Ravaged Crown

Solovev Bratva, Book 1

By: Nicole Fox

Narrated by: Laura Horowitz, Walker Williams

Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

What would you do if you walked in on your husband cheating?
I'll tell you what I did:
Ran out the door with nothing but the clothes on my back.

A month later, I'm broke, jobless, almost homeless.
But then, while filling in as a waitress at a fancy restaurant, I trip and land in the lap of a gorgeous stranger.

One thing leads to another and we end up hooking up.
Afterwards, he leaves.
That's the end of that...right?

Wrong.

Because the next day, my temp agency sets me up for a job that seems too good to be true.
But when I arrive for the interview, my jaw drops.

It's the stranger.
Turns out he's rich. Like, very rich.
And powerful. Like, very powerful.
And here's his offer:

"Live in my house.
Be my wife.
Have my baby."

Needless to say, I start to freak out.
I stand up and stammer, "Um, I'll have to get back to you..."
And he replies:
"You're misunderstanding.
It wasn't a question.
You're not going anywhere."

Ravaged Crown is Book One of the Solovev Bratva duet. The story concludes in Book 2, Ravaged Throne.

©2022 Nicole Fox (P)2024 Nicole Fox

Leading Lady is a Hard Sell

One mistake any author can make is by attempting to confuse the reader by selling childish, bratty behavior as a strong personality trait, I can accept a few eyerolling moments here and there because no one is perfect and people do silly things under stress. As long as there's growth, I can take a trip up in judgement. Humans can learn from their failures and mistakes. If there's a levelheaded person close to them to call them out on it, that's even better. I discovered this author with the Oryolov series and became intrigued by how well-written and believable the story was. I was expecting more when I started the Solovev brand. What I got was a whiney weakling of a female lead whose emotional outbursts get praised and glorified like she's some sort of secret warrior princess. Terms like fighter, bite, and strength are used to describe a character who is more of a whiney, ignorant crybaby.

In the beginning, I figured this would be temporary. As I said earlier, nobody is perfect and she has the perfect guide to help her mature and grow. However that maturing moment never came. I thought she'd eventually sober up and get a clue. I thought she'd actually show more of the qualities that the lead male constantly praises her for, but nope. She continues to stupidly push back for no reason other than to just say no to someone, usually to the only hope she has to get out of whatever problem she's having at the time. Even with all this self-made drama and, often ridiculous, school yard back and forth bickering, the heroine continues to prove she's a complete dimwit, This fact makes it difficult to get into the steamy scenes because she carries on about how great he makes her feel just to revert back into a twelve year old, while the male lead goes raves about how magnificently "perfect" she is. Meanwhile I, as a reader, am left scratching my head wondering how.

The two voice actors work amazingly well together and they know how to make a story sound good. However this leading female is too much of a turnoff to make me want to pick up Book 2. I'll continue to read a different mafia series from this author because I already know she's capable of writing better characters.

EXCELLENT BOOK

Wow, this was a great read. The voices and personalities were perfect. I can't wait until book number two. Definitely worth a credit.

Great Listen

This was a great series. I love the dominating men, its a huge thing for me in the books I read but even bigger than that is the fact that the woman, is an actual adult woman and not a girl!

Love it

Can not wait to see when real mother found out. Hurry send out the 2nd book

Love love love it!

What a book! Dark Mafia at its finest! If you like dark and steamy, this is for you. Leaves on cliffhanger but I'm sure the next book will not disappoint!

UGH struggle to finish the audio

The narrators did a good job I think it was the female character that just brought the whole book down for me.
I can't listen to one more author writing about food at a fancy restaurant and how the victim couldn't stop her moaning out loud cuz it was so good.... please just please (insert eye roll)
I wanted to reach through the book and rip the female character totally off the pages, her personality is like a 12-year-old brat and The age she is now she should have been a little more grown up.

I liked it but….

The FMC was weak and dumb, made it hard to listen to sometimes. On to book 2, hope she grows a backbone!

Second time’s the charm

Updated review after a second listen:

So first I really feel like this is just so depressing for the FMC. Really out of the frying pan into the fire. And the love story doesn’t show any sign of developing, really.

The MMC has been described as weak by other reviewers, and I initially thought so too. But on a second listen I don’t think so. He hasn’t wavered in his actions toward the FMC - he started out as a jerk (after their initial meeting) and stayed a jerk throughout.

It’s definitely a cliffy. In all aspects. Nothing is resolved at all in this book.

The narrators are fantastic - both are new to me and I’d definitely listen to them again.

I’ll go on to book 2 this time (last time I listened I had no interest) I’m interested enough to hear the rest.

FMC is worthless the entire time

I wanted to like this book as it started with the FMC working to get out of an abusive relationship and taking steps to empower herself. However, it is a joke. She is completely helpless the entire time and never actually stands up to the "bad guys." I love a good domination story, but there has to be a give and take at some point or where the male compromises because he does care (even if hiding it) - this female character genuinely just takes it and basically rolls over and is so helpless because the main male character is too hot basically where she can't tell him no when he wants sex. The FMC is just really difficult to root for after a certain point because she is an idiot.

DNF

Absolutely couldn’t stand this book and couldn’t finish. Weak FMC and MMC didn’t even seem to like her…hard to finish