This review may contain spoilers, so fair warning, upon reading the review.
About The Book
She Tried To Kill Me…
She crept into my room with a syringe full of poison.
Now she’s my prisoner.
She refuses to tell me who sent her or why.
But I’ll get every last secret out of her. Through pleasure or through punishment.
I captured her and now she belongs to me…
“Ivan” is a dark and dominating mafia romance, Book 1 in the Underworld series. It’s a stand-alone novel, full of intrigue, danger, and sexy bedroom scenes. Contains spanking, so if such material offends you, do not read.
My Review
Ivan is the first book in the Underworld series and is the next book that I felt I need to read to work my way to the BIG series by this author. For those of you that don’t know, this is an author where you have to read her books in order and some of her best books are her most current series she is finishing up. So Ivan is part of that journey and I had such high expectations of this one here. I am not going to lie, EVERYONE seems to rave about this book and so I was highly nervous to read it because I didn’t want to be so disappointed and I can definitely see why so many readers have a deep love for this book. This couple are a powerhouse together and they are sweet perfection and I wish that I could have five starred this book but unfortunately I am not able to, I did have some issues with this book that kept it was a full five star read for me. But I will say that it was an amazing book and that I really really enjoyed the hell out of it. The basics of this story is that our heroine is a professional assassin, and she is hired to do a hit on our hero Ivan, who is the head of the Mafia family he is the head of. But our heroine gets captured and they begin this sensual dance with each other and soon love enters the picture, and they become partners in bringing down their enemy and I absolutely adored this one. But my issue with this book is that it was too SHORT!! This book needed at least 300-400 pages of length in my opinion. It had so much potential and could have had so much more depth and I felt like the couple deserved more page time and they just didn’t get it. I just felt like the relationship went from hating each other, then allies and we like each other and now we love each other and it felt so fast in those transitions and there could have been more focus on building their relationship and it just felt like it needed more. I mean I read this 200 page book in less than an hour, it was a fast read but I just wished for more relationship development to add more intimacy and layers that I felt it needed. But overall a very solid read that I really enjoyed.
Title: Ivan
Author: Sophie Lark
Genre: Dark Suspense Romance
Format: eBook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Length: 219 Pages
Book Links
Amazon| Goodreads| StoryGraph| Literal Club
Book Evaluation
Storytelling Quality: 4
Story Itself: 4
Character Development: 4
Writing Style: 4
World Building 4
Feels + The Romantic Heart 3.75
Pacing 5
Plot 5
Cover Art 4
Ending 4
Book Ratings
Overall Rating of the Book
Steam Level
Simmering—soft warm touches and light intimacy
Warm- a medium level of sexual tension, a balance of sexual and emotional intimacy, lighter on the details in the sexual moments.
Steamin’ up the room -the sexual content is more explicit in the language and tone, heavier amount of sexual scenes.
Blazing fire to the building-The prime focus is the sex scenes, scorching hot, and could burn one. Less focus on the emotional intimacy to the relationship.
Trigger Warning
Violence, Death
Series Order
Underworld
Ivan-Pub 2020 #1 in the Series
Snow-Pub 2020 #2 in the Series
Roman-Pub 2020 #3 in the Series
Dom-Pub 2020 #4 in the Series
Anton-Pub 2019 #5 In the Series
Nikolai-Pub 2019 #6 in the Series
Luca-Pub 2019 #7 in the Series
Black-Pub 2019 #8 in the Series
About The Author
Sophie Lark is an Amazon Bestselling author who writes intense, intelligent romance, with heroines who are strong and capable, and men who will do anything to capture their hearts. She lives with her husband, two boys, and baby girl in the Rocky Mountain West.
She has a slight obsession with hiking, bodybuilding, and live comedy shows. Her perfect day would be taking the kids to Harry Potter World, going dancing with Mr. Lark, then relaxing with a good book and a monster bag of salt and vinegar chips.
Jeez, it really was a fast read! Less than an hour!? You’re a reading machine!