Book Review: The Butcher

Title: The Butcher
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Dark Romance, Mafia

What It’s About:

Fleur had made it home after her shift when she finds Adrien sitting in her apartment, and Adrien asks her again to reconcile, though she refuses and tells him to get out—he had cheated on her at least once that she is aware of and she does not want to be with him. Fleur is working at Silencio, a bar, when a six-foot-three tall, blonde-haired blue-eyed and tattooed stranger walks in confidently and sits at the bar. He orders double scotch on the rocks, and they talk briefly, where she learns his name is Bastien. She tells him a bit about her problems and he tells her that the man she’s with isn’t worth it if he can’t keep it in his pants. At some point, three men come in and attempt to mug them, but he tells them off, and lets her smash a bottle on one of the bandits, after fighting them off. He then walks her home, and she invites him in. They end up having wild sex, for the first time igniting her passions in the bedroom in a way that Adrien had not. The next morning, Bastien leaves her early, but also leaves his phone number and a note—something that he never does for one night stands.

Adrien shows up and is pissed that she had someone over, but she tells him that they are over and done, so what does it matter. He tells her that he wants her back anyway, and the plan that Bastien had suggested—her having sex with someone else would make her husband give up on their marriage—backfires. Bastien comes to visit her at the bar again, and she tells him that. He ends up inviting her over to his apartment and she stays the night, which pisses Adrien off even more and when he shows up Fleur realizes that she and her apartment are being watched.

Bastien is part of the Fifth Republic, the Senate Conspiracy, a group of men that rule the underworld in France, making sure that crime continues to flourish but at a safe rate for citizens, because tourism boards had warned that France is unsafe. He has his men bring the three men that had attempted to rob the bar, and punishes them the way that it has been agreed upon by the codex that they live in.

As time go on, Bastien and Fleur spend time together, and he tells one of the individuals watching her that his name is Bastien Dupoint, and at some point, Adrien Laurent makes a visit to his apartment unannounced, to tell him to stay away from Fleur. Not too long after, Bastien makes a visit to Adrien’s house, unannounced, breaking the iron fencing, and punches him, before telling him that he needs to come clean to Fleur or he will tell her the truth.

In the meantime, he tries to make headway into finding Godric and his human trafficking ring, where women are being stolen off of the streets and trafficked, making Paris dangerous for them. Unfortunately, Godric is hard to find and no one wants to speak with him, though he tries to get others to talk to him. In one instance, he goes to a pharmacy with his men, and saves women from hard labor there, but then kills two of the men watching the ring before the third one tells him that he can take him to Peter, who is running the whole operation and got the women. So the man takes Bastien to Peter, but Peter refuses to give any information on Godric, despite Bastien making him think about what it would be like if his own wife and daughter were trafficked. Bastien ends up killing the man, but lets the women and children go. Ultimately he’s not able to make any headway so he goes to visit his mother, and asks her to set up a meeting with Godric, who is his brother, just so that the two of them could talk. At first, it’s not clear that she will do it, but then she comes through, having Godric at dinner at her place, when Bastien shows up. Godric points a gun at him, but their mother takes the gun away from him, and tells them that she would like to have them both to dinner as her sons, and as her family. The two talk, but Godric tells Bastien that he is not willing to work with him and work under the rules that the Fifth Republic operates. He tells Bastien that there are a lot of people who hate him, and would want him dead, so he needs to get used to the idea that the old way of how crime used to operate will come back, and that he’d hate for Bastien to be caught in the middle of that. Godric doesn’t care that these are women or children that have families, and thinks that they deserve their fate for having walked home at 2am alone or for being homeless.

Despite his foul moods, he still makes time for Fleur, with whom he is fascinated. Fleur, on the other hand, agrees to go to a meeting with a marriage counselor but during the session, the counselor drops a glass vase and Adrien helps her clean up. She is reminded of the metaphor that Bastien had used about trust and how sometimes you will find missing glass pieces from a broken glass item years down the line. She snaps and tells Adrien and the counselor that she wants divorce. Adrien tries to beg her, but she tells him no, and that she is with someone. Eventually, Adrien comes clean to Fleur and tells her that he had cheated on her with a dozen women, and that leaves her in a depressive state. But she does meet up with Bastien eventually, and tells him what happened. When she gets upset because she feels like he’s laughing at her, he apologizes and tells her that the had told Adrien to tell her or that he will. He agrees that her divorce will go through a lot faster now.

Bastien begins to introduce her as his woman to his friends, and at a gala that he takes her to. This freaks her out, and they have an argument at the gala about it because Fleur has wanted something casual, having just come out of a long term relationship with her ex-husband, and also she is starting to struggle a bit with the fact that Bastien does kill people—he’s told her honestly what he does and why, as they are both honest so they know where the other stands, which is something that they like about each other. He tells her that either she’s in all the way, or he’s gone, and she agrees to stay with him because she doesn’t want to lose him, even though she’s still feeling off kilter because she doesn’t want to be in a relationship with another man. Fleur does ends up accepting a job that Bastien has for her—to be an assistant for one of the men that works for his investment company—and submits the paperwork for her divorce again.

My Thoughts:

I was actually laughing quite a lot while reading this book because of the way that Penelope, the author, describes size of male private parts. Outside of this, the book is pretty much on par for Penelope’s style and while I enjoyed it, I didn’t feel like there was that steamy romance theme going on that I’ve come to enjoy in her previous books. That said, I am a bit invested in this story as I like her writing and her characters, so I’m going to keep reading the books in the series when she releases them. I suspect that this will be another six book series, with the first three being on Bastien and Fleur, while the remaining three potentially on Godric. We’ll see though, I may be wrong.