Dark Heart (Darker Daddy Bodyguards #1) ~ Sue Brown

I stayed up until 5 am to read this book because I just could not put it down, I just was so invested.

Oh my god, did this book work for me! It’s been an entire month of me being in a reading slump where I could barely get into any books but this book was the outlier, I was just so into it.

Look, I’m a simple person, you tell me that a book has daddy kink and that the daddy is a bodyguard and that the boy is part of an important mafia family and I will read it. I love these tropes, so much and I really loved how they came together in this book.

Brief summary

Leon is a bodyguard who’s on leave because he got hurt on the job. Then one day someone from a local mafia gang shows up at his house to recruit him for a job. The leader of that gang needs Leon to guard his son, Nico, whom has a hit put against him. Turns out that Nico is a boy who’s looking for a daddy and Leon is the perfect man for the job, and they fall in love.

“You’re mine. I won’t let anything happen to you”

First, Nico is a brat and didn’t want to obey to what Leon told him to do and I loved how Leon was super growly with him and made him obey him no matter what. Leon wasn’t very strict, he just wanted to be sure that Nico got everything he wanted and for that he needed Nico to follow his cues. And Nico loved it when Leon disciplined him, which is why Nico was a brat to Leon so Leon would discipline him. I liked how Leon handled Nico when he was a brat and how he gave him everything Nico was looking for by being a brat, meaning discipline and someone who will love him no matter what, that just really worked tor me.

Second, A lot of the book was Nico acting like a brat and Leon not giving in to him and being strict with him and they had a lot of bantering scenes that way and those just really worked for me. I just loved how much chemistry there was in all of their exchanges. I just feel all of their chemistry pouring out of the pages every time they bantered with each other.

“You call me Trasker or Leon. You’ll do as you’re told, or you’ll end up over my knee.” […]

“Oooh, Daddy, you wanna spank my butt? Am I a naughty, naughty boy?”

“You don’t get to call me Daddy. You haven’t earned it, Domenico.”

Third, my favourite kind of daddies in books are the super growly daddies who make sure that their boys obey them, who are always there to take care of their boys and who are super possessive and that was the case for Leon and his character just really worked for me. Leon was everything I want a daddy in a book to be and his character was just so perfect to me.

Fourth, I absolutely love possessiveness in books. And Leon was so possessive of Nico and that just really worked for me. This book had so many scenes of Leon being super possessive and I loved each and every one of them.

Fifth, the relationship between Nico and Leon was just so sweet and I loved every minute of it. I loved how Leon was always taking care of Nico. Nico wasn’t used to having someone take care of him and was always shocked and in awe when Leon took care of him and it just made it even sweeter that Leon always did everything to take care of Nico.

“Why should I be modest when I’ve got the most beautiful boy in the world in my arms?”

Sixth, a lot of time in books with mafia families, I feel like there isn’t enough talk about the mafia part but it wasn’t this case for this book at all. I like how these was so much talk about the mafia and how the family ran and did their business, that was just really enjoyable to read about and I really liked it.

Seventh, I really enjoyed the ratio of the suspense side plot to romance in this book. I liked that the suspense side plot was important had a lot of book pages dedicated to it but never too many. There was still plenty of pages dedicated to the romance and more than enough pages for me to see why Leon and Nico were meant to be together. I thought that there was a perfect ratio of both suspense and romance in this book.

I cannot tell you how excited I am about the next book in this series, I just need that story so badly.

I just had the best time reading this book and I absolutely loved it. I haven’t been this engrossed in a book in a so long, this book just really worked for me!

Dark Heart is available to purchase as an ebook, or free using Kindle Unlimited