Book Review: Heavy Crown

I finished the Brutal Birthright series by Sophie Lark the other day with Heavy Crown.

This novel follows Sebastian Gallo and Yelena Yenina. Sebastian is the youngest Gallo brother and back in book 1, Brutal Prince, he was a promising basketball player with dreams of playing in the NBA. But when his knee was badly injured during a fight with the Griffins before Aida and Callum got married, his dreams were crushed. For the past few books he’s been trying to find himself and his role in the family business. He starts to find his stride in this book and then he meets Yelena. Yelena is the daughter of the head of the Russian Bratva in Chicago and enemies with the Gallos after they played a big role in killing the previous head. When Sebastian and Yelena meet by chance one day he in instantly enamored with her before he even knows who she is and even after he learns, he likes her despite of their feuding families. They both want to pursue being together and think that their relationship can usher in a truce between the Italians and Russians. Sebastian’s father, Enzo, is wary but agrees and takes the blood oath. Yelena’s father takes the oath too. But little do the Gallos know that Yelena’s family and the Russians have different plans.

I enjoyed this book and really loved Sebastian and Yelena, but it didn’t feel like the end of the series. It felt like just another installment of the series and didn’t have the sort of wrap up you’d expect from the end of a six book series. I wish there was more of a wrap up with all of the characters. Riona wasn’t even mentioned in the novel once! Despite all this, the storyline was great, fun to follow, and spicy. But again I was expecting a little more. It seemed like not much was happening action wise for the first half to 3/4 and then all of a sudden everything was happening in the last bit of the book. The epilogue does set up for the spinoff series – the Kingmaker series – about their kids, but I wish there was a real ending for these characters in this series.

Read this if you want a spicy mafia series.