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Review: Prince of Killers (Fog City #1) by Layla Reyne

No indiscriminate killing. No collateral damage. No unvetted targets.

These are the rules Hawes Madigan lives by. Rules that make being Fog City’s Prince of Killers bearable. Soon, he’ll be king—of an organization of assassins—and the crown has never felt heavier. Until the mysterious Dante Perry swaggers into his life.

Dante looks like a rock god and carries himself like one too, all loose-limbed and casually confident. He also carries a concealed weapon, a private investigator’s license, and a message for the prince. Someone inside Hawes’s organization is out to kill the future king.

In the chaos that follows the timely warning, Hawes comes to depend on Dante. On his skills as an investigator, on the steadiness he offers, and on their moments alone when Hawes lets Dante take control. As alliances are tested and traitors exposed, Hawes needs Dante at his back and in his bed. But if the PI ever learns Hawes’s darkest secret, Hawes is sure to get a knife to the heart—and a bullet to the brain—instead.

There’s no shortage of twists and turns in this new romantic suspense trilogy from Layla Reyne. Prince of Killers is book one of three. Fair warning: buckle up, cliffhangers ahead!


Annnnnnndddddd we're off!


Hopefully we don't crash and burn at the end of this deal because Cuppers is IN-ves-ted. Fair warning though, it looks to be a marathon not a sprint for both the romance and the action storylines. 

To be perfectly honest, I was more locked into the action storyline than this burgeoning romance-like thing between Hawes and Dante. Surprising, but Reyne developed the details of the tech elements and the legal ones and that worked for me more than I would've thought, though it didn't hurt that the narrative is briskly paced and kept me engaged intellectually.

Nor did it hurt that it's told from Hawes' perspective and I really connected with him. He was foisted into the role of leader of his family at a tender age, a family that dabbles in a whole host of illegal activities to boot. I like characters that are morally grey and Hawes fits that bill. Though he's loyal and has put a premium on protecting his family in private he often feels overwhelmed with and saddled by his obligations to them. He's also burdened and haunted by a past mistake which he's endeavoring to rectify and in so doing brings with it the added bonus of safeguarding his family in the long term. To that end he's begun extricating them from certain aspects of the business his grandfather put into place which seems to have everyone and their cousin in a tizzy. However, that does not mean he's above a bit of vigilante justice every once in awhile for the truly worthy.

Only his "good" deeds keep getting preempted by shenanigans and ballyhoo due to the aforementioned "tizzying"! 


Everyone is gunning for him and the only place he finds solace is rockstar doppelgänger, man bun having, 😍🙌 handy in the kitchen, Dante Perry who swoops in and makes himself at home. Literally. Things moved swiftly between them, not so fast that I had to completely suspend disbelief but fast enough to give me pause a time or twelve two. They certainly seem to have something happening between them. I'm not sure what yet and I'm absolutely not sold on it but I do like the kinky adjacent thing they have happening. I also like that they are equally dangerous and can hold their own, bedroom romps notwithstanding.

So, I'm in it for the long haul, cliffs and all and would recommend Prince of Killers if any of the above tweaks your fancy.



An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review.




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