The Lyonese trilogy by Sierra Simone is now complete with BITTER BURN. We see the story of Mark, Isolde and Tristan come to a head, thrash around violently before settling down for their very own walk in the sunset.
This is an MMF story where we meet each character in the triangle, know them and get to root for them. This series is a mix of love, lust and vengeance in all its gore and glory. Mark is the owner of the kink club Lyonese, which he runs and uses as a cover to seek vengeance for his dead partner. Isolde is the niece of an important man of God in the Vatican, and Tristan is ex-military, also the stepson of Mark Trevena.
Mark and Tristan's affair starts when Tristan comes to work for Mark upon his return to civilian life. Tristan and Isolde begin their affair when he goes to bring her stateside for her wedding to Mark. Their love and lives become entangled, violent, and reach new heights of passion in book 2 - Honey Cut.
That's the love, lust part of the series, which is covered in books 1 and 2. In book 3, it's more about pushing back, owning their own agendas of vengeance, duty and the voice of their heart. In BITTER BURN, we see Isolde and Tristan own their love for each other, which comes at a cost. We see Mark burning hot and eager with vengeance close. He weaves a complicated, full of yearning and resisting a taste of lust which seems so tempting and overwhelming at the best of times. From Washington to New York, UK to the Vatican, we see them fight monsters outside and the ones within them to ensure their future is free of them.
It is very high stakes with moving around the world in closed, highly secure places and killing people others would only dream of killing. All the while resisting the temptation of each other and the three of them together.
The story comes to a head in a glorious, violent manner with deaths, separation, guilt, before the three characters come together with only love and need for each other without any shadows or conditions of any kind.
I enjoyed the vengeance part of the story as much as the steam and vulnerabilities between the 3 characters. The ending may be clichéd, that of all 3 of them being at a kink club together, drunk on hedonism, but apt and true to the central characters of this series.
I think it’s important that you know this about me, that you understand this: I’m not sorry.
I’d do it again.
After my husband died eight years ago, I made vengeance my only purpose, my religion, my destiny. But to get to my enemy, I had to make myself like him. He had a kingdom of secrets? Then I would make an empire. He had blood on his hands? Then I would bathe in it.
But Tristan and Isolde changed everything. I hadn’t counted on wanting them, needing them; I hadn’t counted on how it felt to watch the two of them fall in love. I’d thought I had everything under control—I’d thought I was safe from my own long-dead heart. I’d never imagined that the wronged husband, the jealous king from my childhood fairy tales, would be played by none other than me.
It no longer matters what I used to believe. My enemy is ready to finish the game, and for the first time in eight years, I have pieces on the board I can’t afford to lose. I’ll burn the entire world to keep Tristan and Isolde safe, I’ll scorch the earth—but as any good assassin will tell you, fire will only get a man so far, because there’s always something left in the ashes. And for the three of us, it’s the cold, bitter bones of the truth: their story begins and ends with me.
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