This teeters between 3 and 4 stars for me. To be honest, the unfinished formatting of the eARC made this book a struggle to read - but I think if weird formatting issues weren't present, this would have been a much more solid 4 stars.

Fans of Butcher & Blackbird will enjoy this follow-up - I certainly did! But Leather & Lark's story lacked the punch of Butcher & Blackbird's. What I loved about B&B was how the two stars matched each other's crazy and leaned into it. Leather & Lark was a little too sweet for a romance about people who kill... a lot. That said I did like it, just not as much as B&B.

I really loved butcher and blackbird and was expecting the same for this sequel, let me tell you I wasn’t disappointed at all! This book has it all , is fun, spicy and entertaining!

4.5 ⭐️

Let me say that I am ecstatic that I got to stay on her arc team from B&B, so thank you for that!!

I absolutely adore Lachlan and Lark together. The tension and banter were on point and I was kicking my feet when the slow burn finally turned 😮‍💨😮‍💨 The vibe of this book is definitely different than B&B but I was definitely still here for it. I do wish that things with a certain “villain” were more fleshed out and didn’t feel so rushed. I felt like that part got lost a little bit. But regardless I adored watching their relationship grow and watching Lark work through some of her healing thanks to the things Lachlan picked up on. I absolutely loved Aunt Ethel and she had me giggling every time she was on page. Leander was kind of fun too. And of course we still got to see some of Rowan and Sloane 😍 The spicy scenes were on point 🫠 but that bonus chapter 🥵🥵

Anyways I loved it! Marriage of convenience, enemies to lovers, he falls first. Check the content warnings 🖤🖤

Wow wow wow Brynne has done it again. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t love Lachlan and Lark the way I loved Rowan and Sloane, but damn if she didn’t have me fall in love with them all the same. I want more while at the same time this felt like the perfect amount for them. I spent this book laughing, gasping, and sobbing (not specifically in that order). Watching Lachlan and Lark truly fall for each other under the circumstances they were in truly has me believing that there is love for everyone, even if it doesn’t start the way you’d expect it to. I can’t wait for more from Brynne as she continues to grow and write as an author. I’d read anything she published, even if it’s just her grocery list.

I was listening to the audiobook of Butcher and Blackbird while also reading this which was fun because I picked up a bunch of little things that would have probably been missed if I wasn't doing this or hadn't immediately followed B&B with L&L.

Overall I enjoyed this. Leather and Lark doesn't have the same chaos magic that B&B had with Lachlan being a much more serious character which tracks because he's the big brother and has been the protector of Ronan and Fionn. Many, many protector vibes coming from Lachlan. I enjoyed Lark's character too along with her slightly chaotic family - the poisoned muffins was one of my favourite parts.

Despite not being as good as B&B, I still enjoyed this book and am looking forward to Fionn and Rose's story.

Thank you to Netgalley and Zando Slowburn for the eARC.

I was very excited for this book after really enjoying Butcher & Blackbird! Unfortunately, this sequel missed the mark for me. I felt disconnected from the characters and their motives and I thought that the antagonist and conflict were rushed.

this book had a lot of expectations to live up to, and it absolutely did. it opens up with a bang and hooks you right away, keeps you on a steady diet of banter and tension throughout, and only ruins two (ish) foods in the process!
we've got a marriage of convenience here, so some good "my wife" moments are to be expected, but we also get "my husband" which is severely underrated!
if you loved butcher and blackbird, definitely don't wait to pick this one up!

I was so excited to get the ARC for this title! I had just finished the Butcher & Blackbird and was so relieved to be able to get my hands immediately on the sequel. Honestly, I loved this one even more than I loved B&B. Lachlan and Lark just had a more cohesive relationship. It was so fun to get to know the characters and to watch their love grown from marriage of convenience/enemies to lovers into a real love story.

Lark is a serial killer that kills pedophiles and other questionable unmentionables while Lachlan is a hitman for the local mafia/gang. He was taken in as an orphaned young man and now owes the leader a debt that might never be repaid. But Lachlan is Lark's best friend's brother in-law and when her family decides he has to die she takes matters into her own hands. She and Lachlan might have started off on the wrong foot, but she will make sure he, his brother, and her best friend survive the complications of organized crime life. After all, family is more important than anything.

After a rushed wedding, the two team up to find who is behind the mysterious assassinations within the family. They are running against a clock, but if they succeed they might just be able to focus on their relationship and the lives they want to lead: Local Leather Business Owner and Local Rock Star Sensation.

This book was absolutely amazing! I read the first one and finished it in less than 2 days. This book was even better than Butcher and Blackbird. I am usually not as impressed with a second or third book, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this one was written. From start to finish this book kept me enthralled. I cannot wait for the final installment so that I can see how it all ends!

