It’s been too long since we’ve reviewed an adult romance! The wait is finally over, and we know just the thing to get back into adult novels. Kait Ballenger transforms modern-day New York City in her spicy new book, Original Sinner.
Original Sinner is the first in a romantasy trilogy where Lucifer and the other seven deadly sins (AKA the Originals) are famous billionaires who run New York City. It features a steamy romance between Lucifer and a woman named Charlotte, who has just moved to the city in search of a place she belongs. Only she didn’t expect that place to be with the devil himself.
We absolutely devoured Original Sinner within a day, and we need more people to get on this train. Here are three of our favorite things about Kait Ballenger’s Original Sinner!
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Book Overview: Original Sinner
Content warning: religious trauma, graphic violence and murder, mentions of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, manipulation, stalking, references to drug use, alcohol abuse, forced confinement, and the nonconsensual drugging of a secondary character, mentions of forced marriage and forced pregnancy, and swearing (Please read at your discretion!)
Summary: The seven deadly sins keep high profiles in the Big Lust runs brothels, Sloth’s a media streamer…you get the picture. Pride, though, he’s more mysterious. You might know him as Lucifer—temptation irresistibly embodied. The paparazzi are dying for some burning-hot gossip. So when someone publishes my scathing but private rant about him, they eat it up. And now my job is on the line. After all, he is my boss.
With his vicious siblings vying for his power, Lucifer needs to distract the press, so he reframes my tirade as a lovers’ spat, demanding I play the devil’s fiancée. I need to be a good girl, smile for the cameras, nothing more.
But cocky and cruel as he is, his darkness awakens something wicked in me. Sexy and in control, he might just be the cure—an extra dose of sin to heal me from a lifetime of shame and subservience.
And I like it.
The Fake Dating
We’re just going to say it: a romance that includes a fake relationship with a billionaire bad boy is our bread and butter. Charlotte and Lucifer must convince the press that they’re an engaged couple, despite Charlotte’s initial contempt toward him. What we love most about Original Sinner is how both Charlotte and Lucifer changes for the better within the relationship. As the fake dating turns into real feelings, there’s no denying that they’re locked in for life (and whatever comes next).
Charlotte’s Character Development
Another thing we love about Original Sinner is how it develops Charlotte’s religious trauma relating to shame, self-worth, the concept of sin, and purity culture. This book touches on how much Charlotte felt shamed for wanting a life different from what her father and the church expected. She came to New York City to escape from her stifling past. But she must eventually unpack her traumas and unlearn the self-deprecating mindset that the men in her life forced onto her. It’s heartbreaking to read, but so, so real.
The Ending
Though this book focuses on Lucifer, we do meet the other Originals: Azmodeus (Lust), Mammon (Greed), Belphegor (Sloth), and Beelzebub (Gluttony). Satan (Wrath) and Leviathan (Envy) appear closer to the end, so they’re still wild cards for now. The siblings all compete for power and carry out their own agenda, however dark or unknown that may be. And after the plot twist and surprise ending, we can’t wait to see what happens next. Original Sinner is only the first book in Kait Ballenger’s new trilogy, but it’s a winner of a series starter!
Kait Ballenger’s Original Sinner drew us in with its steamy paranormal romance, but we stayed for the character development and redemption arc. It’s absolutely our new guilty pleasure.
Original Sinner by Kait Ballenger comes out March 25th, and you can order a copy of it here!
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