Books, Boots and Bakeries

Okay. I’ve just realised I never finished blogging about Lauren Gilley’s Sons of Rome series and honestly? That feels like a crime. A genuine, bookish travesty. Because this series has everything I love: ancient curses, found family, violent immortals, love in impossible places, and Dragon Slayer might just be the one that broke me a little.

This is where the big players really step onto the board: we’ve got the literal sons of Rome—Romulus and Remus (yes, the ones with the wolf myth), Val (a noble, haunted disaster), and Vlad. Yes. That Vlad. Vlad the Impaler.

And I don’t know how she did it, but by the end of the book, I was… slightly in love with him? The brooding, violent, charismatic monster who should absolutely be a red flag (!!!) somehow, Lauren Gilley made him the moment. He’s dangerous, calculating, and still manages to carry a deep thread of loyalty and pain that’s hard to ignore.

Then there’s Val. My heart hurts for this man. I want to sit him down, make him a cuppa, and tell him he deserves better. He’s honourable in a world that eats honour alive, and the choices he’s forced to make in this book? Brutal. Necessary. Devastating.

On top of all that emotional carnage, we’ve got new players joining the crew—witches, wolves, and vampires from every corner of the map. The crew is expanding in ways that feel exciting and terrifying. And then there’s the Russians. Dear god, the Russians. I don’t even know how to explain what’s going on there except to say: it’s tense. It’s bloody. It’s full of power plays and ancient grudges. I don’t think any of this is going to fall neatly into place for our crew—nothing about this world is ever simple—but I don’t think it’s going to fall into their laps either. If anything, it’s gearing up for something explosive, and absolutely no one is walking away clean.

What Gilley does best is build a world where everything feels earned. The politics, the betrayals, the alliances that make no sense until they suddenly do—it all simmers with tension. The dialogue is sharp, the action is bone-crunching, and somehow in the middle of all that, she gives you tender little moments that absolutely wreck you.

By the end of Dragon Slayer, I was completely unmoored. I had a book hangover the size of Europe, was deeply broken for Val, a little bit in love with Vlad (and Nik), and wildly stressed about how the hell any of this is going to be resolved.

And honestly? I cannot wait to tell you about Alexi Nicholaevich—the last tsarevich of Russia. Holy gods, that book is up next, and it took everything I thought I knew about this series and flipped it on its head.

Stay tuned. You’re not ready. I wasn’t either.