WHEN HATE BECOMES OBSESSION… beast.
Because Mischa Stepanov isn’t a mindless monster—he’s a wolf, and she’s the unwitting doe caught in his midst.
Unraveling the torment of his past may be her only hope of salvation…
Or the secrets uncovered may destroy them both.
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This was a book that kept me on the edge of my seat with the great character and plot development that kept me totally glued to my kindle until the very last page was read! I look forward to reading more from this author!
Holy H*ll! I was sucked in from the beginning and could not put this book down. This is definitely a dark romance, darker than most, but this Mafia dark romance is definitely something that you cannot put down until you’ve finished reading.
XV was a captivating dark romance full of revenge, angst, and mystery. Ellen Winthrop became the fifteen victim of a long-standing mafia blood feud that her captor, Mischa Stepanov planned to end once and for all.
It was terrifying to see all the things that Ellen had to endured before and after her kidnapping as well as what happened to Mischa in the past. What’s more was that in amidst of her captivity, the dynamic of their relationship changed, though subtle. Mischa was still ruthless and relentless but the way Ellen started to grow under his skin was twisted and fabulous. He held the power but I loved how she can rattle him through their gamble.
And with a cliffhanger like that, I cannot wait for book 2 in the War of Roses series.
This is an awesome, excellent, intensely devastating & harrowing emotional plunge into hearts & minds so deeply & thoroughly scarred, it seems that scars are the only thing remaining.
Make no mistake, this is an extremely dark & riveting story & the 2 main characters, Ellen (h) & Mischa (anti-H) are tortured, tormented & SCARRED mentally & physically beyond imagination. Ellen preserves her sanity through mental escape & detachment, while the other barely hangs on to his through brutal revenge & deathless hate of a blood enemy.
But when Ellen is mistakenly taken captive by Mischa in his rabid determination for vengeance against the wealthy & powerful Winthrop family, these 2 damaged people are locked in a battle of wills & survival that is brutal, cruel & merciless.
But which is the stronger: the water that yields, or the hammer that strikes it? Which, if either, may possibly prevail?
Ellen suffered horrible & heinous torture at the hands of her husband, Robert Winthrop but what she learned to survive at the hands of her husband is nothing compared to the machinations of a frighteningly astute Mischa who understands not all torment needs to be physical.
The story is told entirely from Ellen’s POV & because of this, the reader is often as confused & at a loss as Ellen, which only heightens the reader’s empathy for her. We only slowly come to obtain bits & pieces of Mischa’s history, light strokes of what created him into the vicious, cold, hard man who holds Ellen prisoner & daily reminds her he will kill her once she’s given him what he wants, or proves she doesn’t have what he wants.
So the reader becomes intensely intimate with the thoughts & mental struggles of a woman who numbed herself to any emotion or feeling in her life other than surviving in her luxurious cage & being owned by a suave charming monster by reciting the word ‘BREATHE’ to herself in order to escape into the deepest recesses of her mind.
But now the new monster who’s caged her is working industriously to crack her protective shell & we experience the panic & terror Ellen experiences as she’s forced from her numbed protection into an existence of feelings she doesn’t want & which she tries frantically & with increasing exhaustion to resist.
And Mischa has his own demons, secrets, goals, scars & damage that fuel his scorching rage & douse what remaining humanity which may lurk within his heart & soul. But the reader only gets glimpses of Mischa’s past & what is driving his path of bone deep rage & blood vengeance to such volatile & lethal heights.
And this makes Mischa a chaotic character (in a good way) for the reader: is he justified in his actions? Is he mentally unstable? Is he a good man doing horrific things? Is he capable of love or only hate & revenge? The reader is never sure, every time the reader thinks they’ve gotten a peek into him, he spins away & does a complete 180.
And Ellen is just as confused & disconcerted by him. Was she taken from the monster she knew only to be held by one she doesn’t know or understand? She understood & knew how to survive her husband’s ‘games’, but Mischa is dangerously unpredictable, unreadable & unknown.
This story is an intensely dark emotional whirlpool that relentlessly sucks the reader down into the swirling waters along with the heroine.
XV: Fifteen War of Roses Book 1 by Lana Sky
Ellen Winthrop has always grown up in the background in her home. Her sister Briar preferred the attention and material things. As sisters, Ellen is pretty, but Briar has always been considered beautiful.
