Midnight Purgatory

Bugrov Bratva, Book #1

By Nicole Fox

ISBN# 9798871235478

Author’s Website: https://www.authornicolefox.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Alyssa Walsh had ordered a bunch of sex toys for her best friend’s bridal shower to embarrass her.  Imagine Alyssa’s dismay when they were delivered to her neighbor’s house instead.  And, not just any neighbor, but the surly guy that tried to have her house bulldozed for having the nerve to be next to his creepy mansion. He’s rumored to have mob connections as well.  

So, she does what any sane person would … scales his fence and tries to steal her package back.  However, on her way back to her house her leggings get caught on a nail in his fence shredding them and the skin underneath.  And, when he catches her … he invites her to dinner.  Odd.  He even patches her up.  The hot after dinner sex on his dining room table was unexpected, could be a result of all the wine he plied her with though.

After Alyssa gets home, she opens the package to find a … severed finger.  That’s not what she ordered at all.  A look at the shipping label reveals that it was meant for Uri and all those mob rumors come flooding to her mind.  She can’t let anyone know what she saw and will have to figure out how to get rid of this.

Once Uri realizes that Alyssa opened the package and what was inside, he knows that his enemies will think nothing of killing her.  And, for some strange reason he can’t bear to have her in any home, but his while under his protection.  He never expected having Alyssa so close to break his rules for himself.  He needs to deal with this threat while he can still recognize himself.

“I tell myself this doesn’t mean anything. I tell myself what I told Nikolai: she’s just my plaything. I’m in control.
But my heartbeat is strumming a different song. And it sounds like a warning.
It’s saying …
You’re fucked.”

This book.  I don’t even know where to begin.  I thought it sounded interesting.  I started struggling with this one from the beginning.  Their whole initial meeting and the events afterwards felt so forced.  Uri seemed rather repulsed by his neighbor in her ratty clothes that lives in the ‘shack’ next door.  He’s not a nice person so it doesn’t make sense that he’d invite her in for medical care and dinner.  It made even less sense that he’d want to bang her on the dining room table, when she’s nothing like the women he’s usually attracted to.

And, the synopsis said he got her pregnant so I was expecting that early on, but she discovered that towards the end of the book.  

I actually did like the characters in this story.  I loved both Uri and Alyssa’s interactions with Uri’s siblings.  Especially poor Lev.  Sometimes I liked Uri and sometimes he just pissed me off as he was fighting his attraction and ended up lashing out at Alyssa way too much.  However, Alyssa upset me when she’d let him treat her like crap and still give herself to him anyway.  

I was flying through this book to get to the ‘good part’ and then I slammed right into a cliffhanger.  Nothing infuriates me more.  I felt like I was cheated.  That I didn’t get the full book I purchased and now I have to buy another book to get the full story.  Yet, I’m going to have to if I want to see how it all plays out.  This book was decent, but it wasn’t that great to rush into buying another book.  It was good enough that I couldn’t quit reading it though.  So, there is that.  It’s such a frustration.