Boozy Bookgasms - All This For a Tiara?

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

A Devious Arrangement by J Wilde Join Lynn, Kim and Jen as they discuss a fake relationship that turns very real, a hot MMC who is stalkery in an adorable way, and a plot that exists solely to justify why we had to climb a rope in gym class to pass middle school. Put on your favorite tierra and join us for the cocktails and laughs! Signature Cocktail: The Polished Princess We went with The Polished Princess as a nod to Bash’s ‘princess’ Anastasia, who isn’t nearly as innocent as she looks—and that’s exactly why he can’t stay away. This cocktail starts sweet, ends bold, and lives in that same tension of desire and deception. It's absolutely beautiful.  Ingredients: 8 fresh cranberries, divided 3/4 ounce simple syrup 1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice 1 pinch pumpkin spice 1 1/2 ounces vanilla vodka 1 large egg white In a cocktail shaker, combine 5 cranberries, simple syrup, lemon juice, and pumpkin spice. Muddle well. Add the vanilla vodka and egg white and dry shake without the ice. Once thoroughly shaken add ice and shake again. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and add 3 floating cranberries for a beautiful garnish.    Please note you can change out the primary liqueur for tequila, or gin as well. 

And you were on a roll too. I'm sorry. I'm just fucking everything up today, guys. You should fire me. Fire me right now. I'll settle for a demotion. Your dear, great. Book love literature fans.

We're in for some boozy bookgasms today. Join three cousins creating a titillating headspace where steamy romance novels collide with strong cocktails. So sit back, sip slow, and enjoy. the ride. Welcome back to Boosy Book Gasms. I'm Lynn. I'm Jen. And I'm Kim. And tonight we're recapping Devious Arrangement by Jay Wilder. This book blends Secret Society's generational trauma, family loyalty, and a romance that escalates very quickly around a mission to recover a priceless tiara. But before we get into all of that, Kim, what are we drinking tonight? Tonight, we are

going with the polished princess. We went with this as a nod to Bash's Princess Anastasia, who isn't nearly as innocent as she looks, and that's exactly why he can't stay away from her. This cocktail starts sweet, ends bold, and lives in the same tension of desire and deception. Got some fresh cranberries, simple syrup, some lemon juice, pumpkin spice, which I thought was interesting, vanilla vodka, and a white egg. Prossy. It's good. It's good.

It's pretty, though. I'm really excited to do this book. It was really interesting. I kind of like the premise. We start out Devious Arrangement with. a prologue, which, Kim, how do we feel about prologues? Prologs are good? Or we hate them to. Prologs aren't bad. It's the damn epilogue that gets me every time. I don't want to end the book already. Just end it. Well, we start with a prologue that explains who Anastasia Volkov is

and who she becomes based on her five-year-old birthday party. She's clearly from a very wealthy family. Her nanny is curling her hair, gives her a tiara and says, you know, your mom used to have one of these. She runs downstairs, finds her mom and sees all the balloons. and the decorations for her birthday party. And she is saying, all the kids around me are boring except for Sebastian. And as she pulls on a balloon, she accidentally drops it. It goes all the way to the highest ceiling. And she's sad.

And her mom says, oh, I'll give you another one. And she's like, I want that one, like most five-year-olds. So her mom climbs up on the counter to go and try and get the balloon. Anastasia sort of runs out of the room. She hears something that distracts her. And in the meantime, Anastasia's mom falls to her death. Her dad runs into the room and is just dramatically sad, but he also becomes very cold and cruel, fires the nanny immediately who's trying to comfort Anastasia.

Nikolai, her brother, is having to comfort her. That is how we end the prologue. He blames the five-year-old for the mom's death. She lives with that her whole life. Very aggressively, too. And so it just becomes her and her brother, Nikolai, her older brother, against the world. And the dad sort of checks out. But we fast forward 20 years later.

