Although the premise of this story sounded really promising, this wasn’t a book for me. There were many clichés in it, there was no build-up or chemistry between the characters, they were basically all flat characters, and the entire story was just blah to me. I’m sorry, this just wasn’t a book for me I guess. All of this stuff shouldn’t be that noteworthy, but her sheer level of COMPETENCE is rare and stand-out in the genre. In a lot of other RHs by other authors, the writing is chaotic and clunky, stories don’t flow, and it takes quite far into a given story for me to be able to distinguish which guy is which, and what the plot even is. (I’m thinking about poorly written RHs like Pretty Lies, Havoc Killed Her Alpha, Ruthless Crown, Forever Changed Vengeance, etc). There’s so many RHs that feel like the authors have no idea what they're doing, and it feels insulting that they put out such an obviously bad product and expect me to just gobble it up. I enjoyed getting all the different POVs especially Vic’s because you really get to see the extent of his OCD in a very real way. Because someone dragged his body up from the depths and laid it out as a very public, very gruesome warning. They each have very distinctive personalities (something I feel is so necessary in why choose book dynamics)

Sometimes the people you love turn your love against you, and it’s the most brutal weapon in the world.”

When Willow can no longer afford college, she sells her virginity. On her first night, her client is however murdered by three guys. Seeing as she’s a witness, the guys follow her to make sure that she doesn’t ruin their lives by telling what she saw. They however do not expect her to ruin their lives in a different way. These three dangerous brothers will do anything to make sure I keep my mouth shut about what I saw, even if it means stalking my every movement. I’m a loose thread to them—but somehow, I’m becoming more than that too. And then Ransom 🫠🫠🫠 I just love him so much. I think he's the perfect mixture of rough and sweet, and that's exactly what I want in a MC. He's also extremely sexy and his dirty talk has me 🥵🥵

Her stories just feel like she’s a pro. Her prose isn’t anything special, it’s simple and straightforward. But she clearly knows what she’s doing. Her stories flow well, don’t have clunky sentences or plotting, are good at setting up the story immediately (not taking a long time to do it). Her RHs are also good at having heroes with distinctive personalities who don’t all blend together – and, they establish the hero personalities immediately. I never spend a long time having to be like “which guy is which, again?” the way I do for a lot of RHs. They're well paced, I never read a chapter where it feels like nothing happened. Then we get to the actual spice scene and it was decent but like i ain’t feel nothing. it was mediocre at best… built all that tension just to get one spark. NAH HONEY AFTER ALL OF THAT BUILDUP I WANT THE ENTIRE FOURTH OF JULY SPECTACULAR!! I know they said there’s no spice scene until the last 20% which was totally fine with me. however she added a lil foreplay throughout the book but it was the WORST foreplay i’ve ever read. like i didn’t understand what i was reading 🤨. she said he stepped inbetween her legs barely pressed against her but she already reaching an orgasmic high????? SHE WASNT EVEN RIDING HIS THIGH!!! SO HOW DID SHE GET OFF????? MATH AINT MATHING!!!!!Nothing makes sense anymore, and if I thought I might find some peace in knowing that the men who hurt us are dead, I was wrong.

Character development: Willow is still in the self-discovery phase of her life and you can clearly see her growing into her own with the choices and experiences she goes through. I really started loving Vic more, too. I mean, THAT KISS?!!! Holy hell 🥵 I'm happy to see that he's finally letting go a little and I can't wait to see how it progresses in the third book. I wish we got a little more of his POV, though, because I felt like it wasn't much and mostly his chapters were about the technical stuff and X. First of all, I cannot deal with the names of 2/3 of the guys. Ransom and Malice, are you serious? I’m sorry, but I absolutely detest that. I literally cringed every damn time their names came up. I’ll be calling them Ran and Mal from now on. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the guys besides their names. I really liked Ran at first, but he turned into such a cliché that I kept cringing every time he spoke. Drawing her a bath after their first time, “there’s always room for you”, puke. Mal seems promising, although I’m not completely sure if I like him yet? I do feel like I like him the most out of all of them at this point though. Victor is just… I don’t know, not it. He’s giving me major Saint from Kings of Quarantine vibes, but his OCD behaviour is a bit too much. He does however have the most depth so far because of this behaviour, so that makes me like him a bit – he’s the only one who actually has some character traits besides “bad-ass” or “went to prison” or something like that. Furthermore, it honestly didn’t make any sense for them to know Russian. I’m sure it’ll be important at some point, but there really wasn’t a reason for them to learn it? I don’t know, it just once again feels like something that’s just there to progress the plot or a convenient thing for the dirty talk although Russian isn’t a sexy language at all imo but okay. I did however enjoy the mystery about the guys’ pasts and Willow’s past - I’m quite sure her parents are alive and we’ll see more of them soon. I’m interested in hearing more about them. The spice was also already there in a BIG amount, which surprised me for a first book, but I did like it. I also liked Ransom at moments, but he turned into a overly cute boyfriend puppy kinda guy, which I didn’t love at all. There were just so many cliches in his relationship with Willow - like drawing her a bath after something sexual, really? - and I just didn’t like most of the cliches. So many things that he said to Willow just made me cringe so hard, so I ended up not loving him at all anymore near the end. I love my guys truly bad and not this kind of wannabe badboy. Mal seems promising in this regard though, hope he’ll stay like that too. I love the concept of this story. It wasn’t too long ago that I was a broke college girl myself, not that I was selling my virginity, but you can bet I thought about selling feet pics a time or two! Then you mix in some bad boy brothers in a RH romance and I’m sold!As for the plot, I'm not giving anything away, but damn I was glued to my kindle!! Eva sure knows how to spin a story in her unique voice and I cannot wait for more!! I told myself I was gonna be a responsible adult and wait until all four books in this series were released before I started reading, but we all know how that turned out, lol. Now imma need her to write like hell because I NEEEEEEDDDDD more of this group!!! The dark RH genre is filled with over-the-top shenanigans. In some RHs, the author isn't good at getting me to just go with whatever the premise is. In this story, is it ridiculous that Willow is selling her virginity, then gets entangled with these mysterious gangster brothers? Sure! But the way Eva Ashwood writes, I never pause to be like "this is absurd," the way I do with some others. She draws me in and gets me to just go with it.

Yeah, you’d think so. But it turns out revenge is a messy business, and when I end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, I royally piss off four brutal, twisted, gorgeous men. Honestly, I don’t know how to feel about that. Because as much as I refuse to let my walls down for anyone, I’m starting to think these four brutal, dangerous men… Vic-- he knows what he did. And look, I know he didn't do it to harm her but IM STILL MAD, OK. My heart broke for Willow at the end, because she thought she finally found her place in this world only to be blindsided once more. So this boy has a ton of groveling to do. After they bring her into their home, they vow to not get involved with her (news flash they fail, horribly) and to keep from developing feelings. There is forced proximity/one bed/stalking/age gap/possessive mmcs/underground and organised crime etcI actually wish we got more chapters from each of the brothers, because those are always my favourite and I felt like we got just a way higher percentage of Willow's dialogue than the brothers and I found myself getting a little bored with Willow sometimes. She's really sweet and plain but I kind of like my FMC's a tad more badass and mouthy 🫢 But I have a feeling that she will grow as a person after everything she's been through and we'll see her progress in the third book. I was extremely underwhelmed and disappointed by this being so hyped up on BookTok. So much so, that I’m writing my first GR review because of it.