I was very excited when I learned that the male lead for the fifth book in the Monsters and Muses series would be Cash. I was intrigued by him the first time he came onto the page. He and his twin brother, Palmer, couldn’t be more different. Palmer is lively, friendly, and social, while Cash is reserved, serious, and consumed by his work. We get to know Palmer a little bit in Oaths and Omissions, as he seems to be the brother Lenny is closer to, but whenever Cash entered the scene he just stood out to me in the best way. I wanted to know from the get go why this guy was so stiff and serious. From what I got, he has just always been this way.
Cash has done very well for himself in life. He is a young, successful lawyer working environmental cases. He seems to have very little involvement or care for the Primrose family business of realty, of which his father had done very well for himself in collecting investment properties for the mafia. Cash and Ariana meet for the first time purely by chance, she was out for her bachelorette night and he was reluctantly dragged out by his brother to celebrate their birthday. Cash reflects on how he has never been interested in any woman, emotionally or physically, until he sees Ariana. Nothing comes to fruition that night, but through another chance encounter not too long after, Cash finds himself with Ariana as his wife. There are extreme similarities between what happens to Elena in her quick marriage to Kallum, and Ariana, as she was also promised to an abusive mafia husband that she had no wish to marry. So while Ariana is happy to have an out for the one marriage, she finds new struggles in this harried contractual arrangement with Cash. Cash meanwhile struggles with emotional and physical feelings he has never had before, and he slowly loses control of the tight leash he keeps himself on.
I enjoyed this book a lot, much more than I predicted I would. I wasn’t sure about a story with Ariana as the female main character at first, but the calm and collected lawyer and the wild and emotional ballerina end up being just what the other needed. There was only one thing that I found bothersome. It really irritated me that several times throughout the story we are reminded that Ariana quit dancing because of an injury. But we never get an answer as to what that injury was, or if that even actually happened. The way Ariana speaks of it I think it was a cover up and she had to quit dancing because of something with her family. Given that she was still dancing when Elena began her relationship with Kallum, I think it might have had something to do with all the scandal that came after Elena ratted on her father’s mafia ties. I don’t know if this is something we will ever know for sure seeing as there is only one book left. However, the author mentions at the end of her books that you can sign up for her mailing list and get extra content. I think I might do this, not to see if she ever reveals what happened, but because there are other characters that I would love to get some more time with. I am still in love with Lenny and Jonas, but maybe the couple in the last book will be even more interesting and could become my new favorite.
Nonfiction and Nonsense 