And now the dad is also dead. And we find out that he's left Anastasia and Nikolai with massive amounts of debt. And that debt is tied to the Salvatore family. And they are mobsters. And they say, like, you owe us all this money. And if you don't pay, you're not going to like the consequences. And very much allude to they're going to put her into human trafficking, probably kill the brother. And so they are now in desperate straits and go to their maternal grandmother for help. Now, they have never met their maternal grandmother. And she is, I cold and she runs the Russian mob or the Bratva. Lots of dangerous, very wealthy people. I get them mixed up with the secret society. Like, what's the different? Well, and then the secret society is the saints, which is kind of mobish as well with weird ceremonies. They're the top mob, though. Yeah, they are the top mob. So we've got the Salvators, which are, you know, asshole gangsters. And then you have the Russian Brotha, which is the maternal grandmother. And the grandmother says, I'll help you. But you have to marry who. You have to marry who. whoever we want you to. And Nikolai, the brother, is going to have to run the Brattha. And Anastasia says, no, we have to be able to do something else. And she says, well, your mother, when she ran away from home, stole our tiara, which we heard about when the nanny was helping her when she was five. And she says, so you guys have to give it back to me. Nikolai can get it and we'll keep you captive. And Anastasia says, no, he's done everything for me, my whole life. I'll go get the tiara. Like, leave it to me. Fast forward. She is trying to figure out how she's

going to do this. And we introduce the saints. Now, this is, I think, the second book. in these standalone series. So I think the Saints have been introduced in a different book. Lindsay loves when we do this. I hate this. I love it. I absolutely hate coming into the middle of a series. But the Saints are the Secret Society that we alluded to or potential mobsters. They're a bunch of really, really wealthy people. And they're the most powerful of all of these groups that kind of interact and are adjacent to each other. Anastasia believes that they must have the tiara because her mom ran away from her family married her dad and they became saints. So the idea is that they probably gave the tiara as like collateral to them entering into the secret society. Yes, they're buy-in. That's their penance here. Take this and then give us power to corrupt.

And because Nikolai and Anastasia's dad has passed away, right? Nicolai is also meant to be kind of succeeding into this life and they've grown up in and around the secret society. So she attends a ball. Apparently, this is very common with the Saints. This is where we are introduced to Sebastian Bash Everett. And you'll remember that Anastasia mentioned Sebastian at her five-year-old birthday party. So they have sort of orbited each other but never been friends. We learned that Sebastian is one of four brothers. But his older two brothers are more powerful in the Saints Secret Society. And his oldest brother is like the head of the Secret Society. And he's young. He's bored. He's powerful. He kind of plays with people. He's just sort of aloof because he's kind of tired of this shit. Poor little rich boy. Yeah, but everybody coweres down to him. They're all like, oh, you're in charge and they back off and he says move, they move. Oh, 100%. Like his brother's essentially a king figure. And so all the brothers are powerful by connection. It's like a dom. Don. Very different story. There's a different. He's a dawn, not a dom. Totally different.

genres. We don't know. We didn't read the first book. I mean, that's okay. We're not judging. Yeah. So he sees Anastasia flooding around this ball and she looks very focused. She's really not talking to anybody and he's now intrigued. So he leaves his brother kind of off to the side and says, I'll be back. And he kind of stalks her and tries to figure out what she's doing. She walks into this ball and says it must be here in this hotel ballroom. And so she's just hanging on in the outskirts of the ballroom hoping to find a secret door. And this is the first part of this book that I'm just very, very intrigued by. Like, she just knew there must be a door and finds it, shockingly enough. But she finds the secret door, goes into the more private area that the saints utilize and she knows

