Antonia Bernardin

This is book 5 in the Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac series by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti, and it was the 23rd book I read this year.

As this is the fifth book in the series, I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers but there’s no guarantee, you have been warned.

A plot summary attempt

This book begins with Elise still being held somewhere by King, she’s being starved of blood and is cut off from Gabriel’s sight, despite that her boys are coming for her. This book follows the five of them as they attempt to figure out how to use dark magic to counteract King’s use of it, and when they finally un-mask them, they betrayal rocks Elise. We also learn who the vampire taken from the tunnels beneath the school is and not only is he related to Elise, he’s also related to someone very important in Solaria. This person sees fit to release a press statement amount Elise and her mates, causing lots of problems in Ryder’s gang and threatening the tenuous peace between the gangs. The book escalates after they un-mask king, the in-fighting reaches a peak where Ryder’s life is under threat and Gabriels struggling to See a way out of it. In the aftermath King takes over the city and begins gearing up for the biggest ritual ever, only Elise and her boys can stop it. Elise finally gets closure about what happened to Gareth and can begin her future with her guys.

My thoughts

I am conflicted in my thoughts about this one, because on one hand this book did not need to be as long as it was, however, if you love those cute in-between scenes and lots of extra details of the characters just hanging out (plus lots of random smut scenes) then you won’t mind the length. As I listened to this book as an audio, it’s nearly thirty hours long, so it consumed nearly a month’s worth of my commutes to and from work! For me, that did make it feel a smidge too long but wow was it satisfying to finish this series. I did not see King’s identity coming and I was half convinced at one point we’d learn something different about Gareth than what we did but I think this book concluded the series well.

If you are fans of these authors you are used to long book’s that try to emotionally ring you out, so I think the flaws in this book won’t bother you. If you’ve read Zodiac Academy, you’ll already be indoctrinated into the world of these authors and their style, they self-publish so these books are not cut down, you get every bit of detail, even ones that don’t necessarily add to the plot. I enjoy it, but I will say its not something that’s for everyone.