knew nothing. Rina takes two characters whom we’ve seen in others eyes and repaints them for us- in ways that align to the glimpses we’ve seen (brilliantly even in some of the moments we’ve seen), but she expands and contracts them in exciting and complicated ways. Kirill is so much more than the stoically sexy, ambitious mastermind. Sasha is so much more complicated and more layered than the deceptive bodyguard. Rina breathes a dimensional being into both of these characters, and I was transfixed by them.

I won’t reveal much about this plot, other than to say it was not at all the story I anticipated. And how refreshing that was. Where and when their story begins was context we never had, and I love how deeply Rina immerses us in their past- in the beginnings not only of their relationship but also in the very complex motivations that drive both of these characters in this story. And I did not anticipate both of them having such a rich and meaningful backstory- but I’m so glad Rina took such a character immersive approach to their journey. The first half of the book felt SO different from anything I’ve read from Rina- not only are we exploring the military trope which isn’t a huge part of her cannon, but the unexpected twists often came not from what Rina DID do, but what she didn’t. I won't lie, I was a bit worried about how the gender swap story would play out in the mafia, when it’s not She’s the Man shenanigans- and I really like how Rina handled it, and more importantly, I like how it stayed true to the DNA of these characters.

There are SO many secrets in this story- both Sasha and Kirill have family drama and intrigue that might make even a Stefano Dimera cower. The deception abounds, the motives are unclear and muddled, but what shines brightly is the connection between these two. One that isn’t even really sexual or romantic at first- something more quiet and anchoring that grows more passionate.

I feel madly in love with Sasha as our heroine. Her heart, her perseverance, her integrity are really powerful. She’s perhaps one of the most honest characters Rina has written, by far one of the most loyal- which is a great irony since she’s pretending to be someone she’s not. Her loyalty is certainly setting her up for some heartache, and perhaps a real complicated decision, but she’s adaptable and courageous, and I loved her cunning. Kirill, wow. He’s a hard to read character, for sure, but Rina works wonders on our perception of him by forcing us to see his past, to see him in his leadership role, to understand his choices. This is not a character that is a psycho, this is a man who has been adapting to the conditions of his world. He’s cold and ruthless to be sure, but the beating heart beneath him is more of a center than I expected. He has unexpected kindness and affection- not just for Sasha, but for his men, for his family. It makes him intriguing. But what I find most compelling is how much he respects Sasha- even before he knows her full story (or at least the full story she gives him). The power certainly is his (especially sexually) but he respects her…her choices, her needs….even as a soldier. And he invests in her because of it. And oh man, no spoilers, but how he handles everything with Rai- WHAT A HERO! He’s the most TRUE hero we’ve seen in a Rina anti-hero. In his own detached way, he’s dreamy.

What I loved most about the narrative is how Rina is setting up our two characters for so many parallel journeys. We’re only scratching the surface of their growth, and their relationship has only just begun and certainly still rests on a shaky and deceptive foundation, but these two have so much in common, and are tied together in ways they have yet to understand. Both are seemingly trapped in a life they never intended, but are forced to serve. Both are trying to reclaim control of their destiny while ensuring enemies pay. Neither knows how deeply their souls are aligned. But the sexual and romantic tension sizzles, but their hearts, well, they are still safely locked behind their secrets. The story, of course, careens into a devastating cliffhanger where we suffer a huge emotional heartbreak/angsty moment AND then have a huge drop your jaw moment right on top of it.

I could not love this mafia world more, and I can’t wait for the rest of this trilogy to answer all the questions….and bring back all the drama!

Performance: I love love LOVE duet narration, and I think it was so perfect for this story given all the duplicitousness and different identities and accents and such- it made it so much more immersive. I knew going on that I might not love Kirill since Sebastian York is not my favorite in general given how expressionless I find his narration, but I found that worked for the cold and stoic Kirill- at least until the end when Kirill has emotions start bubbling out. Brooke is not at all how I imagined Sasha' to sound, express, or speak. I like her voice, but I'm not sure she brought as much nuance to the performance as I felt in reading Sasha's agony and turmoil and fire. So a solid performance overall, but perhaps not my favorite of Rina's.

Perfection

Now, this is how you do an audiobook. You pick the perfect narrators, and you do it in duet style. I thought Sebastian York was the perfect voice for Kirill. I like him much better doing Kirill’s voice, then when he did Killian’s. I think it had to do with the fact that he was 18 years old, and Sebastian has a mature voice.

I love how we get the backstory on how Sasha/Aleksandra/Alexander becomes his bodyguard. I love her tenacity, her loyalty, but her kindness is what makes her special. She has a way of infiltrating herself to the unlikeliest people, and making them like her.

I can’t believe the cliffhanger, but I’m so thankful that I waited to listen to it so that I don’t have to wait for the next book. I think Rina should do all her books in duet style, but I’m sure it’s probably more expensive. This was the first time I’ve heard Brooke Daniels and she did an excellent job. I love how they both could do the Russian accent. I was confused at first because I could not understand why Kirill didn’t have a Russian accent, but then you’re reminded in this book that he was raised in America.

This does have some trigger warnings so read your own caution.

oh my word!

im not new to the Rina Kent world - by my gosh I'm devouring this like a Chinese buffet this is amazing!

More than one fuck

The story was well written as far as stories go......but the lack of adjectives, verbs and nouns other than "fuck" was disappointing.
Yet I'm going to buy the next one right now.

That ending!

If I’m being honest it took a few chapters for me to really get into this book. Some characters have Russian accents and some don’t so I wasn’t always sure who was related to who or what ties there were between certain characters. But the further I got into the story the less that really mattered. I just got caught up with the story and trying to figure out how it was going to end…but that ending completely surprised me and now I have to know what happens next.