she's not supposed to be there. And Sebastian comes upon her and she gets scared. She thinks she's going to get in trouble. He says, oh, no, this is going to be fun and walks her into a room where there's a private poker game going on. And there are saints and non-saints in the room. They're completely shocked that she's there. This feels very illegal. Oh, yeah, like an underground. Well, it's definitely underground gambling, but I think the poker game shouldn't happen even by the Saints standards. So they're kind of nervous that Bash is going to tattle on them. So Bash kicks two people out of the game and sits her down and starts calling her Stasia as like a little nickname. And she hates it, but he keeps doing it. And he very much is just trying to kind of rib her. And she's actually really good at poker. So she

takes the guys for everything they're worth. He loaned her 50 grand so she could play. She didn't have any money. Frented her. So she didn't have to give it back. She didn't know if she was going to have to give her winnings back, but she was like, man, if he just gave this to me, that would help me. One of the guys gets really pissed. It accuses her of cheating and Bash stands up and says, get the fuck out. So everybody leaves. She didn't decide, hey, I'm plying this guy with alcohol. Maybe I can use him to find out where the tiara is. But he's kind of a professional drink. So he's not really... He's got an iron liver.

Not drunk because she's sipping. He knows exactly what she's doing. And she says, hey, let's play strip poker, thinking that it'll keep him distracted enough so that she can, like, ask him questions while he's drinking. And he knows exactly what she's doing, but gives her enough to keep her interested. And she says, well, where might you keep really valuable things? And he's like, oh, in the vault, duh. As one done. And she's like, yes, I've done it.

What a big reveal. What? Not under the mattress? And it happens to be in the next room. Right. Crazy. It starts getting a little too intense and somebody busts into the room, kind of breaks them apart and she runs out. So she knows now that there's a vault in that building and that she needs to get to it. This secret society has masked robed ceremonies as secret societies too. Yeah. Don't they all? And Nikolai is a member because the dad is a member, now Nikolai's a member. So she goes into his closet. and finds his cape and his mask, their wolf masks. But then she realizes, like, how am I to pull this off? So she calls Nicola and says, hey, here's my master plan. I'm going to sneak into the secret society, a dress like you, to get the mask.

He freaks the fuck out. He's like, no, you aren't. This is a bad idea. Don't do it. And she does it anyway. If he gets caught sharing his rope to someone else, the penalty is dismemberment. Yeah, they will kill him. And he's worried for her safety, too.

But, yeah, I mean, this is really not good. And they scare the shit into him and he tries to scare it into her. But she's like really fearless. But grandmother is keeping her brother captive. And they need out of this debt. She has a motive. But not captive enough to not give him his phone. Well, he's pretty comfortable there.

He's got nice clothes. You just got to stay at the mansion. Yeah. You know. Well, they want him to be the Bratva heir. So they're kind of treating him as such. But he has to stay there. Like he can't get out so that she does what they want.

her to do. So she puts on this robe and realizes she's like a ballerina. She used to be a ballerina. And so she's very small. She says, well, how do I bulk up and you go get my bulletproof vest out of my closet? But she does it. And she goes to the next ball and hides her disguise in a closet. And then says, I wonder how I'm going to get to change these clothes. So she bribes a waiter to basically make a scene so that she can get out of the ball so she can put on her disguise. But Bash is clocking her. He likes her. So he gets distracted by the distraction and then realize like where the hell did she go goes to the waiter and realizes he's got a wad of cash and she says oh she's created this distraction i see so he knows something's up but he doesn't know what she's doing so she manages to get into the ceremony bash has to be at the

front with his brothers she just like bides her time and then after the ceremony's over goes to find the vault and much like the secret door finds it immediately there is the tiara In the middle of the room. Look at glass box. There it is. Easy to find. It's an empty vault room. So she goes in there and it's obviously locked, although I'm not sure what she thought was going to happen. But Bash realizes there's somebody in there and says, well, what are you doing in here? And she tries not to say anything. He kind of says, you aren't allowed to be here and realizes it's her. She gets freaked out that he's going to tattle on her. And he's just like, oh, no, now I'm even more interested in what this girl's up to. There's super tension. There's a kiss. They're very attracted to each other. But again, somebody busts into the room and says, hey, you're not supposed to be here. You're a woman. And she rushes out. And then Bash basically tells that guy, shut the fuck up.

