Book Review: The Saint

Title: The Saint
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Romance, Crime, Fiction

What It’s About: After barely surviving being drowned while buried alive, Fleur spends her time in Bastien’s house, and Bastien spends the first week with her in the house, not going back to his job as one of the French Emperors. They do talk, and Bastien admits that he’s also shaken by what happened to her, but Fleur decides to stick around, and tells him to go back to work, which he does. They end up moving her stuff from her old apartment into Bastien’s house, and he is surprised but also relieved that she has decided to stay. When she asks, Bastien goes to pick up any of her things that she had left behind at Adrien’s house upon moving out, and when Adrien asks Bastien about her, he tells Adrien that he has no right to ask as she’s well taken care of by Bastien.

Eventually Bastien asks Fleur to leave her job and let him take care of her. At first Fleur fights it because she had been burned by Adrien, but then she gives in, and he gives her a debit and credit card with her name on them to spend his money however she wants. He also helps her get over her fear of taking a bath, as he realizes that she hasn’t been taking them since her burial, and they spend time together in a bath. As a result, Fleur begins to do whatever she wants throughout the day, including reading at a nearby cafe/ patisserie, and learning how to bake with Bastien’s staff.

In the meantime, Bastien finds out that the Aristocrats are out for blood with him for what he did in killing Oscar. He visits them and tells them that his fight is not with them, but rather it was with Oscar for what he did to Fleur. The Aristocrats agree to a truce, but tell him that he needs to stay out of the way when it comes to Adrien, as they will be going after him for stealing artifacts that they believe belong to the French Republic. Bastien agrees, but then when he discusses it with Luca, he realizes that he does have to tell Fleur because she wouldn’t want any hurt to come to Adrien. He tells her about the hit and also that he will call Adrien, which he does do despite Fleur’s protests. During his call with Adrien, Bastien tells Adrien to leave the stuff alone and get out of the country. Unfortunately, Adrien takes Bastien’s advice a little too late, and gets captured by the Aristocrats on his way out of the country. As a result, Bastien asks Fleur if she wants him to intervene, and does so on her behalf, knowing that she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Adrien. He and his men storm the chapel in which the Aristocrats are carrying out their justice on Adrien, and they kill all of the Aristocrats except one, who manages to give Luca the slip. Adrien is taken to a hospital, and Fleur visits him when he’s out of surgery. She tells Adrien that they are done, that she is going to marry Bastien some day, and that it was meant to be that they would be over. She agrees to call one of Adrien’s siblings for them to pick him up and take care of him in his post-operation recovery.

Bastien takes Fleur to a wedding, where he runs into his brother, Godric, and tells Godric the truth—Bastien had killed their father when their father came to his door and started demeaning Bastien. The argument escalated into a fight, in which Bastien’s father pulled a gun on him and Bastien turned it on their father before pulling the trigger. After telling Godric this, he takes a walk and Fleur finds him after he had finished talking to a woman he once had sex with.

At some point, Bastien finds Fleur in one of the cafes that she likes to read, and for the third time she tells him—without realizing it— that she loves him. He asks her how many times she will tell him that she loves him without realizing it, and this causes her to flee the cafe. He gives her some space, but when she doesn’t return home almost all day, he tells her that he’s going to work. She ask him to wait, and they have a conversation about how she’s been afraid of the depth of her feelings because she’s been hurt in the past. Bastien tells her to marry him and she agrees to marrying him. He then takes her to meet his mom again, and his mom is absolutely excited that she is going to have a daughter in law. At the same time, he also teaches Fleur how to use guns and she takes a liking to the automatic rifles.

The topic of children come up, and Bastien tells her that he is not planning on leaving his job because he loves it; that if she wants children, he will give her children, but that he’s not leaving the criminal underworld. Fleur decides to not have children because she knows what she is getting into but children would not be able to know what they’re getting into, and she tells Bastien that while she always wanted to be a mom, she can live without children but she can’t live without him. Bastien eventually changes his mind after talking to Luca, who points out that Fleur has given up everything for him. He also admits to Fleur that he was the one that killed his father and what had happened.

