Sinful Serenity by Mary C. Kim
- Brandan Wilburn-Herbert
- Aug 7
- 2 min read
Everyone on the socials that I follow that love black romance seemed to really enjoy this book. It reads like a black soap opera, specifically a black mafia soap opera, where the people are beautiful, the money is plentiful and the way to get ahead is just to keep killing the person that’s in the way. So on its face, the premise is promising. There’s a lot going on that keeps your attention, there’s drama, there’s misunderstanding, there’s unrequited love.m I mean it’s got all the makings for a good book. Except, and I hate that I’m even saying this, I didn’t enjoy it. It could be that I was already set up to fail based on all of the feedback and reviews and comments surrounding this book, because what I was expecting was not what I got.
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We start with the last 2 surviving heirs (Konflict and Serenity) of two families who have been killing each other for decades, being forced to marry. Konflict hates the Serenity, the Serenity has secretly crushed on Konflict in secret and had hopes that even though they’re both being forced into this marriage, there will be someway for them to find love. It is not going to easy. Hell, Konflict promises to not have sex with Serenity for a year so he can kill her without there being any repercussions!
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But it’s never as simple as that. He also had a crush on Serenity since he was a preteen, but because of their family’s drama, he couldn’t act on it. Now that he’s married to the one woman he has always wanted, he’s not going to allow himself to enjoy it for “reasons”.
There’s so much going on that I don’t want to give away, but one the main points and the primary reason this book has been so popular in my groups is that there are a lot of sexy sexy times. I’m talking chapter upon chapter upon chapter of no real plot, except for them to get to the sexy, sexy times. Of course it’s not as clean cut as I am summarizing because I don’t want to give the book away, but I will say that it is inventive and creative. There’s clear consent and Serenity’s pleasure is always at the forefront. It’s just so much. So much so that I started to rethink whether or not I had outgrown these types of books! It took me too long to finish because I (again I hate to say it) was getting bored of reading about sex.
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The ending has a slight twist (heed the trigger warnings) but it all works out because that’s the promise of a romance book; a HEA. And, even with how so-so I am with this book, I am curious to know about the new players that were introduced at the end of the book and the other families.
3 out of 5 stars/Recommend
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