Audiobook Review: The Russian Monarch

 

This book can be read as a standalone
Adrianne

I was taken between the main course and dessert at my sister’s wedding.

Kidnapped.

They call me by her name. Call me princess. But I’m nobody’s princess. I’m just the forgotten daughter who didn’t even know she had a family until three weeks ago.

My captor is all sharp edges and winter eyes. Nikolai Volkov looks at me like I’m a means to an end, a pawn in whatever game he’s playing with his father.

He’s brutal.

Cold.

Deadly.

So why do I feel safer with him than I did in that marble prison he rescued me from?

Nikolai

She was supposed to be Alison Battaglia. The perfect leverage against the Italian Mafia. My ticket to freedom from Vladimir Volkov’s iron grip.

Instead, I got Adrianne.

The wrong sister. The nobody. The one who looks at me with those brown eyes and sees past the monster to something I’m not sure exists anymore.

She should hate me.

I kidnapped her.

Delivered her to my father like a lamb to slaughter. But when I saw her on her knees, collared like an animal, something inside me snapped.

Now I’m breaking every rule I’ve ever lived by. Because Adrianne Dornier might have been the wrong target, but she’s becoming the only right thing in my world of wrongs.

The problem with saving someone from a monster? Sometimes you become one yourself.

My Review

This is my first book by author, Stephanie Amaral. I had no issues jumping into this book having not read the prior books in this series. Other characters from prior books do make appearances. I liked them and having met them, I do want to go back and read the prior books. 

I listened to the audiobook of this story. What a great way to be introduced. Plus, it is duet narrated by Brandon Francis and Savannah Thomas. They both are awesome. They brought it with their voices of the cast of characters. 

Adrianna and Nikolai start off on a rocky start with the predicament that Adrianna finds herself in. While Mikolai is a ruthless Mafia boss, he does have a sweet side to him. He shows this a lot with Adrianna. By the end, both were different people but for the better. 

The Russian Monarch is a full-length, interconnected stand-alone romance novel with open door steamy scenes and a guaranteed HEA, written in dual POV.

This is the sixth book in the Lords Of The Commission – New York series and it’s a little darker than the previous books, featuring a Beauty and the Beast vibe with one bed, forced proximity and age gap tropes amongst others. There are dark subjects throughout, but it can’t be considered an overly dark story. Content warnings do still apply.