Rating: 3.5/5⭐️

Publication Date: March 28th 2022

Author: Sylvia Day

Review: I first fell in love with @sylvia_day when I read the cross fire series and I devoured it. So going into this one it have very high hopes BUT this is very different from any book I have read from her it was more mysterious but still the perfect amount of 🌶️ but I had a hard time figuring out what was going on or when the foot was going to drop… Amy sucks 😂 which I hope is the point … who is Lilly .. nobody knows I thought by the end you would figure it out and then all of a sudden people are being killed and she’s back home with Kane. It looks like she has another book in the series so thank god maybe we will get some answers from them.
I still really enjoyed it because I really like Sylvia days books it just took me a while to get into it.

I look forward to more!

I hadn't read anything by Sylvia Day before but I had heard of her so thought to give this a try. The multiple perspectives felt like a lot and contributed to my feeling of disconnect from the main characters and overall story.

So Close builds a world of perplexity with many characters that all play a vital role in unraveling the dark secrets that surround Kane and Lily. Read this novel slowly and cherish the great word building. I’ll be thinking about this story for a while because the last plot twist has me wondering who these characters really are. I can’t wait to read the next book.

So Close by Sylvia Day is a 4.5 out of 5 stars for me.
This is a mystery thriller romance, a story of love and greed. A POV novel we meet four characters, Witte, "Lily", Aliyah Armand and Amy. Witte is a butler to widower Kane Black, Lily the deceased wife of Kane, Aliyah is Lily's mother in law and Amy, Aliyah's daughter in law. The Armand is a wealthy family full of greed and ambition. This novel screams deceit and betrayal. Things i loved about this novel POV of the characters, the mystery behind Lily, Aliyah and Amy and the spice. Two things i disliked was that i was confused for part of the book(mainly Who is LILY), but i think thats the whole point since we are left wondering what will happen next and that we don't get a POV from Kane but everyone else talks about and to him. I don't know if he's the hero or villain. Another thing that made my heart happy is Gideon and Eva Cross cameo.....the Crossfire series is one of my favorite romance series. Overall i enjoyed reading So Close and can't wait for Too Far releasing October 2023.

I am a huge Sylvia Day fan and I eagerly awaited this one! There are so many moving parts that kept me intrigued throughout! It is one that will keep you on your toes and there is a great balance of mystery, suspense, and romance.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I knew going into this book that it wasn't going to be a typical Sylvia Day romance. I was still willing to give this one a shot but it really didn't work out for me. There are multiple POVs and the story line is more suspenseful than I'm used to with this author. While the plot was generally okay, I was really looking forward to a Sylvia Day romance and I didn't get enough of that here. This book was also delayed for a really long time, so I think I was expecting more from it and I didn't get it with this release.

Great start to a new series. Kane and Lily as well as the rest of our group of characters are intriguing and add plenty of drama, suspense and twists and turns to the story. I look forward to the next book to have some of these mysteries unraveled for me. I liked it and look forward to more.

Kane Black is a man wracked by grief after the loss of his wife, until the day he sees her in the street. It is just a freak resemblance or has Lily really returned from the grave!

It’s been a long wait but So Close is so worth it and is easily looking like it’ll be in my top 10 reads for 2023. I’ll admit to being more than a little bit apprehensive before I started reading especially when I heard that it was a departure from Sylvia Day’s usual writing style but I shouldn’t have worried. With this book I got the sizzling, contemporary romance I’ve come to expect from her with the added bonus of an atmospheric psychological, romantic suspense novel. It might seem a little slow to begin with but as more of the story was revealed, the pace picked up. Full of twists and turn and with the narrative told from several points of view except for Kane’s strangely enough, and even after finishing this book he’s still a bit of a man of mystery so I’m on the fence about him. Is he the hero of story or will he turn out to be the villain? I’ve no idea but I’m intrigued to find out as So Close still gripped me from the beginning and kept me absorbed throughout. Each character seems to have their own agenda and I’m not sure who can be trusted but I’m sure everything will become clear when the second half of this duet is released hopefully sooner rather than later.

Rating this 2 1/2 stars. So Close has an interesting and compelling premise, but is payed out in a way where there is no possibility of really truly caring enough about any of the major players to fully enjoy it. Less than half the book is told through the pov of Lilly, and the rest through Kane Black’s majordomo and then his sister-in-law and mother- both incredibly unlikeable. Because of this, I wasn’t able to really connect with Lilly or grow to really care about the situation, and had to force myself to finish this.

I’m not sure if the author was aiming to be different or unique but there is a reason most romances are written in first or third person, with povs mainly being from the Hero or Heroine. Had that been done here, I’m sure this would have been an intriguing, compelling and riveting story, but without that it’s like trying to watch a movie over someone’s shoulder next to you on the plane.

