Book Review: The Carver

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

What It’s About:

Fleur goes to Court for her divorce hearing and is met there by a lawyer, who claims that Bastien had paid for his services to represent her in court. She meets with Adrien and his own lawyer in front of the judge, and her lawyer tells the judge that she wants half the estate, but Fleur tells the judge that she does not want anything. At the same time, Adrien tells her that she can take half the estate. This puts the divorce on pause with the judge telling them that they will reconvene in three weeks to see if they’ve come to an agreement, as it seems like there is still love there and that maybe they shouldn’t divorce.

Bastien meets with Oscar, the leader of the Aristocrats, a group of criminals that is trying to preserve and protect the history and culture of France. Bastien had handed over some items to Oscar just as a sign of good faith, and they’ve been helping each other ever since. Oscar asks him for the name of the people who have been stealing paintings from the Louvre and replacing them with fakes only to turn around and sell the originals to foreigners. Bastien knows that it is Adrien, and Oscar knows that he knows the identity of the thief, but Bastien does not tell him. He only tells Oscar that he will not get in his way if he wants to kill him or do anything to him once Oscar finds out his identity, but that first he would like to talk to the thief to try to get him to stop.

Fleur has a date with Bastien and they meet at the top of one of the restaurants on top of the Eiffel Tower. Fleur suddenly gets cold feet about being in a relationship with Bastien because she realizes how dangerous he is, and how it could impact her. He tells her that the codes that the criminals live in would not be touching women or children, or else they will be dealt with. She decides to end the date and leave, because she doesn’t feel comfortable with Bastien’s job. Bastien is furious and spends a week ignoring her until she comes to his house and demands to see him. They make up, and she tells him that the one week without him was horrible.

They continue to spend time together, with Bastien visiting her once at her job and kissing her there. They also open up with each other a bit about their pasts—specifically Bastien explains to her how the investment firm that she works at is used to launder the funds from the tariffs from the Fifth Republic and also do genuine investments. She asks him one night why he cares so much about women, and he doesn’t answer the question right away—telling her he needs time to share it as it’s deeply personal.

Eighteen years ago, 15 year old Bastien was taken by his father and Godric to a warehouse, where he was shown the products that his father moves, and recognizes a girl that had been in his public school a year or two prior. He starts to ask about her and what she is doing, but his father tells him to drop it. When he doesn’t drop it and accept the answer that they steal women off the streets because unpaid slave labor is cheaper, his father takes him and Godric outside along with the girl and tells Bastien to shoot her. He refuses, even under threat from his father that he will shoot him in his arms. Godric eventually shoots her in the head, aiming the gun in Bastien’s hands. Bastien tells them that he wants nothing to do with the business, even though his father says that he will leave it to him. Five years after that, he is high out of his mind when Godric shows up at his apartment and tells him that father is dead—by this point, Bastien had walked away from the business and the family, refusing to even speak with his mother. Godric asks him to return for his mother, and the two boys go back home, where Bastien stays with his mom. After the funeral, Godric tells him that he will be taking over the family business and asks him to join. Bastien tells him that he wants nothing to do with it, but he will do it under the condition that they pay for the labor. Godric agrees and so they start working together in the business. A few years after that, there is a meeting with Godric’s suppliers and supporters because the president of France had cracked down on things and they weren’t able to move as much products as they would like. Someone suggests that they kill the president, but Bastien does not like it and shuts it down. Eventually a separate supplier tells Bastien that Godric is using trafficked labor again to make his products, but it’s at a facility that Godric didn’t tell Bastien about. Furtherly, the president that was causing such a hardship ends up being shot dead. Bastien and Godric get in a fight about it, and about Godric lying to him about the trafficked labor. During their argument, Bastien reveals that he was the person who had shot and killed their father, which shocks Godric and the relationship permanently fractures. Two years after that, Bastien and Godric meet at the Louvre and get into a fist fight, as Bastien tells him that he had been made the emperor of criminal activity by the Senate, and that Godric’s kind of business is not allowed here; that if he finds Godric doing shady stuff, there will be trouble.

Eventually, Bastien does tell Fleur that his father had him kill his classmate, and that Godric did it for him. He also tells her that he had sent the family a letter telling them that she’s dead along with some money. Bastien speaks with Luca at one point in a bar and tells Luca that Fleur will be his wife. He also visits Adrien on three separate occasions to tell Adrien to think about retiring. During one of the visits, he shatters a picture hanging in Adrien’s house of Fleur and Adrien on their wedding day. On a second visit, he finds Adrien extremely drunk and Adrien reveals that Fleur loves Bastien, not Adrien. Unbeknownst to Bastien, Fleur had visited Adrien’s house and told Adrien that she does not love him, and is in love with another; that there is no chance for them, and to let her have her divorce. Adrien had agreed at the time, realizing there is no chance for them. The third time he visits, it is a last chance for Adrien to leave before the Aristocrats have free reign, but Adrien is stubborn because he doesn’t have anything else going for him, and he doesn’t want to lose his living just like he’d lost Fleur.