I'm in charge here. But he knows that there's a chance of this guy's going to tattle on him to his brother that he maybe snuck in a woman into the vault. So that's always kind of out there. I love that there's nothing else in this vault. It's like this dark vault with just this little pedestal with the tiara on it. Yeah. Nothing else goes in the vault.

This all feels very. Very easy. Yeah, it's a little too easy for me. It's just a fun caper for him. Sure. He doesn't even care about the tiara. Nobody cares about that tiara. No, they really don't. They would have given it to her if she just asked nicely. Right. Totally. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. That's the moral of the story. She does in the middle of the book say that.

But then she's like, well, what if he doesn't? He locks it down more. So she's like throughout this whole book. She has this mission and she's not very trusting. Although looking at how she was raised, you can kind of see why. She doesn't know as much about the secret society because she's a woman. So she hasn't really been in it. She's just been around it.

After the kiss and almost more in the vault, Bash breaks into her house with like a toothpick or something. I'm sure. I instalk her and figure out, like, what's going on with her. He goes up to her room, kind of putses around, sees her, picks up her phone, changes his phone number in her phone to future husband. Like, she doesn't even have her phone locked. Oh, no, he uses her face. He pulls back the covers and uses her face to unlock her phone, which, wow. First off, mine never works when I'm awake. I think your eyes have to be open. Right. There's a couple of these things that are just a little. too hard to believe, but we're going with it, we're just spending reality. Okay, we're rolling with her. He sees that she talks to her brother a lot, but not very many other people, goes downstairs, he sees on the counter, there's a bunch of overdue bills, there's no security, there's no

made or... No food in the fridge. The house is sparse even. Like, there's definitely... Yeah. Something up, and he's like, she's in this secret society. They should be wealthy beyond belief, like what is happening to this girl. And so he calls his brother and says, hey, dude, I know it's the middle of the night, but I need you to set up some security cameras in this house for me. And the brother's like, yeah, sure, no problem. Be over in an hour. And so they set up cameras in her home to spy on her. So while she's sleeping. Not creepy at all. We'll just say while she's asleep. They're setting up camera. Right. Like I said, she was an ex-ballerina, but she still teaches ballet to young children. And Bash stalks her, figures out that she does that and sees that there's very much a difference in what he believes she should be doing versus what is actually happening.

right? She's taking yourself places. She's teaching ballet. And he corners her and proposes like, hey, listen, my family's on my back about dating. So he basically says, I'll help you get the tiara if you pretend to be my girlfriend so that my family would get off my back. She's like toying with the idea. But then she gets home and her entire house is cleaned out. There's not one stick of furniture in the entire home. He texts her something and is like, date starts tomorrow. Come on over. And she's irritating. He's committed to the role. I don't think she's actually a great. need to do it yet. No, and this is what's weird to me. He spent all this time putting in security cameras. Then he moves her out. Yeah, like almost immediately. Here's the empty house. Tadda, we're going to watch it. He has all this security for nothing. Right. Well, no one living there. The one thing it does do is she thinks they've been robbed. She doesn't know immediately that it's him. It scares her. She gets really freaked out. So she runs up to her room to find the mask and the cape because if someone stole it, her brother is going to be in big trouble. Right. And Bash is watching her on

these security cameras that he installed and realizes that she's not pissed, but like starts to get scared. It's not the reaction he wanted. Right. So he's like, hey, hey, oops, don't worry. Like, it was just me, your boyfriend. See it at my house. Here's the address. Yeah. You live here now. Okay. Yeah. Welcome. Come on. Then she's pissed. So she rushes over to his house, storms in his apartment, penthouse, whatever, slams open the door, basically starts yelling in him and realizes his whole family is there for family dinner. So his two brothers, the two wives and all the kids. So she now was meeting his family. The wives are like totally into her from the immediate. And she's looking around Batch's house and he's got kids stuff everywhere. She's thinking, does he have kids? But realizes that