I’m not giving up just yet on this author and will keep an eye to see what comes next.

Kane Black has been mourning his dead wife for years. To cope with his pain, he keeps a shrine to her in a bedroom in his penthouse, including a life size picture of her and he sleeps with women who favors her in appearance. Until the unimaginable happens, he spots her on the street and a freak accident lands her in the hospital and in a coma. When she recovers, she awakens the Kane who’s been buried under grief and rises suspicion of the other two women in his life; his mother and his sister-in-law who bears a sticking resemblance to her. As each woman vies for top spot in his life more questions of the mysterious Lily arise.

The story is told from multiple POVs from four people in Kane’s life:
Witte – The trusty assistant who seems to know exactly what he needs,
Aliyah – The mother who chose his stepfather over him and seems to despise any woman in any of her son’s lives,
Amy - the sister-in-law obsessed with him, and
Lily herself who refers to herself in the third person.

There’s also Kane’s younger brothers, Darius and Ramin, and younger sister Rosana.

This is the first Sylvia Day book I’ve read in a while and I have to say, it was a bit of a hard read for me. It did not grab me at all and the way the story was told, I wasn’t a fan of the flow or structure. Both of which left me often confused. I’d completely resigned myself to the fact that after I finished this book, I probably wouldn’t even attempt any other books in the series that would come. I found myself constantly checking the percentage at the bottom of the page in hopes I would be done soon. Yeah, Kane and Lily’s story just wasn’t something I was interested in reading any more about……. UNTIL!

Yes, at about seventy-five percent into this book, something happened that totally grabbed me. I was suddenly very invested in Kane, Lily, Amy, Witte. Hell, I’m even interested in Kane’s younger brothers, Darius and Ramin. Suddenly this story took a turn, and I was all in. Especially when a shocking discovery happens about Lily.

This story stopped being just about Kane and Lily and turned into a story of three woman vying for the top spot in Kane’s life, and who his beloved Lily really is.

Initially I was going to give this a two-star read, but I’m giving it three. While I’m not happy it took me so long to be pulled into the story, I must hand it to Sylvia Day for giving me just enough to keep me interested in finishing the book, and then totally sucking me in. With that being said, I’m definitely going to give the second book a try. I just hope it grabs me a lot sooner.

Decent read. I wanted to love this one the way I do other Sylvia Day books but it wasn’t up to that level. But I did enjoy the adventure.

So Close -but so far? So Close completely missed the mark for me. At times I had no idea what I was reading. Multiple POVs, different tenses, and the writing is drawn out and overdone. The characters are awful. This was non-stop, over the top drama – throw in everything and the kitchen sink and see what works. Sadly, this did not feel like the Sylvia Day who wrote The Crossfire series. I struggled to finish.

So Close is the beginning of the duet Blacklist by Sylvia Day. This long-awaited release is finally here.

First, let me start by saying I was intrigued by the blurb, but honestly, the book itself had mystery, but it's in such a slow burn that I almost set the book aside. Yes, Sylvia Day knows how to weave a story, but I feel like she missed on this one. It's not the fact that it's left unresolved. We went into the story knowing that. It was tortuously slow. The book didn't start drawing you really in until a little over a third of the way in. By then, it was almost like what was happening here and then a swift detour to sexcapades and here's a bow and some vague unanswered questions.
Don't get me wrong, Kane Black is a force to be rekoned with. He's got your sympathy from the start when you realize how strongly he mourns his wife. But once she resurfaces, everything gets murkier. There is so much hidden about Lily, so hopefully, you're not looking for all the answers. Money and power are strong motivators. Look carefully to see if you can figure out the smoke and mirrors cause I definitely didn't see some of the twists. And frankly, Aliyah and Amy can kill each other in my honest opinion.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Ronin House Publishing for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
There is a lot of very unlikeable, dishonest, deceitful, cheating characters in this book, there is also a lot going on. Is it all hot steamy romance that we have come to expect from this author? No is the answer, there is a lot of mystery and suspense, I found it to be a slow rather laborious read, the passionate, steamy parts I felt fell flat, like the author was trying to hard.
It was difficult to like any of the characters, perhaps that’s why I wasn’t enjoying the read, and I found all the different points of view and the plot to be rather confusing.
This long awaited book was not for me, there was just something missing.
2.5 stars

Kane Black is on top of the world and seems to have everything a person could want, except his late wife who died in a sailing accident years ago. He has been silently grieving her ever since while trying to live up to the man she saw he could become. But when a chance encounter on the streets on NYC brings her back into his life, and it turns out she actually hasn't been dead it sends everything he thought he knew about his wife into question. Secrets come out, and everyone in Kane's life has their own agenda, that gets disrupted by the sudden appearance.

