Title: Wife
Author:  Penelope Sky
Publisher/Year:  Penelope Sky 9/23/19
Length:  187 Pages
Series:  Betrothed #1

Overview

I was twenty-one when the gypsy read my future:

As punishment for your crimes, you will only love one woman…but she’ll never love you back.

I didn’t believe a word of it.

Until I met Sofia Romano almost ten years later.

I fell hard for this woman. Would die for this woman.

But she left me.

Now years have passed and Sofia needs a husband. Her father is gone and her mother is trying to marry her off to a man that can protect their family, protect their company. 

She’s looking for someone powerful.

Check.

Someone rich.

Check.

Someone handsome.

Double check.

Now it’s my chance to have the only woman I’ve ever loved…and I’ll make sure she feels the same way.

I have a lifetime to make that happen.

My Thoughts

I’m a huge fan of Penelope Sky which by now i’m sure that you guys have all realized so I’m happy that there’s a new series for me to sink my teeth into. In this new series Betrothed, we’re taken back to Tuscany, the setting for just about everything in her world, to see how the underworld mixes with the ‘proper world’ and how once secrets are reveled, life is changed.

This story takes place in a few different time periods. We open the story with our leading man Hades and his friend Damian on a trip to Morocco to celebrate Hades 21st birthday, and there his life is changed forever, but he doesn’t really know what that will feel like just yet.

Then we push forward a bit to where we meet Sofia, when she’s just eighteen and thinks that she’s mature but still has so much more to learn. She meets Hades at an event at her father’s hotel and is so attracted to him that she wants to pursue him, yet he makes her realize that she’s still got so much more to learn before that’s realistic.

Then we fast forward a few more years to see how Sofia has grown up now, out of university and trying to get a chance to run her family business now that her father has passed, she’s gotten an education, and wants to learn everything from her stepfather. Her mother seems to think that it’s a silly concept, to be left to whomever she marries, and there’s a lot there behind her words that we don’t know yet but will find out. Strong women are fully capable to run a business, but once we learn more about how the financing of the hotel has been done and who does business there, well it’s quickly becoming clear why there’s a need for a strong powerful man.

This is where Hades comes into play, but not in the right context. Sofia and Hades cross paths again and well, now that she’s experienced life, they some how manage to combust together, allowing the intense chemistry that’s been building for years come to a head and explode. What they have together is hot and intense and the exact connection that they both say they need. Neither is looking for a relationship with strings so what they have is great. until it isn’t.

Hades feelings come on strong and he’s quickly falling faster for Sofia than she is him. This i actually a huge trait that we have in most of Ms Skhy’s books if i’m honest. The man is the one to admit his feelings first and then he finds that it’s an uphill battle from there on to make things work as they should.

He pushes her too hard and she pushes him away. He gives her one chance to redeem herself and it seems to work, again until it doesn’t. When Sofia is almost raped and hurt, Hades comes to save her and we all think that a corner has been turned, but no – Sofia’s walls are still up. Hades doesn’t read it the same way and makes a proclamation that changes the course of this story for good.

There’s now hated. They’re at am impasse. There’s no hope for redemption. And there’s jealousy.

We’re taken taken two years into the future again when Sofia’s stepfather passes away unexpectedly, Sofia’s mom is alone and deems herself too old to find them the right protection for the family and puts the weight of the world on Sofia. Sofia is forced into a situation that she never wanted, feared and abhorred. The question becomes who will save them and who’s going to be on the other side of the coin to hurt them and take them down? We know that the mafia in Italy is something intense (thank you for all the other series that we’ve read to learn the true depth and breadth of what it is that they handle and do to those who don’t comply).

Will the hate between Hades and Sofia be the family’s ruin? Will the premonition that Hades got when he turned 21 turn out to be true and what will that mean for the progression of things. How much can Sofia take before she breaks and who’s going to be the one to break her? So many questions and so few answers. I need book 2 to be out already so i can see how this plays out. Enjoy!