it's just for his nieces and nephews because they're a very tight family. And he just basically duplicates everything so they can come over whenever they want. These brothers are whipped. They are obsessed with their wives. Like it is very sweet. I would be open to reading their stories too because I think they were also extremely obsessive. And they all think. fell very fast. Yes. They basically imprint, right? And the wives later tell her that's like that once one of the Everett men fall, they fall hard. So she's super unsettled, but they're supposed to be pretending like they're dating. So she sits down and pretends like she's dating him at family dinner. So after that, Bash obviously tries to seduce her. Anastasia is very aware that she's attracted to him,

but he's using this fake dating as like a ploy to get her closer to him. And he really just wants to spend as much time with her as he can. He also knows she's only there to get the tiara. So he has to do some things to make sure that she doesn't have as easy access because as soon as she gets it, he knows she's leaving. So this is the part of the book where basically the middle part of the book is their relationship developing with the undercurrent that they have to try and get the tiara. But he's totally seducing her.

Seduces her in bed. There's a bunch of kitchen sex pressed up against the island. There's some really steamy shower scenes. Oh, yeah. The spice was good. The spice was so good. And he later says, okay, I know where the tiara is. It's in the vault, but I just need to get the code. And that's in my brother's office. He dresses her up like a janitor. I don't know why he didn't just walk in with her. But it's a whole ploy for him. He wants a caper. He's role playing. It's like a Scooby-Doo episode. He's having a blast. Totally. Yeah. He's having a ball. This is his personal entertainment. And she's fighting for her life. And he's like, this is the biggest joke ever. Like fall in love. with me while I role play. So dresses are up like a janitor. They get into the office of his brother. They have to sneak in, right? She has no clue why he doesn't just ask the brother for the code. But he think this is funny games. Then the brother happens to be walking into the office with his wife. So they have to hide in the closet. They were already making out like really hot scene. Then they have to hear the brother say, oh, thank God we've gotten rid of the kids for the night so I can fuck you. In my office. In my office. This is getting weird. So then Sebastian is like, okay, this is going to be awkward now for Stasia.

So then he texts his brother quickly and says, hey, you got to meet me at our club. It's urgent. And the brother's like, God damn it. And walks out. And then Bash continues to fuck inesthesia. And I don't think he ever met the brother. And that never comes back up that like the brother's like, hey, what the fuck happened? He knew that he'd pay for that.

Totally. Yeah, they didn't address that. Then he goes to his brothers and basically says, hey, I'm still trying to seduce this girl. But she really wants this T. and I'm not sure why. Can you just put it somewhere else so that we can't find it immediately? I need more time. So they get the code. So now another secret society meeting where she has to dress up with the cape and the mask. But now he knows that she's doing it. So he's like waiting outside the coat closet while she's putting on her get up. And somebody comes over and he's like, oh, go awake. So now he's a part of her caper. She goes into the secret society meeting again. Again, they find themselves in the vault room. And when she gets there, there's like a black tar. over the case and she pulls it off and it's empty. No.

Moved for cleaning. She's crushed. And she is crushed. All this work. Mm-hmm. And he starts feeling a little bad. Feels kind of bad about that. He feels bad throughout, but he doesn't ever do the thing that she needs, which is just

give her the fucking tiara. Right. Or the money. He does pay off her debts. He starts to figure out, she does eventually tell him, this is my situation. He does call the Salvatore. and pay off all of her debt. He says, what the hell is happening?

They're like, well, her dad owes me all this money. And he's like, I'll pay that and more. It was like picking up the check at dinner. Yeah. No big deal. And he's like, okay, great, I'll pay one and a half times what she owes. And he's like, hope you know what you're getting into. Bye.

