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The McGowan Mafia series by Effie Campbell is such a spicy and amazing series. When I tell you I read 4 books in like 2-3 days, I am not joking! I would have read all 5 but I actually didn’t know the 5th book was released until I started writing the review for book 1-4.
The series is:
- Dark Escapes
- Dark Enemies
- Dark Obsessions
- Dark Desires
- Dark Corruption
Each book is a standalone technically, so you can just read one if it draws you in. But I read it one after the other, and it was kind of nice because you got to see a little bit of character development and how each character got to have their own story. I enjoyed that certainly and I pretty much inhaled the entire series. But if you just want to dive in because one stands out to you, you definitely can!
I felt book 1-3 were really like the dark romance, morally grey, attitude woman kind of story. They were 1000% my cup of tea and I loved the story. While the books were dark of course, overall they weren’t dark dark and if you got to some of the darker themes, you could kind of fast read by them. But, I wasn’t as much of a fan of book 4 – mostly because there was a wider age gap, the FMC used “daddy” which I’m not personally a huge fan of, and it was more about hedonism kind of themes which didn’t really interest me. It was a good book and kept me engaged, but wasn’t what I was expecting based on the first few books. But the last one, Dark Corruption, which had a similar vibe to book 4 I loved – that one worked for me!
These books are SPICY. I’m talking like 5 out of 5 on the spice scale. These are absolutely not books for under 18 by any means due to the language and the themes that are in the book. But good god did I keep wanting to come back for more! I will note that a lot of the words used for certain actions were quite vulgar as well. I know not everyone likes certain words being used so if that’s not your cup of tea, a bit of a warning there.
If you are looking for a deep story with your romance then this isn’t it. This really is primarily focused on the smut and spice side with a hint of a mafia story – the traditional mafia vibe that you would expect.
Going into it, honestly, I had no clue that they were based up in Scotland which I felt was a bit of a struggle. I felt they were in New York the whole time and then when they’d mention going between Glasgow and Edinburgh, that was really the only reminder that this wasn’t based in the USA. Maybe a bit more of the local dialect could have added a bit more to really make you feel immersed. But if you are reading this kind of series, you aren’t going to be really focusing on that. That’s just me being nit picky to be honest.
Once again, this isn’t a book that with a review you can say too much about. Each MMC was hawttttt, each female had that spunk and the spice was perfectly spicy. This is most likely going to be a book series that I will want to add into my comfort rotation, along with The Predator by Runyx.
All I can really say is it was a page turner and really hit the spot nicely for me. Exactly what I wanted. I initially fell into the book from some reel I saw on Instagram related to Book 3 and I am glad that I did because gosh, was it good! I’d give this a solid 4/5 as it was enjoyable, decently written for what it was and kept me wanting to come back for more. I was engaged and it was an absolute page turner!
Happy Reading!
