ARC Review: Always: A Legacy Novel by Bethany-Kris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Legacy NovelCross + Catherine #1
Release - October 2, 2017
Genre - Mafia Romance
Dual POV - 3rd person
Heat - 2.5 out of 5
Length - 412 pages

A wild boy.
A sly girl.

Cross Donati defines trouble. He does what he wants because he’s never known anything different. He’s unapologetic, and he owns it.

Catherine Marcello is every bit a good girl … on the outside. Her entire world is a legacy, and she lives it. She’s curious, and she’s exploring it.

She chases bad things.
He never learned to be good.

They’re late nights, stolen cars, first times, fist fights, leather jackets, beaches, bloody smiles, and life.
They’re vicious and precious, dangerous and harmless, innocence and sin. They are love.

Love is killing for someone.
Love is living for someone.

Sometimes, you can’t keep saving your heart when it means sacrificing it, too.
Sometimes, you have to learn to save yourself.
Sometimes, love has to fall, crash, and burn.

This is what love is like when you’re a principe and principessa della mafia.
This is what love is like when you’re Cross Donati and Catherine Marcello.

Find your copy of Always here:
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MY REVIEW

Always was very different from anything I’ve read from Bethany-Kris before, and I’ve read quite a lot from this author. It wasn’t just because it was a new adult romance or that the mafia angle, while prevalent throughout the story, especially with regards to the development of the characters, wasn’t the main angle of the plot. It was because my heart broke so many times during this read. So. Many. Times. I wanted to reach in and grab Cross and give him the biggest hug because he was absolutely EVERYTHING about this story and his sweet heart needed to be protected.

Earn a good woman by being a good man.

Cross Donati was a troublemaker. It wasn’t so much that he looked for trouble, but it always seemed to find him. He was brutally honest in both his speech and his actions, often coming across as bold, rude and cocky. But this boy was so much more than he appeared. He was thoughtful, considerate, kind, generous and loving to those he deemed worthy to share his existence.

Catherine Marcello was, to me, a spoiled brat. She seemed to be quiet, careful and obedient, but there was a darkness living inside of her. Where the darkness in Cross was out in the open for anyone to see, Catty’s was more ‘sly’ and less obvious to the naked eye. She wanted to be the perfect daughter who was the perfect friend and the perfect student and the perfect person, never realizing that perfection cannot ever be achieved. And when she failed, her fall was absolutely devastating.

I’m not the biggest fan of Catherine’s (I’m hoping this will change in the next book) and that’s why I couldn’t give this the five stars I usually award a book by this author. While I tolerated her immaturity given her age, I was too in love with Cross to accept the ways she hurt him. As I said, he was everything that was great about this story and the truest example of his awesomeness was the many ways that he loved Catherine.

He didn’t want to ever love someone else. No one else was like her. No one else was her. No one else could be.

I loved many elements of this story, such as the laughs I got from the conversations Cross had with his father, Calisto, and the crazy situations Cross found himself in. He was such a charmer and I can see his character endearing itself to any reader. If you’re a fan of angst, drama, and love, then you definitely need to add this book to your reading list.