And then salvators are gone. But she has no idea that the salvators are gone yet. Because he never tells her. And the brother is still held captive by the grandmother. Totally. He has no idea the debt's been paid. No. Or that she might get the tiara.

She's kind of stringing the brother along because she, She doesn't want him to worry, but of course, he is fucking worried. So lots of miscommunication. So they go back to the house and he says, listen, I'm going to take care of this for you. I just need a little bit of time. She trusts him, but then also just wants to take matters in their own hands. There's a lot more sex. One of the lines was, she wakes up, like, sore and achy thinking about how Bash penned her in every position imaginable the night before and how feral he looked while he was doing it.

I feel horrible for her. There's so many yummy pieces of that. And then the sisters, the maybe sisters-in-law, the brother's wives, invite her to the spa. And so she goes, they pick up everything. She has a really good time and is relaxed, but they tell her at this point, Everett's in love with you. It's so obvious. And they imprint on everyone, so you're just going to have to get over it.

There's no escaping. There's no escape here. And she's really freaked out by this. So she won't get in the car that he sends for her and starts walking home like in the freezing rain. But Bash tracks her down, tells her to get in the car. she's shivering. But then he somehow manages to get into the passenger seat floorboard of the car and goes down on her and then gets back in the car, drives home. But then she's still cold. So he carries her up and puts her in the shower and warms her up and treats her so well. I mean, there's a lot of like hot sex, but there's a lot of like intimacy that they're building throughout this time. He cared for her. It was so sweet. I mean, he was so charming and his obsession with her. her was really heartwarming. There were some logistic problems, but yeah, overall, I mean, the sentiment was there,

but the execution, he just seemed like a young, rash. He was reckless. Kid, right? Yeah, with her life. At some point, he has asked his brother to look into her situation. You know, she's very traumatized for the fact that she feels like she killed her mom because her mom got on this counter to get the balloon. That whole house had cameras in it, and the brother finds those cameras.

taps into them and finds out that there was a man in the house. And when she ran out of the kitchen, to the distraction, a man came in that was associated with her mother, so the grandmother, and pushes her off the counter. The video shows him saying, thanks for making this so easy on me. He cuts her leg. He grabs her legs and does a swipe. But the grandmother killed her own daughter, like, sent that guy to kill her. Wanted that tiara. It's very important. Here's a minor story gap for me. A minor one. Okay. How did the dad not, how did he not watch his own cameras? Right.

If that had been on camera the whole time. He was too distraught. You don't know, right? Did he or did he not? And what did he do about that? Yeah, that's true. He may have known. I mean, obviously didn't avenge her, couldn't avenge her.

And he started getting into more and more debt after she died with the Salvators and was shitty to his kids and became an alcoholic. And while he was still a part of the society was going downhill himself. So maybe he was part of the whole thing. Who knows? We don't. Oh, Kim. Yeah.

conspiracy theories. I have questions. That's all I'm saying. After he tells her this, the brother's like, well, the only reason I'm here is because I have to go to this secret society meeting. And so do you, Bash. And he doesn't want to leave her, but he has to, basically. It's a really important meeting. But in the meantime, he tells her, I'm going to get this back for you. The tiara is in the archives. And it's the most secure building that the saints have. I'm going to help you get it back. But I have to go to this meeting first. Just hang tight. Don't go anywhere. So now she knows her mom has been killed by her grandmother.

Her brother is in custody of the grandmother, right? And she now knows where the tiara is, but she doesn't know how to get it. And now Bash leaves. She hatches a master plan of her own. By the way, neither one of them are very good at this. She dresses in all black, gets a rope, and starts sneaking out to go to the archives to find this tiara. Bash is now at the Secret Society meeting, and he's getting antsy. Like, he's not sure why he's antsy, but he's like, something's wrong.

