Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) by Brynne Weaver Series: The Ruinous Love Trilogy #2
Published by Zando on June 4, 2024
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 416
Format: eBook
Source: Amazon
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Contract killer Lachlan Kane wants a quiet life working in his leather studio and forgetting all about his traumatic past. But when he botches a job for his boss’s biggest client, Lachlan knows he’ll never claw his way out of the underworld. At least, not until songbird Lark Montague offers him a deal: use his skills to hunt down a killer and she’ll find a way to secure his freedom. The catch? He has to marry her first. And they can’t stand each other. Indie singer-songwriter Lark is the sunshine and glitter that burns through every cloud and clings to every crevice that Lachlan Kane tries to hide inside. The surly older brother of her best friend’s soulmate, Lachlan thinks she’s just a privileged princess, but Lark has plenty of secrets hiding in the shadows of her bright light. With her formidable family in a tailspin and her best friend’s happiness on the line, she’s willing to make a vow to the man she’s determined to hate, no matter how tempting the broody assassin might be.
As Lachlan and Lark navigate the dark world that binds them together, it becomes impossible to discern their fake marriage from a real one. But it’s not just familiar dangers that haunt them. There’s another phantom lurking on their doorstep.
And this one has come for blood.
I wasn’t as enamored with Lark and Lachlan…or maybe it was just Lachlan.
I was on the beach when I finished my paperback copy of Butcher & Blackbird. I couldn’t wait to get more and as soon as I got back to the house, I downloaded a copy of Leather & Lark and jumped right in. This books features Sloane’s BFF Lark and Rowan’s brother Lachlan who we meet in Book 1.
I think Margot Robbie would nail the part of Lark, as Lark has this Barbie façade but when she goes off and kills, she is 100 percent Harley Quinn.
Lark was subjected to the same assault at school by a teacher as Sloane in Book 1 (and very off page and not detailed) but Lark suffers from guilt that it was Sloane that “took care of the problem” for Lark. Now Lark spends her free time taking care of the type of predator that preys on children: some she pretends to be a child and meets up with them and some she just stalks. Again, these men are not innocent in any way so we can get behind her Harley Quinn transformation while she gets rid of these predators.
Lark and Lachlan first meet when Lark has to call her parents for a “cleaner” after she crashes into a predator’s car and pushes him into a lake. This guy came to meet up with a child and Lark had no qualms watching his car disappear into the dark, murky water. Lachlan arrives already annoyed and presumes that he is cleaning up the mess of a spoiled princess who killed an innocent man. Not a great first meeting, especially when Lachlan drops Lark into his trunk as a punishment, except Lark escapes the trunk and Lachlan gets in trouble with his boss for not only losing Lark but spoiling his relationship with one of his biggest clients.
Lark’s family isn’t mob, but apparently the large-scale bakery business is quite cut-throat. When several employees start coming up dead, Lark’s family is certain that cleaner/assassin Lachlan might be retaliating against the family and are contemplating a hit of their own. Lark will do anything to protect her best friend, Sloane, and knowing a dead Lachlan will be upsetting to Sloane and her new husband, Rowan. The only option Lark comes up with is marrying Lachlan to protect him. She knows her family might not understand but they would never hurt her by killing her husband so Lachlan will be safe.
After their initial meeting and a few more contemptuous meetings after Sloane and Rowan got together, newlyweds Lark and Lachlan are on very shaky ground. Lachlan stands firm on his first (incorrect) impression of Lark and it takes awhile for Lachlan to really start trying to get to know his wife. Once he decides to put in the effort and he realizes what Lark is accomplishing with her killing sprees, he finds her a present from her past to help her work out some of her remaining trauma.
I think the one fail to Lark and our acceptance of her reasons for killing is ruined by the opening scene where Lark ties her cheating boyfriend to a rocket (large firework)–Wile E. Coyote style–and lights the fuse. Okay, it was brutally funny, but I can’t equate the brutal murder of a cheating boyfriend with her killing of pedophiles. I won’t shed a tear for the pedophiles but it might have been over the top for the cheating boyfriend. I little torture I might chuckle over but if I am truthful, murder over it seemed over the top and sullies up her righteous killings.
