Review: Riot

Wednesday 22 February 2017
Riot Riot by Tillie Cole
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My rating is not just for this book, which was brutally epic, but for the Scarred Souls series as a whole. I don’t know where the idea came from for Tillie Cole to write a book about blood pits and gulags but it was brilliant.

With numbers in place of names for the main protagonists, the characters can get a little misleading at times but you soon fall into accepting these people by their numeric pseudonyms. This story features 152, a girl taken from a Russian orphanage into Georgian slavery. Now Arziani’s High Mona, she serves him and only him, but when Arziani needs a way to break the will of his champion fighter, 901, he does so by forcing him to take 152 on a nightly basis.

152 is fitted with a drugged bracelet which causes her indescribable pain until she is relieved of her suffering by 901. 901 resists Arziani’s intention to try and find his ultimate vulnerability but he struggles when he witnesses the pain and suffering experienced by 152. Deciding to take away her pain and to not become attached, 901 tries in vain to ignore his growing feelings for 152.

Whilst 901 fights and 152 suffers at the hands of Aziani, 152’s brother, Valentin, works with Luka and Zaal to rescue her and to once and for all end Arziani’s tyranny. Valentin, having killed Arziani’s sister, still has a score to settle and is more than relishing the task of bringing down Arziani and thus freeing those held in captivity, including his sister.

With one last battle on the horizon, Luka, Zaal and Valentin head to Georgia in order to rescue 152. Inessa, 152, and Ilya, 901, know nothing of their pasts, apart from their names revealed to them by Inessa’s chiri, Maya, but 152 dreams of a man with scars on his face but until she comes face to face with him she has no idea that it’s her long lost brother.

This series may sound unusual, and it is, but it is also a powerful story of love, survival and hope and one highly recommended, especially if you love your romance stories with a hard and unyielding edge to them.

This ebook was kindly provided by the author, publisher and Netgalley prior to release date in return for an honest and unbiased review.



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