And the brothers, like, stop being antsy. And he's like, there's, I just, something is it. Both married brothers start freaking out. They get up their phones to check on their wives because they're stalking their wives via security cameras. At this point, I think they're calling Anastasia their future sister-in-law. Oh, totally. They're already calling her sister. It's so cute.

By the time they were in the spa, they were like, oh, that's for our sister. We've got her. And they kind of get mad at Bash sometimes. Like, are you treating our sister badly? Why are you being an idiot? Yeah. It's pretty funny. Well, and Bash calls their wife sister.

Like, it's a very close-knit family. Yeah. It is very sweet. And you get the impression, too, that their father wasn't great either, right? So they kind of have that in common to, like the- Yeah. Well, I feel like their father was, he was the icon of the saints. He was the, he was brutal.

He was strong. And these guys are like, it's not that big of a deal. They don't take it us seriously. We're important and we're rich, but we don't really give us shit. We're just here because it's legacy and money. We're powerful. But we like to party. Definitely.

So brothers check on their wives via the cameras. And they're like, nope, my wife's good. And somebody else's like, nope, my life's good. And Vash goes, wait a minute. So he then checks his security cameras and sees her slinking out of the apartment and all black cats suit with a rope. And I think he had security guards. guarding her.

I would have taken a ladder. This girl can get around these secret, very secure things very easily. Also, like, she's very compossible, right? Like, she's at a house that is not hers. And yet she finds an all-black outfit and a rope scale down the side of the secure house. That's what I'm saying. Gap. One of many gaps in this book.

So she makes it to the archives. And it's like a bunker. It has no windows, marble walls. and like, how do you get in? And so she's like casing the joint across the street, like behind a bush or something. And this is supposed to be, again, the most secure building that they have in all of the saints. She sees the security guards. She clocks their movements for, let's call it half hour. And then she's like, oh, I, a mastermind ballerina. Fashional. Have now figured it out. I have a rope. I'm wearing all black. I didn't even know why I brought this rope. Good thing I did. When she admits that. She goes to the side and this very secure building has a fire escape. Rope not needed. Well, actually, the rope was needed because the fire escape was up like a story or something. Oh, but she didn't have a grappling hook.

So I feel like... She might have lassoed. She lassoed the stairs of the fire escape, pulls it down, but it won't go all the way to the ground. So then she's like, I will climb up this rope just like I learned how to do in high school. Gym class. Which I don't know about you guys. We talked about this. I'm calling bullshit.

it. Nobody could climb those ropes unless she's like nodding the ropes. You get the calluses. I'm not doing that. How does she? So, and she threw the rope over to get the stairs. So how is it secure? I have lots of logistical questions about this fire escape. But we're going to dispen reality. She's climbing up the rope. She's so proud of herself. She's almost to the top. And there's a distraction. And she then loses her grip and then falls all the way down the rope holding the rope. So her hands are all messed up. She didn't even have gloves, right? No, because her hands were, like, completely bloody and messed up. That's how it goes when I do the rope exercise.

Same. Same. Like, my feet don't even get off the floor. Hopefully. I can get as far as I can jump. That's about it. Bail, I'll take the F. Can I move on?

Take it out. Fancy. Like those races that have all of the obstacles or whatever where you can just do burpees instead of climbing the rope. That's what would happen to me. She falls down. But at the same time, Security goes, hey, hey you. And he's now coming down on her. She's freaking out. She doesn't know what to do. How did he see her? She's wearing all black. Well, yeah, but she missed her moment, you know, because the cop came back around. Oh. And now Bash is here. He's made it to the archives to help her. And she's like, oh, thank God he's here. We'll have to run. And this year goes, oh, hi, Mr. Everett. Nice to see you. And he's like, yeah, thanks, Bob. She's like, wait a minute. You are the head of the society. You could.

have probably just gotten in here and I wouldn't have had to do all of this. What? What the fuck? But doesn't remember that her fake boyfriend runs the mop. Could get her anything she really wants. Owns the archives the whole time. A little sketch. Well, not so smart.

