02 December

🌸 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 🌸 BAD BISHOP BY L.J. SHEN ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TITLE: BAD BISHOP

SERIES: SOCIETY OF VILLAINS #1

AUTHOR: L.J. SHEN

GENRE: DARK MAFIA ROMANCE BOOK

Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author L.J. Shen comes a dark age-gap mafia romance.

He's Deathless.
She's trying to find a reason to live.

Lila

My innocence was ripped from me one fateful night under the starless sky.
Resulting in an unwanted teenage pregnancy and a secret the Camorra must bury.
My father decided to hand me off to the highest bidder.
The lucky winner? Tiernan Callaghan, psychopath extraordinaire.
The Irish mafia prince wants me for all the wrong reasons.
Alliance. Money. Prestige. War.
I am but a pawn in his twisted game.
The man who sits on a throne of his enemies' skulls thinks I'm a weakling.
Little does he know, in this chess game, the underdog wins.
Because the thing about bad bishops?
They protect good pawns.

My Review

5 𝐆𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒.....

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔* 𝐁𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐏 °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*

Is the first full length dark twisted romance book in the (Society of Villains) series by author L.J. Shen. Spoken in dual POV's. FMC: Lila Ferrante 18 and MMC: Tiernan Callaghan 28

It's seriously been many moons ago since I've read a mafia romance book, only right that to bring me back to this genre which I used to love is by this author..

☀︎ Marriage of convenience
☀︎ Enemies to lovers
☀︎ Age gap
☀︎ Forced proximity
☀︎ Scarred MMC
☀︎ Opposites attract
☀︎ Morally grey MMC
☀︎ Hates everyone but her
☀︎ She tries to kill him (“You have to stop trying to kill me, Lila. It’s giving me a massive hard-on, and I’ve never been good with delayed gratification.”)

This is where Shen shines, it’s not too dark, but some will need to check triggers, it has been said that this series will go darker, which I am all for…

Lila is a gorgeous, and extremely courageous Italian mafia princess who many underestimated how clever she actually was, even her own siblings treated her as though she had the plague. Many called her dimwitted and developmentally delayed which is exactly what she presented to the world as tasked by her mother in order to keep her safe. But secretly during the summer like a sponge she was learning everything she could get her hands on.

(“The only way to escape marriage to a mobster was to be unable to be married. More specifically-to pretend I had a developmental disability. My mother came up with the scheme when I was a child, and I went along with it, trusting she knew best.”)

Tiernan is a Irish mafia prince and was as cold hearted as they come which was programmed into him at a very young age, as you delve deeper into his story you'll understand exactly why he is the was he is and boy that heart breaks as you read what he and his twin sister had to endure when they were younger.

Lila endured something horrific and life changing which is where Tiernan is coerced into marrying Lila.

(“I always dreamed about a dashing prince. Heavily lashed, with pouty lips and big, beautiful eyes. As it turned out, I fell in love with the complete opposite of it. With a Nephilim, a fallen giant, hands scarred from murder.”)

I tiptoed into this not really knowing what to expect, the giggles, (“She's not intellectually impaired, you oversized used condoms.”) the swooning, (“ I always thought a bullet will finish me off. But in the end, it was my wife that turned out to be my demise.”) the hardcore love towards these two was unexpected, the slow burn and those angsty too and fro feels these two subjected me to, cemented my love for this author yet again. I loved these two, and they probably became my top favourite couple of 2025.