Book Review: A Mafia Romance That Blew Me Away

Happy Monday book lovers! 🤎✨ Mafia romance isn’t usually my thing — I think I’ve only read two (counting this one 🫣) but I truly enjoyed it!

✔️marriage of convenience
✔️second chance
✔️mafia romance
✔️rival families
✔️romeo & juliet retelling

Through Any Fire by Katherine Carter

This book had me at marriage of convenience. Mafia romance isn’t usually my go-to subgenre, but I decided to give this one a shot — and I regret nothing. I devoured it in just a few hours because, truly, I couldn’t get enough of Loren and Callahan.

What is it about?

Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to.

If I had my way, I would’ve married him in a heartbeat. Even knowing the consequences, I would’ve fallen willingly and gladly into his raging storm. It didn’t matter that we were teenagers, that he was the heir to the rival Keane family, or that I was arguably too young to know he was the love of my life. When we were together, all that danger was just static noise we tuned out…until that fateful day.

Eleven years later, I can still find the sharp ache of his betrayal right where it burrowed. It’s haunted me with each breath, no matter how often I lied to myself I was moving on.

Only now, my brother has gone missing. Sent into Keane territory on a mission to be made, no one has heard from Mason in weeks. Any goodwill I had with the Bianchi family dried up long ago, when my father died. Now, the only way I can save my brother is to swallow the bitter sting of betrayal and beg Callahan for help. Somehow, I choke the words out, each one more painful than the last, but for Mason, I’d do anything.

The only catch? Callahan needs a wife. And he’s been waiting for the day I return. (Goodreads)

The story is fast-paced, super readable, and — most importantly — totally absorbing. These characters are obviously morally grey and the love, the yearning, the inevitability of them? UGH. YES.

Callahan isn’t just a man who loves — he loves fiercely. Intentionally. Obsessively. He yearns, and he would do anything — yes, ANYTHING — to have her. And Loren? A lovable FMC who absolutely matches his intensity. Even when she made reckless or impulsive choices, she showed up. She proved she’s not some damsel in distress — she’s a fighter, and I was so here for it.

Were there a few loose ends? Sure. But nothing that took away from the main arc or the emotional punch of the story.

I’m already SO invested in this world and these characters. I’m SO ready for Alice’s. Katherine, please tell me we’re getting Cohen & Alice because I NEED THAT. But even if he’s not the MMC, I know it’ll still be amazing.

And that epilogue? Stunning. Let’s normalize epilogues in books — they give me life.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

love, Lin