Mafia Lite! When Heroes Fall by Giana Darling [Audiobook Review]

I am the villain of my own story…

Jilted by my fiance.
A disappointment to my family.
Haunted by my childhood traumas.
I felt so much all my life that I resolved to feeling nothing at all.

Until I met my match.

As the most infamous mafioso of the 21st century, Dante Salvatore was madly passionate, unequivocally bad, and entirely too dangerous to know. He was everything I abhorred, yet I found myself representing him in the biggest criminal trial of the decade.

I was so focused on winning and achieving the success I deserved that I didn’t notice the gorgeous black-eyed man’s effect on me until it was too late. My icy heart had been held too close to his flame and now I wouldn’t let Dante go down without fighting with everything I had in me.

Even if the cost of a new life with him meant the loss of my old life and everything I thought I held dear.

SERIES: Anti-Heroes in Love, BOOK 1

LENGTH: 12 hours, 31 minutes

PUBLISHER: Self Published

FIRST PUBLISHED: 2021, AUDIO PUBLISHED: 2/08/22

NARRATOR: Rose DiorO, Jeremy York

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Rating

Heat Level: Steamy

When Heroes Fall isn’t my first Giana Darling book; I had high hopes for this going in. Unfortunately, I was not wowed by this book. It doesn’t help that I figured out about 80% in that this book is a spin-off of another series – The Evolution of Sin Trilogy – which features Elena’s sister and her fiance. This book is also related to The Enslaved Duet, which is another series featuring Elena’s other sister. While you don’t necessarily have to read The Evolution of Sin Trilogy and The Enslaved Duet, I think it would have had a better reaction to this book, since her sister and her family are used as a plot device here. In fact, the reason why Elena decides to represent Dante is because of her other sister. I honestly think that this affected my enjoyment of the book because I didn’t feel that the stakes were that high since I didn’t have any emotional attachment to Elena’s family, which was highly featured in this book.

That being said, I immensely enjoyed reading about a strong heroine and her anti-hero. When Heroes Fall is about Elena, an attorney who is forced to represent Dante in a case of murder to save her sister. There is a part of this book that hints at events in The Enslaved Duet which is the reason why Elena has to represent Dante. Dante is a Mafia capo but we really don’t see him in action.

I classify this book as Mafia Lite because we don’t see many scenes showing Mafia dealings since Dante is out on bail and confined to his penthouse. While I don’t understand why Elena had to move in with him, I really liked her banter with Dante, especially when she officially moved in with him.

Another thing that I liked about this book is how Elana’s infertility issues were handled. This is a mild trigger for me due to personal reasons, and I liked that there was no “magic dick” that cured her concerns.

This book is steamy but Elena and Dante don’t hook up until about halfway through the book. Sparks do fly, but I didn’t feel the chemistry as much as I expected to. In fact, I felt that Dante was too overbearing.

Overall, I had a hard time connecting with both Elena and Dante and I am still debating whether I would be reading the next book in this duet. This book does end in a cliffhanger, so be aware of this before going in.

Thoughts on the Audiobook

The audiobook is narrated by Rose Dioro, and Jeremy York and they were perfect together. Jeremy York is one of my favorite male narrators and I have always enjoyed his narration. This is my first time listening to Rose Dioro and I love her voice. The pacing of the narration was great. I listen to audiobooks at 1.25x speed, and their voices didn’t warp at that speed so I had no issues listening to the audio.