Mafia romance books just hit differently. Hello friends! ✌🏻 Thank you for visiting my blog for another book review post. It is great to have you here. Today, I am back with a dark romance book: the second book of the Perfectly Imperfect series by Neva Altaj. I like this series. It doesn’t blow my mind, but I enjoy mindless, quick dark romance books every once in a while, and this series provides exactly that. The first book was about Pakhan, the big boy with lots of issues. I remember reading it very quickly, and I keep this series for comfort reading whenever I feel overwhelmed with life and want to avoid a reading slump. (Of course, thinking that mafia romance is a comfort option might not sound right, but do ignore my mind, haha.)
The book follows the Russian mafia, just like the first book. Our male character is one of the boss’s best men, Mikhail. Our female lead is Bianca, the most beautiful woman in the Italian mafia and a treasured daughter. Of course, mafia families do not work as they are supposed to, and although she is mentioned as the mafia princess several times before we get to know her, we quickly realize that her relationship with her family in the Italian mafia is unfortunately very unhealthy. Everything starts with an arranged marriage between the Russian mafia and the Italian mafia to keep the “peace.” Being the most beautiful woman in the mafia and an ex-ballerina, she hopes that at least her husband will accept that she is human… and she gets what she wants.
Not only does Mikhail accept her as human and his equal, but he also worships her. The eye-patched big wolf is obsessed with her, and nothing the mafia can do will be enough for him to give her up. Something we do not often see happens here: in dark romance books, we often see tropes of the main characters ignoring each other, hating each other, or being enemies before anything else… It is not like that here. From the moment they get to know each other, they both are in love. I will say it: they both were. Maybe Mikhail was a little early; he was already obsessed with her as a ballerina, and as a woman, he didn’t think he would be able to reach her. However, Bianca also starts with positive thoughts regarding him. You would expect her to be scared of him because he has an eyepatch and very horrifying-looking scars around his face and body, but our girl is strong, and she knows that these things are not enough to scare her.
Throughout the book, it was refreshing and made me happy to see that even in the darkest setting, they were together against the world. One thing I will spoil for you: she cannot speak. The relationship between them develops through lots of simple touches, looking at each other, and understanding each other with silent gestures. 💖 They go through hell, but you know that at least they are together, and it gives you some kind of ease while you are reading the book. I will be very honest: this book was way better than the first one. Yes, there were some blank spaces within the plot, and I wanted more answers on certain things, but this book was literally a lot better in writing and in the relationship between our main characters.
I will keep the series as my comfort reading and return to it whenever I feel like I am getting into a reading slump. However, I am also quite interested in the next relationship that is going to happen. There is no real grand plot throughout the series, I believe. It is more like the classic dark romance books where each book has its own story, and the main focus is the romance aspect. Although I do not like that very much and I enjoy a greater plot within the series rather than with each book, this change was good for me.
Overall, it was a good, quick, steeeeeaaaaaammmmmyyyy, and spicy read, and it deserved a beautiful 4⭐️s! Until I see you in my next post, take care! 🌷
Luster of Books 