This is once again in the same writing style as Butterfly in Frost. Where you are working on a puzzle but are missing all the essential pieces and you hav to go on a scavenger hunt and solve riddles in order to get each missing piece one at a time until you have the full image. The story is so dynamic and has you guessing at every turn. All of the character perspectives provide such a full story while also making your question every moment. I am so excited for the second novel in this duology, and I can't wait to see what comes from the events of this one and what the author set up.

It was definitely fun to revisit Gideon and Eva Cross (aka the Crossfire series) even if it was briefly in this book. That said, the real stars truly were the Blacks - - Kane and Lily.

This psych thriller/mystery starts off with Kane battling his deep grief for the death of his wife, Lily. Even though her death was six years ago, he still hasn't been able to move on. When he sees a woman on the street one day who looks exactly like his dead wife and she recognizes him, he immediately brings her back into his life. Can this be his Lily? Or is she an imposter?

In this book, you have a difficult time knowing who to trust. There are a great deal of story lines going on simultaneously. Let's just say very few of these people trust one another and some people are working very hard to make sure that trust isn't given easily. It's a deliciously fun read.

Even though you are definitely left with an incomplete story and eager for book two in this duology, it isn't a painful cliffhanger like in some books. That said, I'm still looking forward to the sequel to see how all these storylines wrap up.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to read and review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

So Close is a romantic suspense novel that quite literally just took a meat tenderizer to my brain. I spent the majority of the book confused and wondering what was happening and what I was even reading. It brings the reader on a journey through return of Kane Black’s missing wife, who mysteriously disappeared while sailing during a storm at sea six years before. Though she’s been gone for six years, Lily has no memory of what happened leading up to or during the time of her disappearance.

This book took me on a trip. Because of the mysterious elements, it felt more like a slow to medium paced book, but picks up nearer the end. We really do spend almost the entire book in a state of confusion, and only at the very end (I’m talking last two to three chapters) does any of it start to come together. While it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, it does end with the reader having more questions than answers.

I loved the writing style Day uses in this book. I’ve read her Crossfire series before, so was familiar with her writing, but there is something almost lyrical to how she writes this book. One of her characters has an obsession with using the correct word for the situation, and I think Day was very purposeful in the language she uses throughout the novel. I also LOVED the story told through multiple points of view. We go between the three women in Kane’s life, his mother, Aliyah, his sister-in-law, Amy, and his wife, Lily, and also his employee, Witte. These women are all unlikable and unreliable, and might I even go as far to say, unhinged. These women all strongly dislike each other and they are all overly obsessive over Kane and getting into each of their minds is terrifyingly fascinating. It was a really interesting way to write the story and leads to a large portion of the confusion and overall obscurity to the book as we have no idea if what they are telling us is the truth or not.

It wouldn’t be a Sylvia Day novel if there wasn’t a heavy handful of spice to this book as well. There was a lot of passion and palpable chemistry, while still leaving you with feelings of unease given the nature of all the relationships and mystery behind the characters.

It’s so hard to review this book as I’m still SO CONFUSED by what just happened. There was such a heavy layer of mystery, of twists and turns, and then had an ending that I was not expecting at all. I’m SO excited for the sequel to come out so I can get answers because SO MUCH was left up in the air.

I will provide a review to the linked Instagram on the day of release.

Kane lost his wife years ago and then all of a sudden sees her .
Kane's mom, Aliyah and his sister in law Amy want control of the family business. Some of it was Amy's that was merged with his company. Amy wants Kane but is married to his brother.
Then Kane brings his wife home but she isn't who she says she is, or is she?
There are so many lies and secrets that it makes you wonder what is really going on. I dont know when the 2nd book comes out but I hope it is soon.
Thank you to NetGalley for the book to review.

I loved this. At first the multiple POVs seemed a bit confusing, as was the change in tense when we read Lily's perspective, but once I was in it and knew what to expect I think it really worked. Sylvia Day is known for her angst and drama, and this one definitely does not disappoint. Some years ago, Kane Black's wife Lily was presumed dead. Suddenly they come face to face on a street, and everything gets turned a bit on its head.
The over the top storyline is so engaging and fun. The multiple POVs really help with the pacing and suspense. There aren't many characters here to actually "like" at first, but as the narrative goes on (and more is revealed) it feels like a well crafted soap opera. (And I say that with the highest of compliments.) I really enjoyed this read, and though it leaves off on a cliffhanger I did find it to be a satisfying end until book two later this fall. I will be anticipating it for sure.

This book was a mess. The story was very difficult to get into. At times I would read a chapter and not know what I just read. It’s overly dramatic and nonsensical.