Alexei by Eva Winners

Alexei is the gripping fourth installment in the Belles and Mobsters series, and it’s now my favorite of these books. This emotional story focuses on the menacingly quiet Alexei and the object of his obsession, Aurora, and is a dark, opposites attract mafia romance with plenty of violence and other triggers but so much passion, too.

I love a dark romance with troubled characters, and this book has exactly that. Alexei is so completely damaged from the trauma that he endured for so much of his life, but then he finds solace in Aurora. She not only helps heal him, but she also helps him begin to show himself as the man he already is deep down. He’s a fierce hero, but he’s met his match in FBI agent Aurora. She’s able to balance his character and bring a lightness to the story and Alexei, and I adored how their story played out.

And the chemistry! This is definitely one of the steamiest books I’ve read by Winners, and the sizzling attraction jumps off the pages. Alexei and Aurora’s relationship is hot, but I enjoyed that it’s not just a physical closeness between them. There’s also such a tenderness that permeates this story despite the brutality of what’s happened to the characters in their pasts and what’s happening in the larger scope of the series’ storyline. Alexei and Aurora have this palpable connection, and I couldn’t put this book down. I loved their journey from start to finish.

The books in this series are obviously interconnected, but you don’t necessarily need to read the other books to be able to understand what’s happening in this story. However, I think the previous books do offer all the insight you might want into what’s happening in this larger world that Winners has created, and really they’re so good and worth reading. I absolutely recommend this book for anyone into mafia and/or dark romances that feature deeply wounded characters that find their HEAs.