Don’t walk alone at night.
I don’t think my parents ever told me that, but I learned it well enough. The world is full of things that want to hurt us, because they can. Because we make it easy.
Not for the faint of heart, Five Brothers is a journey in dark romance.
One woman learns the secrets of the five Jaeger brothers.
On the other side of town, in the dark glades, under the rain…
Macon is the oldest. Thirty-one. Ex-Marine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile.
Army is twenty-eight. A single dad with the most beautiful green eyes. He has no idea who he is, if not a Jaeger brother.
Iron will be in prison soon. You’d never think it to meet him. He’s a nice guy, actually. But he can’t stop reacting to everything.
Dallas is the one I hate. Twenty-one, cruel, and selfish. He takes and then throws away whatever’s left.
And Trace is mine. Or he was for about two seconds. No one can tame him for long.
Not that I ever wanted to. It was fun, but now I need to go home. Back to my side of the tracks. Away from the swamps and these men. To my parents’ big house. On my clean street. Where I’m never dirty or messy or hot. And I will. I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning. I just want to crash on the couch tonight.
Their house is dark and quiet, everyone else is asleep. Except for one. He sees me crying and comes at me from behind. I let him wrap his arms around my body and hold me tightly. His breath is on my neck, his fingers are in my hair, and he doesn’t stop there.
I don’t think it was Trace.
I’ll just tell you right now: if you like your romance sweet and closed door, this is not the book for you. This one is dark, friends. Think graphic and detailed sex scenes and violence. There is a content warning at the beginning, and I advise readers to take it seriously. Your mental health is important.
The book can be read as a standalone, but the previous book Tryst Six Venom introduces this world, the characters and the power imbalance between the “right side” and “wrong side” of the tracks in this Florida town. It’s helpful to read beforehand, although Penelope does a good job of catching readers up. Another thing to note is that the first book is a sapphic romance between two girls, while this book is a reverse harem book with five brothers and one girl. They are very different, but at the same time, both are very dark.
Krisjen is our main heroine here, and at only eighteen years old, she is fairly inexperienced when it comes to love. She is sunshine and rainbows. Kind and caring, she has a positive outlook. Krisjen saves this book for me. I really need someone I like in a book, someone I want to cheer for, and she fills this role. You can’t help but like her. She comes from a very wealthy family on the “nice” side of town. She went to the best schools and is accustomed to the best of everything. Even so, she finds herself a little lost after finishing high school. Her parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce that has left her mostly responsible for her younger siblings, and she has no idea what she wants to do with her life. A fling with bad boy Trace Jaeger is just the thing. She is drawn to the Jaeger household and the brothers inside. She sees each of them for who they are and what makes them special. And they in turn, warm up to having her cheerfulness around.
Beyond the romance, we get into the politics and power plays of this small town. The Jaeger brothers live in the swampy part of town, literally on the wrong side of the tracks. In the bay, they have held developers off from taking their ancestral land for generations. As readers get to know the brothers and their neighbourhood, we get to see how they’ve built a community and why it is so important for them to protect.
One of the more fun elements of the book is the playlist included. I really enjoyed listening to the music while I read and spotting each song that came up in the text as I went along.
Five Brothers takes readers on a heck of a journey. If you’re into reverse harem and dark romance, you might like this book.
Thank you, Berkeley Romance for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
