Honey Cut

Honey Cut is the second full novel in the Lyonesse trilogy by Sierra Simone and it picks up right where Salt Kiss finishes, so it is important that you read Salt Kiss first before you read this book. There is also a prequel novella, Salt In The Wound and while it’s not necessary to read before Salt Kiss and Honey Cut I absolutely believe it should be as it just gives us a little bit of background and context to the characters we are going to fall in love with and be infected by.

This entire series centres around three main characters, the dominant Mark Trevena, the sweet Tristan Thomas and the not-so-innocent Isolde Laurence and their feelings for each other as they try and navigate the life they have agreed to versus the life they so desperately want.

Isolde and Mark are engaged to be married and on the outside it appears to be a match made to show off Marks dominance and power, however, in reality, the marriage premise is purely transactional and both Mark and Isolde have their own motives to agree to the wedding and what’s a marriage without both of you falling for your bodyguard and trying to pretend you haven’t while he also tries to navigate his feelings.

The novel is told from both Isolde and Tristans POV and we get a good mix from both. Isolde is not the sweet innocent little 22 year old she looks like on paper and Tristan is battling with demons from when he was enlisted in the army and it’s both their demons that bring them close together and once they’ve crossed the line they can’t give each other up even though they do try.

The tension that Sierra has created between all three chracters, builds page by page, chapter by chapter and I honestly loved that. It was a will they/won’t they style build up and then when things started to be revealed I was waiting for the fallout and when the fallout came, I was pleasantly surprised and there was some foreshadowing from previous books and bonus scenes that made me smile as I was reading it in this book.

The characters are my favourite and while they are all different, they each bring an element to this story that you’re rooting for them all to be together from the very beginning and while this is a very smutty and spicy story which features MM/MF and MMF scenes between all three main characters, there is a complexity to their feelings and personalities and I just am in love with how Sierra Simone writes her characters.

Alongside the main love story of the book, there is a running plot that is happening in the book and it’s almost like a thriller as there’s someone out to get Mark and his business, Isolde is also using Mark to get information because of her uncle in the Vatican and Tristan is somehow involved too because there’s a common name that they have all heard of: Ys.

Trying to find out who Ys is and what their agenda is, is part of what makes this story just absolute perfection for me and the fact that it ended in a cliffhanger and I’m not going to lie, it was completely out of the blue and it’s not what I could have predicted but I love when that happens and it sets up the final book Bitter Burn in such a good way that I will not be able to wait until it releases and we get to hear from the main man himself: Mark Trevena.

If you like a good romance, with plenty of tension and spice and angst with a little bit of mystery and plotting and a not so innocent FMC then this book is absolutely the one for you and I highly recommend. One of my favourite reads of the year.

You can get your copy here:

https://amzn.to/3Rwu5rM - Honey Cut (Paperback) - Sierra Simone