Mischa Stepanov has been locked in a mafia blood feud with the Winthrop family for years. Each side taking a victim and now its his turn and he will mark them as XV.
When Ellen was a child a boy with a knife broke into her room but instead of hurting her, he makes her get under her bed. He tells her, “Don’t think, don’t move, just breathe.” That becomes Ellen’s mantra through her life and helps to keep her sane. As a child, Ellen had been afraid of monsters but what happens when there is something or someone scarier? The monsters are real, and they have come for her. Mischa decided to kidnap Briar Winthrop as the next victim of the blood feud but instead mistook Ellen for her. When he realizes his error, he questions her. With the mantra being repeated in her head to Breathe, she keeps quiet until he changes tactics. Ellen is used to pain and head games the monsters at home deal out and she can endure her pain in silence. Mischa will use any means necessary to get what he wants whether it’s his fists or a knife. Either way, he is going to send her back in pieces so what’s a little blood spilt anyhow?
I loved this beautiful book so much! Lana Sky has such a way with words, and it floors me that each book is even better than the last. This book hooks you from the very first page and takes you on a high-speed ride that never lets you go until the final page. I kept thinking that the next chapter I will stop for the night but then it was another plot twist and I couldn’t put it down. All I could do was sit there after I finished it last night. I couldn’t put into words what I felt after finishing it. Ellen seemed fragile at first when you read about her, but she is even stronger than Mischa. I think he tries not to respect her it’s hard for him. Both Ellen and Mischa have had tragic past that shaped them, but they are incredibly similar. So many things connect them, but they have no idea until the layers start to show themselves. I await with baited breath until the next book in this series.
Ellen is a pawn in a vicious game between Robert and now Mischa. She is accustomed to the torment and cruelty of Robert, has grown to expect and crave his darkness. But now, she is captured by someone else, a different darkness, the rules have changed.
This story was so compelling and interesting, it kept my focus and now I am wanting more of this story!
Hell is a rose.
Ellen is the half sister of Briar. She’s the step sister of Robert and his wife.
Briar sells Ellen out as her decoy and Ellen is taken and held by Mischa for information. Oddly enough, Mischa is looking for revenge on Robert Sr and Robert but he’s acting exactly like them.
Ellen has had to make terrible choices and accepts her fate. She’s pretty passive but she’s had years of trauma.
Ends in a cliffhanger.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Whoa This is another AMAZING book by Lana Sky!! From the very first page, it started with a bang, and was ahead to the finish line for the rest of the book!! It was impossible for me to put down!!
Your heart truly breaks for Ellen She is basically tossed aside in favor of her half sister, until she is completely sacrificed, after being mistaken for her half sister. She is taken captive, due to a vicious mafia blood feud.
Mischa, whose job it is to “break“ Ellen, is very complex, dark and mysterious Can Ellen see to the heart of this “monster??”
This story is dark, brutal, mysterious and fantastic Plus, the surprise ending has a twist that packs a punch!!!
I highly recommend this book!!! I DEFINITELY can’t wait to read book 2!!!!!!
This is a dark story that can contain lots of tigers but it really keeps you in your toes. I can’t wait to see what happens next!!!
Ellen Winthrop is 7 years old the first time she has been taught about monsters but nothing prepares her for when she is kidnapped by mistake 16 years later. The kidnappers were after her half-sister, Briar, and got her instead but initially they don’t realize how much she is worth.
Mischa Stepanov calls Ellen “15” as she will be the 15th victim in a blood war involving his family and the Winthrop’s. He is ready to do what it takes to bring down the Winthrop’s and has no problem using Ellen to get what he wants.
Yet soon Ellen realizes there is more to Mischa than she initially realized and he could be the one to save her from the life she was living.
Will Ellen be able to save herself or will she end up number 15?
This was a great book that had so many twists and turns that I had no idea what was coming next!
I thought Ellen was a great character who had been through so much already and then to be set up like she was shows how little loyalty her family had. I liked her strength after she was kidnapped in how she wouldn’t give in or give up.
Mischa was cold but at the same time he definitely had a soft spot for Ellen which unfortunately gave him a weakness and his plans for her began to change. It was clear that his family had been at war for a long time and things began to be revealed in this book that gave him new allies through secrets of the past.
