Raze (Scarred Souls Book 1) by Tillie Cole
General Genres & Darkness Level - Basic info & Content
Darkness Level 5, Contemporary, Mafia, MMA
Tropes & Triggers - Although I try my hardest not to include any spoilers, these tags may give away a little more of the story. If you don't want to risk the possibility of knowing a wee bit extra about the type of content and aren't too bothered anout exact tropes then don't click here 🙂
Abused Heroine, Abduction, Anti Hero, Domestic Abuse, Emotionally Scarred Hero, Jealous/Possessive, Bratva Mafia, MMA/Cage Fighter, Rape & NonConsent, Obsessive, Revenge, Virgin Hero
My Rating is 3.5 Stars
Darkness Level – 5 out of 6
Pretty damn dark and triggering, woohoo!
Click Below For The Spotify Playlist For This Series
Author: Tillie Cole
Series or Standalone: 4 Book Series – Completed
Reading Order:
Raze – Book 1 – 272 pages. Get it HERE
Reap – Book 2 – 238 pages. Get it HERE
Ravage – Book 3 – 336 pages. Get it HERE
Riot – Book 4 – 301 pages. Get it HERE
Full Series Box Set – Get it HERE at a lower cost than buying the books separately.
Click Below To Get Yours From:
Amazon HERE
Blurb
NOW WITH BONUS SCENE!
To take back life, one must first face death . . .
Conditioned in captivity to maim and kill, prisoner 818 becomes an unstoppable fighter in the ring. Violence is all he knows. Death and brutality are the masters of his fate.
After years of incarceration in an underground hell, only one thought occupies his mind: revenge. Revenge on the man who wronged him, condemned him and turned him into this: a rage-fueled killing machine.
Kisa Volkova, daughter of the head of New York’s Russian bratva, lives a protected but unhappy life. As manager of The Dungeon, her father’s underground fighting and gambling syndicate in Brooklyn, grief and pain fill her days. As well as her domineering father, Kisa’s fiancé Alik controls every aspect of her life, dominating her every move, until one night changes everything.
After a chance encounter with a beautiful, tattooed man on the street, Kisa stumbles into a world of feeling and desire as yet unknown to her. And when this man is announced as The Dungeon’s newest fighter, her life is turned upside down.
Kisa becomes obsessed with him, yearns for him, needs to possess this mysterious man beyond saving . . . the man they call Raze.
My Review Of Raze by Tillie Cole
This book was a good read. It was intense, heartbreaking, hot, and dark. It certainly pulls on the heartstrings but kind of evens out with the sex and violence, lol, ya feel me?
It’s the first in a four-book series about an illegal “fight to the death” cage-fighting ring. Run by the various gang bosses around the world. This story is set in Brooklyn and Georgia and involves mainly the Bratva.
Right from the start it really pulled me in as it starts with a bang…literally, lol. The characters are believable and the story keeps you interested…until about 80% of the way through when it started to lose me a little.
I’ll be honest, I love me some gore, sex, and violence. A little dominance here, a little BDSM there, ya know? But I’m really not too good with the lovey-dovey, gushing tears of happiness and the super soft side of the men with a dreamy happily ever after.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m totally messed up? But, I am what I am, lol. I do enjoy a HEA but not too much on the sappy stuff, please.
There were definitely some dark scenes here and it made me cringe with the violence that was endured by pretty much all of the characters at one point or another, so, yup, trigger warnings.
KISA
Kisa is a Bratva princess, the only daughter of the big mafia boss man. And as such, she is engaged to the only son of one of the “Three Red Kings”. She isn’t spoiled as you might expect but she instead does everything she can to act according to the wishes of the “Family”.
She’s kind and gentle but also quite smart. I’ll give her her due, she can deal with the uglier side of the Mafia lifestyle and runs the gym for the Dungeon fights.
Sadly she is engaged to a very mentally and physically abusive man, who has her believing he needs her in order to stay even remotely sane and so she feels it’s her duty to stick with him.
For years, Alik wanted me. From childhood, he always wanted me close. He was always angry, starting fights and getting into trouble. He would tell me he heard voices in his head, voices that would tell him to hurt people, but when he was around me, he was calm, the voices went away. - Kisa
ALIK
Alik is no right in the heid man! He has severe rage issues and hears voices telling him to do terrible things to people. The only thing in the world that calms him at all is Kisa and he is majorly obsessed with her.
His possessive and controlling nature, as well as his being the undisputed champion of the Dungeon for many a gorey year, means that everyone is terrified of him. And for good reason. The man loves to torture and kill. He has even killed a man for just looking at “his” Kisa.
It would appear that he has been brought up by an abusive father, whom I suspect may also be a sociopath. He’s the guy you love to hate in this story.
His head cocked to the side as his eyes narrowed. “For a minute there, I thought you’d left before I gave you permission. For a minute there, I thought you had defied me, Myshka … For a minute there, I thought you’d lost your fucking mind.” - Alik
As you can see, he’s a pretty scary fuckin’ crazy-arsed mofo. Tillie Cole really wrote this character well. He’s very intimidating, even on paper!
RAZE / 818
Raze has led a seriously fucked up life since his early teens. He’s been tortured, raped, drugged and all manner of horrific things that you can think of.
He remembers nothing of his life before the “Gulag” and is basically a killing machine that “They” created. His story starts when he’s introduced to his new life at around fourteen years old and gets his first glimpse of what’s to come.
A loud rip sounded from the cage, the sound slicing down his back and bringing vomit to his mouth. As a huge spectator abruptly moved out of the way smiling in celebration, everything became clear. The fighters in the cage were kids … boys who looked no older than himself. And they were fighting … to the death … - Raze
Sixteen years later his life is death.
That’s it.
That’s all he knows, until one day all of the prisoners escape and he has only one thing on his mind. Revenge. Although he doesn’t remember why, he has a name and an address that he’s been remembering for the last sixteen years. Alik Durov.
SEX SCENES
The sex scenes were hot (the consensual ones were anyway) but there wasn’t much of a build-up to them. Not much anticipation.
“Touch me, here, Raze. Lick me. Suck me here on my clit. Make me come in your mouth.” - Kisa (I do love a woman who isn’t afraid to ask for what she wants) It was the first time I’d ever tasted pussy. Her scent drove me forward. Using my thumbs to spread her lips, I circled the tip of my tongue over her clit. Kisa moaned and jerked as soon as it made contact. My tongue became frenzied, licking her clit over and over, and Kisa’s legs began to shake, her nails clawing at my bare shoulders. - Raze
FINAL THOUGHTS on RAZE by Tillie Cole
I really did enjoy this book, even with a fair bit of sappiness. The characters were so well written and you could clearly picture them all in your head. The suspense was great and it was fast-paced and full of action. But it didn’t leave me feeling that I wanted to read the next book in the series.
The next book is about Talia, Kisa’s best friend, but I think I’ll give it a miss.
3.5 stars.