this might have made it to my best of the year list if it weren't so fucking long, the type of long that makes you wish for bad things to happen to the heroine as a punishment for wasting your time pretending not to be the shallowest bitch you've ever met. i was so unimpressed with the resolution of her laughable backstory i almost forgot all the other useless mc's that came before her. and the author really wanted me to believe this one wasn't like the others bc she watched documentaries and knew how to read. where's my prince disguised as a mafia boss then? granted, hers does the job just fine (when he's not reminding us that he's falling in love bc he's never met a literate woman before, at least not a literate woman who's conveniently the hottest of the city and all its vicinity). since the story is divided in precisely two great tropes – forbidden romance in the first half and arranged marriage in the second – a fair amount of iconic scenes piles up. not plot lines, not memorable characters, just surprisingly satisfying moments and sequences, especially the ones that end with the hero killing another person for the heroine or because of her (get you a man who's ready to shoot some of his relatives to save you, even though his fiancé is your sister, bc you're all family now). in this case, burning down the establishment of someone who gropes the mc is less violence than i would want from the hero, but just bc he makes the mistake of warning the fucker. Nicolas does have a cringe nickname, tho, and it's not Nico. ofc nothing compared to the author's idea of conflict. perhaps she could've prevented the story from dragging on so much by exchanging pov's more often and not resorting to telling-not-showing during the smut (as if the lack of plot and nuance weren't enough); either way, there was no need for so many chapters under Elena's (the fact that i seldom pick up mafia books but this is already the second this year starring an unconvincing Elena). the girl made her mysterious past and life choices look so serious i was surprised when her character didn't get any development or extra backbone and started displaying a childish behavior instead. so much for reading history books at a party.