I was happy when things began to heat up between Ellen and Mischa although it did begin as quite a twisted relationship. I knew that Ellen had been abused before and although Mischa had hurt her it was so much different than what she had been through in the past.
I liked when Ellen met Sergei and how she found herself an ally but it still made me wonder about a few things that had happened in the past.
The end of the book left me with my jaw down on the ground and I was definitely shocked!!
I definitely need to know what happens next!!
4 STARS
Review by Leah
Late Night Reviewer
Up All Night w/ Books Blog
From one monster to the next. A nightmare that never ends. This one pushed closer to my limits of how dark I go. Lana Sky just tap-danced all over that line with me. She never really crossed over but there were times I was afraid she would jump over with both feet.
The story of Ellen “Rose” is a hard one to read. It is dark and not dark as in 50 shades dark. This is a tormented woman who has learned how to survive the only way she can. And I do not mean survive like it was just a traumatic section of her life. It is her life. She is born into a very cruel world. So many times your gut will just twist.
Mischa is the 2nd devil in this book. The first being Ellen’s husband. You think, well Mischa will be her savior. He will show her how wrong her life was before and then then you find out he is not. Mischa is out for revenge and revenge only. I will say Thank You Lana Sky for not having Micha as bad as Robert. That man is the devil himself. I positive I could not read that portion of her life. The things that Rose brings up of her history is heart-wrenching.
There is a connection in snip-it’s of scenes between Mischa and Rose but it is like a lapse of memory for the two. Rose not understanding her own feelings due to mainly having Stockholm’s Syndrome from her husband’s abuse and Mischa forgetting his mission of vengeance.
As dark and heartwrenching as this book is and the ending leaving you as it does, I will definitely be reading book 2. There are so many questions left that I need answers to. Hopefully, I can make it through book 2.
This book has me feeling many different things. I could not put the book down and finished in 6 hours, now getting ready to dive into book 2. There is definitely no HEA, and I read reviews so I warned myself because I love my HEA’s! I have a feeling though that Ellen will get that, at least I can hope.
Let’s talk about our heroine Ellen. She reminds me of Cinderella but not with happing ending and a lot of abuse. Her mother is married to the mafia Robert Sr., who has an older son from a previous marriage, Robert. Ellen’s father is unknown and we don’t know the story of her Mother, Marnie and how she conceived Ellen. Ellen has an older half sister, Briar, who is Marnie’s and Robert Sr. daughter. Robert Sr. basically let Marnie keep Ellen but she’s more like an outcast, she’s kept where the servants live and her mother is not allowed to acknowledge her, she’s also basically her sisters keep, and companion but I feel that’s to nice of word to use. Marnie does die when the girls were young. Later we found out that Robert has a very dark side and physically marks Ellen. He was always protective of Ellen when she was a child, was that bc he was waiting until she became of age so he could keep her for himself?? There is a surprise twist there that I wasn’t expecting but I’m not going to give that away (wink). Ellen is kidnapped by Mischa and mistaken for her sister Briar. Our dear anti-hero Mischa is very abusive towards Ellen, but Ellen can take it. He wants information from her so his allowed her to live a little longer, but deep down he drawn to her, but I don’t think he understands why and it confuses him so he’ll lash out with her. But he has a story of his own and he had to suffer at the hands of the Winthrop’s, and he wants revenge and Ellen is his way out of the aggression he has deep inside.
Any-who I’m going to stop here and get started in book 2!
Ohhh wow!! I’m a definitely a fan for life!!
This was a pretty unique introduction for me.
Although it was a huge physiological trip,
you can’t help to get drawn in. You keep turning
the pages, trying to figure out the whats,it’s, and why’s.
XV: (Fifteen)
War of Roses, Book 1
By: Lana Sky
Narrated by: Caitlin Allgood Knight
There is a dark side to me that just gets completely pulled into books like this one. Lana Sky has written the first installment in a book, so dark, so tragic and so suspenseful I couldn’t stop listening. Mischa, a mafia man has kidnapped Ellen. She is not his target, but she is a Winthrop, and she will be victim XV. There is an interesting relationship between these two. Not quite a Beauty and the Beast, but Ellen sees things in Mischa that others just do not, not even himself. He is ruthless and violent and with her quiet beauty she compliments him, even in the darkest of circumstances. This is not an easy read, at times graphic, but the story is so intriguing, I had to keep going. And it doesn’t end! We are left needing to know what Mischa will do. Will he kill her? Will he return her and take her sister Briar? Will the pain of their tragic pasts heal them together? We need to know, so book will be loaded.
