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What is with me and finding the family romances? Not complaining.
As you read this is another family romance but this time… they are adoptive siblings. Little Stranger kicks off with these two, adopted siblings brought together by the same loving family after each survived some pretty rough childhoods. Malachi was adopted first, and the trauma from his past left him mute, communicating only through sign language. When Olivia joins the family, though, something shifts. From the moment he sees her, Malachi becomes completely obsessed. Every glance, every moment, every touch, he wants all of her attention, and he doesn’t hide it.
At first, their parents brush it off as sibling attachment, but soon realize Malachi’s feelings for Olivia are far from brotherly. In an effort to protect their daughter, they try to keep the two apart, but that only fuels Malachi’s obsession. Things spiral quickly, ending in violence when Malachi’s actions nearly get their father killed. He’s sent to jail, and Olivia, heartbroken and terrified, is forced to testify against him.
In the second book, Little Liar, Olivia and Malachi are finally together and trying to move forward after everything that happened. For a while, things almost feel normal. But peace never lasts long in their world. When Olivia is kidnapped by Malachi’s enemies, everything he’s built threatens to fall apart. He’ll do anything to get her back, and this time, he’s not letting anyone stand in his way.
My Thoughts
This book was pretty interesting. I love a good forbidden romance tale. The first book is formatted in two parts: the past and present. I have a love-hate relationship with that. While it does get all the backstory out of the way, I sometimes like to have the main story mixed in so I’m not reading through flashbacks for ten plus chapters. However, even the flashback in this book was intriguing, so I am glad the author did it this way instead of the other way around.
This was one of the books I saw through BookTok and I had some high hopes. However, this series was quite a letdown for me. I’ll be honest the whole spider obsession threw me off a little bit in the spice scenes mainly because I could not imagine having spiders on me in any situation. Also, Olivia was a bit annoying. She felt like a completely defenseless female who couldn’t do anything for herself.
I will say though, I have a weak spot for books that have scenes where the main character has some sort of inhibiting factor about them (wheelchair bound, anxiety, or mute) and by the end of the book the character conquers it.
My Rankings
Characters: 3/5
Even though this is fiction, I felt like the characters were a bit too forgiving. Like the father—let’s be real, he almost died and was accepting of their relationship pretty much while he was still in the hospital. We can play like he was against it but couldn’t do anything about it, but I don’t know. Again, Olivia was a bit of an annoying character for me. She just felt kinda whiny.
Plot: 3/5
Everything happened pretty quickly. Some time passed between the major scenes, but despite that, I feel like she was kidnapped and saved pretty quickly.
Writing: 4/5
Regardless of how I feel, I did truly enjoy the writing of this book. It was immersive, and I loved it. Malachi’s fight with Olivia was well written, and in moments when Malachi was truly hurt, I felt hurt too. He was such a nice boy.
Spice: 3/5
The intimate scenes were well written and captured the emotional tension between Olivia and Malachi beautifully. However, the unconventional spider motif disrupted the sensual tone for me. It was creative and different, but personally not my preference. The connection between the characters carried the spice more than the actual scenes did.
Buy It or Shelve It?
Definite Shelve It for me. The book was okay and really well written, but I personally didn’t enjoy it enough to buy it. I do think it’s worth the read, though. Malachi was a surprisingly adorable character once you get to know him outside all the chaos, and that alone makes it worth giving this duo a chance.
📚 Read The Web of Silence Duet here!