Okay so here's the thing with Beck's books, I love the stories. They end up being some of my favorite stories. However, I know going into them, especially the first one, I'm going to struggle. I don't know if it's where these books are bigger and a little on the slower side and we get hit with a lot of information in the first book, but they always drag for me. For example, Bitter Notes the first book in the Second Sets Duet, I actually DNF'ed the first time I tried reading it and it wasn't until the second try that I pushed through the beginning and then became obsessed with that duet, especially book 2! Kind of the same thing happened with The Apocalypse Society trilogy but that one was more book 2 that I had issues with than the first book. But anyway, overall, I tend to really love these stories. Even by the end of this first book I was hooked and couldn't put it down, which is why I am so happy that I waited until book 2 was out before I picked up the next one because now, I need to know where we go after that ending! I need to know how that ending even happened! It was just so good and hard to put down. It is a bit different and definitely darker than the Second Set duet, but I went into this one knowing it's mafia-related therefore it was going to be darker than a rock band duet. But don't get me wrong River goes through a bunch of crap in her story, we just don't have an unhinged mafia going around killing everyone. But I love Sheppard and Arrow so much. Shepp is our MMC here that's sees himself as damaged and went through a lot while Arrow is just completely unhinged and does some of the most messed up crap and I cannot wait to see how he and Jericho are going to handle that ending. I really hope everything works out, especially for Shepp!