Caitlin Allgood Knight is a new narrator to me and she gives an amazing performance. This is not an easy listen, the characters are complex and emotionally charged and she nails it. Each scene plays out with an ease to distinguishable voices and she raises the suspense level just with an inflection of her voice. Can’t wait to see how this keeps going.
https://adbl.co/37zRG0F
Excellent dark, gritty, twisted read!!
Ellen Winthorp gets taken because she is mistaken for her half-sister, Briar. But the madman named Mischa that takes her quickly realizes she’s not, but is determined to find out who she is and what she knows of his enemies. This is a twisted, sordid tale that is just beginning in this first book in this dark series. This book ends on a cliffhanger and the story continues in book two, VII : Seven. I’m looking forward to the rest of Ellen and Mischa’s story. Note: This book does contain content that may be triggering for some readers.
This is a an extremely dark and intense story. It gas so much drama with a mystery involved in it. It is a story that is deeply addictive that you just can’t let go. You must find out the who, the what, and the where. It makes you feel everything that our characters are going through. The descriptions are extremely vivid. Caitlin Allgood Knight narrates the story beautifully. The only complaint I would have is sometimes the accent was so thick it made words hard to understand. Yes, that does add a very realistic element to the story but I would also want to hear the words. Otherwise, when the accent wasn’t that extremely thick she was clear and precise. I am extremely excited to see how the story continues.
XV: (Fifteen)
Good characters and a dark mafia story that holds no punches as it unfolds before leaving you with several questions
The narrator did a good job bringing the story to life
*Audible Review*
Narrated by: Caitlin Allgood Knight
This book was absolutely amazing! If I could give this book more than five stars I would. Ellen Winthrop is mistaken for her half sister, Briar, and taken captive by a madman. The fifteenth victim of a Mafia blood feud. Mischa, her capture, is a dark alpha wolf, violent, and has a score to settle with Winthorp family. This book is dark, raw, twisted and a gripping story from start to finish. This book was masterfully written, it was captivating, intriguing, and incredibly addicting and I can’t wait to read the next book.
I loved the narration by Caitlin Allgood Knight she really brought the characters to life and created a very pleasing listening experience.
I read this story before, and loved it. I was thrilled to listen to it. This is the first book in the captivating War of Roses Series. This is an extremely dark romance, really well written. Mischa, a mafia man, is ruthless, and extremely violent. He has a dark soul, and he is seeking out for vengeance. Ellen is an absolutely beautiful character, definitively strong. The story is told with only Ellen’s POV. I would love to have Mischa’s POV. The storyline is very suspenseful, fast-paced, and twisted. This story captivated me from the start to finish. This is a breathtaking dark romance, that ends with a cliffhanger. Now, I can’t wait to listen to the next book in the Series, VII. Caitlin Allgood Knight is a new narrator to me. She did an outstanding job with the narration. She has a beautiful voice, perfect for this story. Her narration is well paced and the characters are easy to distinguish. I believe this wasn’t an easy narration to do, with all the accents, and she did it perfectly. (review updated with the audiobook review).
This is a case of mistaken identity OR is it?! I’m telling you this book pulled me in from the first page all the way to the last. There are so many secrets and twist and turns that you won’t know which way is up by the end. I can not wait for the next book, because I really need to know what in the hell is going to happen.
We start out with a beautiful young woman Elle being taken. This poor beautiful soul has been through so much in her short 23 years if life. She was made to believe she is basically a nobody. The people who should love and protect her do everything but that. By the end of this book I just wanted to take her in my arms and hold her.
Mischa is a dark and twisted alpha who is hell bent on revenge. We get to see some different sides to this dark soul. He makes you believe he is evil in one breath then the next he is sweet and caring. He definitely knows how to play mind games, and he is not afraid to do that with Elle. There is so much more to this dark and twisted man, and I can’t wait until we get to peel all of his outer shells away.
This does end in a cliffhanger, but as I said earlier I CAN NOT WAIT to get my hands on the second book.