First off, this is a SLOW burn! Like I’m talking the first 70% they don’t even really like each other, but then boom, the last 30% is cray! I love Lark so much and she really inspired me to do more diy projects, I’ve personally never made a snowglobe before, but now I want to! Lachlan was kind of a stick in the mud until the last couple chapters which did kind of irritate me and dropped the rating of this book, because the chemistry just wasn’t there. The last three or so chapters made the book for me. I was on the edge of my seat and I am very excited for Rose and Fionn’s book!

I looooved everything about this book. I’ve been waiting for Lark’s story since book 1.

The storyline, the banter, the spice… everything was perfect. Lark and Lachlan are everything. Fake marriage, enemies to lovers for the win!!

Brynne can do no wrong!

I loved this story.

Brynne Weaver knows how to make your stomach turn AND make you swoon within mere pages of one another. She balances the horror of serial killers with the sweetness and gentleness of romance, and I find myself craving more of her words every time I finish a book.

Lark is a character I see quite a lot of myself in, and it made reading the book that much more meaningful as well. Lachlan had so much depth and his characterization and chapters were a delight to read.

Brynne is an auto buy and auto read author for me for a variety of reasons, but this book just cemented her talent in my mind.

3.5 rounded up to 4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Zando for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The prompt follow-up to Butcher & Blackbird, Leather & Lark tells the story of Lachlan, contract killer and brother of Rowan Kane, and Lark Montague, best friend to Sloane and singer-songwriter/murderer. When a chance encounter leads to a marriage of convenience (AKA life and death), Lachlan and Lark are forced to team up to convince their families, friends, and sketchy business associates that their fake union is true love. But the deeper they become embroiled in their life saving marriage scheme, the more they begin to question whether or not “fake” is the word to describe what they have.

I enjoyed Butcher & Blackbird and I was looking forward to jumping into Lachlan and Lark’s story. To my surprise, had I not been stuck in an airport for hours with no other options, I probably wouldn’t have read beyond the meet cute. I found the whole Batman/Barbie banter to be super cringe and for a moment thought that the entire book was going to flop. It did not. The dialogue improved significantly and I grew to really like both of the main characters, maybe even more than Rowan and Sloane. Overall, a fun and comfortably predictable little romance.

Thanks NetGalley UK and publishers for this ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

Tropes are amazing : marriage of convenience, hate to love, second chance, groveling, grumpy/sunshine, murder, funny but gore ?… and more.

A danger looms over our characters head, and what more than a marriage could solve …?

Lark seems to be sunshine, talented, and happy, in contrary to the grumpy Lachlan. But, lets not get carried away by the apparences : Lachlan is deeply caring and sweet for Lark ; especially when he knows what she hides (corpses..). The fact that he read romance book to understand and talk to Lark, it was really sweet !! He really tried to learn about her and to apologize.

The storyline was simple but nonetheless catching and cool. I loved learning about those characters that are linked to the first book.

I enjoyed this prequel even though i had difficulties to be immersed as I forgot about what Lark went through, so I had to search some details … I would have loved some recap or confession. I would have appreciated more confessions about their pasts, it was only a scratch of the surface that we got. I think that it was that lack of description that prevented me from feeling close to Lark and Lachlan and truly enjoy their story.

Overall, I give 3 ⭐️, I didn’t fell in love with this prequel but I enjoyed it. I want to read the next one !

IM OBSESSED WITH THIS BOOK! Couldn't stop reading that I finished it all in one sitting. Will recommend if you love the MindF*ck series, and aren't bothered by the trigger warnings.

4.5/5 stars.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5 🌶🌶🌶/5

TW - teeth and tooth products (forced cannibalism / autocannibalism), human ornaments, enucleatipn (on page, graphic), numerous weapons and sharp objects (incl darts, scissors, guns, saws, knifes, grinders, an edger, enucleation spoon, fireworks), severed fingers (on page) / finger tips (past), vehicular collisions, drowning (sc, on page), cancer (aunt, terminal, throughout incl death on page, aftermath and grief), parental neglect (mentioned), child abuse (mentioned), child SA (implied), religious trauma, blasphemy, injured dog (cause not depicted), serial killers, death & murder (on page), cheating (sc on the FMC), predators / pedophiles (their crimes are mentioned / loosely recounted, FMC targets them throughout), drug dealers (fentanyl, sc), blood and gore, parental death (mentioned, recounted, incl murder), parental death (home invasion, recounted incl other injuries and trauma), torture (on page), claustrophobia and panic attack (on page), drugging of multiple characters, insomnia, bomb threat, stalking, kidnapping

CW - toys, choking, mild degradation, public play, pegging, light edging, temperature play

Tropes - "my wife", marriage of convenience, jealousy, serial killers, grumpy x sunshine, enemies to lovers, slow burn

Reading the next book in a series after an author gets picked up by a publisher is always nerve racking and for me, this book was no different...