I didn’t enjoy this story as much as I did Butcher & Blackbird. In Book 1, you take out the murder and you have a cute romance with a shy girl and the man who fancies her from their first meeting. Here Lachlan is very standoffish for most of the story which made it hard to like him. We like Lark right away (crazy or not) but when only one party in a romance is trying to make a go of their relationship it is kind of sad and does not make a great romance. Maybe it’s Lachlan as the oldest of his brothers. He is always taking care of them and trying to keep them safe and used to just telling everyone what to do. He keeps himself apart and maybe always knowing what is best for everyone is what takes him so long to recognize his own prejudice against his wife.
We have spent time in both stories with brother/small town doctor, Fionn, and circus daredevil, Rose. So far I really like Rose. She is open and welcoming. Fionn apparently had a hard break up, left at the alter as he was, and it seems to make him closed up to ever loving again which we can already see keeping him from a relationship with Rose. I will obviously be reading the final story but I am already hesitant that I will dislike spending any more time with Fionn. Maybe if, considering the topic of these stories, Fionn’s fiancé was brutally murdered by a serial killer, I might give him a pass for his trauma. Buuuuut, if Fionn ran off to hide in a small town and refuses to reciprocate Rose’s feelings simply because his fiancé walked away, and I don’t care if she cheated on him, etc., I will probably toss the book across the room. Note to self: pick up a paperback so I don’t toss my Kindle across the room.
Favorite Scene:
“what is this…?”
Lark’s eyes flick from the item on the table and back to the microwave as it dings. She shrugs. “A ring…?”
I let the weight of my gaze hammer into the side of her head and even though she fidgets, she resists the urge to turn around. “A ring,” I repeat.
She nods.
“Did you happen to notice it’s attached to a finger in a feckin’ jar?”
A nervous laugh trails behind her as Lark moves toward the sink. She grips the stainless-steel edge as though she hopes it might suck her down the drain. When she finally turns to face me, she’s biting her lower lip, unable to control the cringe that creases her features.
“Ha…yeah…” Lark’s half-hearted laugh disintegrates as I set the mason jar down on the table with a damning thunk. A little shiver racks her body as she shores herself up and raises her head, reading herself for a confrontation. “Well, there’s a very straightforward explanation.”
“Which is?”
“I couldn’t get it off. His fingers were too thick.”
I clear my throat, every carefully curated word a proclamation when I ask, “So you took the whole finger?”
A flare of irritation bursts in her eyes. “Seems to be the case, genius. I see your observational skills haven’t improved with the presence of glasses.”
I let out a long, slow breath. “Let’s try this another way. Why did you feel compelled to take this combination of finger and ring and then save it in a jar? It was shockingly easy to find, by the way. For future, I suggest a safe, not a literal hole in the wall.”
“It’s not like I asked you to go nosing around in my business.”
“Protecting you is my business. That was part of the deal you proposed at the wedding, remember? And I drew no distinction between keeping you safe from outside parties and keeping you safe from yourself.” I take one step closer and raise the jar between us. “So? Any explanation…?”
“He didn’t deserve to wear it. Clearly.“
I haven’t had time to look up the crest on the signet ring, but obviously it has significant meaning to her that I don’t yet understand. Perhaps there’s even a clue on the inner surface, and I start to spin the lid to open it up so I can try pulling the ring free of the waxy grey flesh.
“No,” Lark says. There’s utter panic in her eyes. Her skin goes instantly pale. “Don’t open it, please, Lachlan.” When I raise a brow in a silent question, she shakes her head. “Seriously. The formalin. I hate the smell. I nearly puled like five times just pouring it in there. If you open it, I’ll definitely hurl.”
“Well, I’m glad you managed at least long enough to put glitter in the jar.”
Lark mutters something that sounds like snuffluk as she scratches her head and trains her gaze toward the floor.
“Didn’t quite catch that, duchess.”
“Snowflakes,” she repeats a little louder, then flicks a hand in my direction without meeting my eyes. “Shake it.”
I glance from her to the jar and back again before I pick it up and give it a shake. The ring clanks against the glass and the finger taps the steel lid. When I set it back down, tiny, glittering snowflakes swirl around the severed digit before they slowly fall toward the base of the jar.
“A snow globe,” I say slowly, waiting for her to look up, which she doesn’t do. “You made a severed finger into a feckin’ snow globe.”
“It was almost Christmas,” she says with a shrug. “It felt…festive.”