Bastien takes Fleur on a date one day, and they find themselves in a precarious situation in which Bastien is attacked by assailants. He manages to protect Fleur being a table, and also fight off the assailants. This leaves Fleur with nightmares—dreams where she sees Bastien being killed—though he doesn’t know until she messages him one night at early hours of the morning. Bastien then takes her to his home, telling her to pack some bags so that she can stay with him for as long as it takes for her to feel better. He had been out trying to figure out who put a hit on him, and eventually he pressured his mom to give him Godric’s phone number. He calls Godric only for his brother to tell him that he had warned Bastien to step out, and Godric admits that he knows who it is but that he will not tell him who it is. At the same time, he will not get in the way either. They spends a few weeks living together, and Bastien takes Fleur to meet his mother at dinner. Fleur is nervous, but Delphine—Bastien’s mom—warms up to her, according to Bastien. Bastien is sad when Fleur decides to leave back to her apartment, so he visits her at her apartment a day laterand asks her to move in with him—she accepts, and then spends some time packing.

Fleur had pretty much finished packing up and falls asleep, but is woken up by footsteps. At first, she thinks that it is Bastien, but then she realizes that the man hadn’t undressed and there was a second one in the room. She tries to scream for help, but no one is around, and she is injected with some kind of drug to knock her unconscious. The next time she wakes up, she is in Adrien’s house—recognizing the tile—and listens as Oscar tries to get Adrien to give up his contacts and buyer list. Adrien tells him that he will retire, and refuses to give it up, though he also tells Oscar that Fleur is not his wife any longer. Oscar does not listen to him, and figures that Adrien cares about her anyway, but Adrien is not willing to give the information to them because it would put a target on him and his family, not that Oscar cares. Oscar has Fleur hauled off, and Fleur only says Bastien’s name before she is drugged again.

Bastien is checking the products and getting finances in order for another shipment. He gets two phone calls from Adrien, but chooses to ignore them because he figures that Adrien is calling for help because the Aristocrats had found him and he has no intentions of getting in the way. Adrien then texts him and tells Bastien that Oscar has Fleur and intends to kill her. Bastien has his driver go to Adrien’s house while calling Luca to find out just where Oscar is. He arrives at Adrien’s house, and Adrien is in a panic, explaining that Oscar had wanted his client list and that he didn’t give it to him because it would have the clients coming after him, his family and Fleur, so that it was a lose-lose situation. Bastien tells him that he should have agreed to give the client list and then come to him. Luca calls him back, and Bastien and Adrien get into Bastien’s car before driving off to Oscar’s house in Paris. Bastien had taken one look at the video of Fleur—she was in a coffin and would be drowned because of the rain.

Fleur wakes up and realizes that she is buried in a coffin. She sees the video camera and figures that they can only see her but not hear her. The water seeps into the coffin, and eventually she is trying to keep her nose and mouth above the waterline, thinking of only Bastien.

Bastien, Luca and their men storm Oscar’s house. Oscar wonders what this is about because he thought that Bastien would not get in the way of the Aristocrats dealing with Adrien, except Bastien gets pissed off because Oscar had taken Fleur, who is Bastien’s woman. He punches Oscar, and Oscar tells him that he didn’t know or else he wouldn’t have taken her. He gives Bastien the location, and Bastien and Adrien drive off to the east of Paris, where they find the newly dug grave. Adrien and Bastien dig out the coffin, and open it up, only to find Fleur’s body floating in the water. Bastien pulls her out, and begins to administer CPR, while Adrien freezes. Fleur coughs up the water and grabs onto Bastien, telling him that she knew he’d come for her. He takes her home to the apartment, and then returns to Oscar’s house, where he decides that Oscar will need to be killed—not only did Oscar touch Bastien’s woman, he harmed a woman, which is against the codex. So Bastien and Luca have him hung on the Notre Dame, and set him on fire, with Bastien not caring that he had just announced war with the Aristocrats.

My Thoughts:

I would say that the relationship between Bastien and Fleur is sweet, and the story line is mildly entertaining. It’s a nice book for a fast read if you want to read some romance as a way to take a break from reading other types of books, but I do think that I prefer Penelope’s It Kills Me series better, specifically Axel and Scarlett’s relationship.