I will say that I am very happy that, despite being picked up by a publisher, Brynne wanted to honour her original ARC readers and guarantee us an ARC which was nice. However, Netgalley will not be seeing me for other books outside of this world because the way this was formatted was so criminal it took me 3 weeks to start this after receiving the ARC.

Lark (FMC) wasn't for me. It felt like she was trying far too hard to be that girl and I was over it very early on. Her and Sloane being best friends didn't really come across in this book. She doesn't want to tell Sloane that she is a serial killer because she doesn't want to put her in danger. Idk about you, but that didn't make any fucking sense to me because Sloane is a notorious serial killer and Lark knows that.

Lark and Lachlan (MMC) didn't have much chemistry in this book imo which was annoying because I did like Lachlan's character; you could tell that he had a spark, she just didn't have the fuel. There were defo parts of this book I enjoyed and there were moments with Lark and Lachlan that I felt was cute but overall, the story was mid for me which was a shame after having read and enjoyed B&B.

The entire conflict in this book didn't make much sense to me because the villain wanted vengeance for something that had nothing to do with Lark and Lachlan and would have made more sense if this arc happened in B&B or a continuation of their story and was justified as an eye for an eye - this wasn't a strong enough story arc for me and left me basically like:🧍🏾‍♀️🧍🏾‍♀️🧍🏾‍♀️. Not only did the conflict not really make much sense to me, it was wrapped up quite quickly.

side note, loads of Keanu Reeves references and no Matrix? 👎

Scale:
⭐️ - would've DNF'ed / continued out of spite
⭐️⭐️ - shit, but whatever
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - meh, could've been better
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - lit 👅
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - loved it, inject this shit into my veins 🤪

🫑 - no smut
🌶 - no point
🌶🌶 - mediocre at best
🌶🌶🌶 - standard smut, hot
🌶🌶🌶🌶 - 🥵 okay, some CW
🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 - fuck me 🥵🥵 CWs / filthy with a side of filth - see Poison / Room Twenty-Two: Hide and Seek/ The Naughty List

⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶🌶

I'm going to preface this by saying I have LOVED all of Brynne's prior work. B&B and Marrow are high on my list of all time favs. I had *high* expectations for this one. Especially after meeting Loclan and Lark in B&B I was SO. EXCITED. for their dynamic together.

That being said.... this unfortunately fell WAY flat for me. The magic of their personalities and dynamic from B&B didn't translate into this book after the initial scene. It felt like the story wasn't even about the same people we'd previously met. In addition, the entire book felt rather disconnected. The characters would act one way and then think something else. It was very confusing and made it hard to get a true read on what their personalities were supposed to be. Also I felt like it was very wordy and there was alot of "telling us" instead of "showing us" moments.

Unfortunately it also was missing the shock value and magic factor we saw in B&B. No foods were ruined IMO and the gore wasn't like super shocking? It felt very tempered in comparison to B&B. And the conflict at the end wrapped up SUPER quickly while the middle of the book kind of dragged.

Things I did like:
Ethel. She was just *chefs kiss* and the highlight of the whole book.
The spice. It was a slow burn but the spice was hot af if you ignore the fact that I'm not sure where Loclan's Dom side came from 😬

I am so excited to finish this book, but for now I'm going to wait until it's finalized! Reading it on my Kindle the flow was off without having paragraph indents, which could be a fault of my own Kindle I'm honestly not sure. I put the book down about halfway through just for that reason because I know I'm going to love it, and I don't want this feature to discredit any of it.
Overall though I LOVED the banter between these two characters. The understanding too. The one thing I did feel that was missing a bit from the story was the background of Lark's family. I may have just missed a paragraph or so, or maybe it gets into more detail in the back half of the book, but I was a little confused as to why they even had to get married. All in all though, still can't wait for the rest of the story and will absolutely be carrying in my store!

This was fun but not as unhinged as I was expecting or as B&B. I really enjoyed Lark and her “sparkly” personality in contrast to how ruthless she could be (multiple deleter lol). Lachlan did a good job at winning me over as the book progressed and he started to show how caring and sweet he could be. Pretty slow burn but it made sense for the story and once it got going, IT GOT GOING and that was definitely worth it. Loved the scene where they had to take that guys eyeball and they kept being grossed out and saying they needed Sloane because it was definitely a nice little callback to B&B.

This one didn’t fully work for me. I just never connected with the characters or the plot, and I found it less engaging than Butcher and Blackbird. Yay for pegging though!