Godric calls Bastien and tells him the name of the man who has been turning most of the criminal underworld against Bastien and the French Emperors. Bastien meets with the man, who tells him that he has survived Russian prison and had made it out to France, where everything is up for grabs. The man tells Bastien that the way that Bastien runs things is cutting into the profits of these criminal enterprises and that many of the criminal overlords agree with him about how it should be. He tells Bastien that if he doesn’t give it up, it will impact those he loves, including Fleur.

Bastien returns home and tells Luca to get men ready for him to fight the man, and at the same time he has Fleur sent away for her safety. Fleur gets into the car as instructed, and it drives away, but she realizes soon after that something is not right, and calls Bastien. Bastien picks up and learns that she’s not safe, which leaves him unfocused when the man’s army attacks Bastien’s warehouse. Fleur arrives at a location, where she is manhandled by several men, though she manages to make a run for it, and shoots a whole host of them with an automatic gun of some sort, before she is recaptured. The men drag her back into one of the rooms, and one of them is about to rape her when they get killed by none other than Godric.

Bastien receives a call from Godric, and it’s Fleur on the other sid telling him that she’s safe. He comes out of the warehouse to meet with the man, and tells him to call for proof of life of Fleur. The man calls, but no one picks up, and Bastien throws a grenade before running back to the safety of the warehouse where he uses the machine guns he has mounted to shoot up the remainder of the men.

Fleur and Bastien are reunited, and he thanks Godric. Bastien has her stay at home with Luca, and he and Godric make their way through the city to kill the man. They make peace with each other and Godric reveals that he had pushed Bastien away as a teenager in hopes that their father wouldn’t force him to come into the business, and that is why he killed the girl for Bastien, so that he wouldn’t have to suffer and maybe convince their father that Bastien isn’t made for it so he wouldn’t have to be at least a criminal. Together, they agree that the French Emperors will rule as they always have, and with the help of the forces provided by the President, they enter a building. Unfortunately for them, the man has already killed himself.

When Bastien returns to Fleur, he tells Luca that he has retired and that Luca is in charge. Luca is surprised but he accepts his position. A day or two later, Bastien takes Fleur to see his mother, and his mother is super happy that both of her sons are there for dinner, as Godric has joined. She has also invited Pierre, her friend, who Bastien and Godric grill over dinner about his intentions. Godric leaves the table after dinner, and Fleur follows him, at which point she asks him if he would walk her down the aisle as she doesn’t have anyone else, and he agrees once she responds to his comment that he’s not generally well liked with the fact that she already likes him for what he has done for her.

Bastien visits his mom before his wedding, and reveals to her that he was the one that killed his father. She cries, and tells him that he is the most important person in her life so it doesn’t matter that he killed her husband. The wedding goes off without a hitch, and at the end of the day, Luca tells Fleur that Bastien has known he would marry her for some time, telling her the story of when Bastien told him about it.

In the Epilogue, Bastien is talking with Pierre, his mother’s companion, about his mother. Pierre has asked Bastien to talk to her because she is not willing to listen to Pierre about going into assisted living or a senior home, even though it has become harder for her to go up and down stairs, and she’s prone to falling. Bastien tells Pierre that he will talk to her and if not, he will send Godric. He turns around and talks to his son, who asks about his grandfather. Bastien tells him that he was not a good man, which is why Pierre is his grandfather, as the man has loved Bastien’s children as his own. Bastien is pretty proud of his boy and all that he has achieved, and knows that he would never be able to tell his son the things that he had heard from his own father’s mouth.

My Thoughts: While there is a lot of explicit sex scenes in these books, including this one, I really did enjoy the story and the plot. I really like that Bastien is a bit different from all of the other male main characters Penelope Sky has written before, in that he doesn’t seem to fight it when Luca points out that Fleur gave up everything for him, and it would only be right for Bastien to do this one thing. He learns from it and very quickly, which is pretty amazing. I loved Bastien and Fleur as a couple and am very content with the growth they had as individuals and as a couple. So happy for them and their happy ending! Wonderful read, and would recommend it if you are into romance stories.