I don't know. So she is very frustrated by this, but she goes back to his house. Their house, correction. Their house. Right. He does, yes, that's true. He goes back to their house. He does help her with the medical of making her hands good.

And then he says, listen, I'll be back. And she goes to sleep. And he comes back and he puts the tiara on her head and says, I love you. What can I do? What do you need for me? And she said, save my brother, destroy the Russians. How about I fucking needed the tiara 17 chapters ago. And I needed you to pay off my debt.

Also, if you could take out my grandmother, that would be great. It would have been good if she had said that. You know, like, I don't know, halfway through the book. She just said it would be more specific, you know. Right. I'm asking for what you need. Yeah. Don't wait.

In her defense, she wasn't sure at the beginning that he would do it. And she didn't really trust him. But by this point, he's already basically telling her he loves her and that they're in it for the win. And he says he's going to help her, but he also is to blame because he could have helped her from the goddamn beginning. Anyway, she is now bloodthirsty. They have the tiara. She wants to get her brother back and she wants to destroy her grandmother. So they go meet with the Everett brothers.

in their secret club hidey room and make a plan. Do you just call it the Heidi room? Heidi room. Yeah. What's that? It's like a secret room with windows. It's a Heidi. You can see out.

Like a Heidi hole? It's a Heidi room. That sounds like, wait, pause. I've heard of a Heidi hole, but not a hidey room. I've never heard of a hidey room. It's cute. I'm going to coin it. Did you make that up or you?

Yeah, I did make it up. On the fly. I'm going to make it fetch happen. She's making fetch happen. Okay. I like it. Heidi room. Okay.

So they all make a plan on how. they're going to get the grandmother. Bash is not like this because she wants to use herself as bait and he's like, I have a better plan. I'm going to go in first as the head of the society. And then you can come in. So at least I'll be there for you. And then we have all of our tactical people. So they've got their tactical people outside. They're setting up like a little ambush situation. He goes in there, is in the room with the grandmother, the brother's there. Then in walks Anastasia. The grandmother's pissed that she's there. The brother's so glad to see her. She basically says, I know you killed my mother. Also, she's wearing the tiara. Waring the tiara. Bad ass. She brings it back, but not really. And says, I know what you did. The grandmother's like, I don't really care. She got what she deserved. And that's when the tactical people come in through the windows. There's gunfire, bashed knocks over a table to hide behind it with Anastasia. There's lots of things happening. When it's, all said and done. Grandmother's dead. Lots of her people are dead. Only five of Bash's people got

hurt. No one's dead. Yay. A bad out. Yep. Best case scenario. Best case. They stand up and they're like, well, what should we do with the Bratva? And Nikola's like, oh, I didn't really want it before. But, I mean, since there's a vacancy at the top, like, I'll take over from here. He's going to double dip. He'll be a saint in the Bratva. Right. And then he's like, of course, Anastasia, you'll stay with me and Bash is like, no, she won't. She's like, I'm going to go with Bash. I'm in love. And he reproposes and she says yes. And they live happily ever after. He was a little codependent on the sister. The brother's sister. I think so too. So he didn't love Bash, but he got through it. He got over it. There is an epilogue.

There's definitely an epilogue. They do come back after everything is settled down and the brother's like getting things in order. And you can kind of sense that he might be the next book maybe. I don't know. Their relationship, Nikolay and Anastasia was. because he was essentially her dad. Like, he helped raise her because the dad was blamed her for the mother's death and then kind of just went bye-bye, even though he was alive. So there's very much like a parental relationship between them and he's very worried for her. But she managed it. Yeah, H-E-A. I liked it.

Good times. A little action. A little Cappy. Very Scooby-Doo-esque in some areas, you know. Took a few points for me. I do you feel like she went very dark very quickly? Like she's this fluffy ballerina teacher for small children and all of a sudden. And she's like, I want her blood.

She flipped. She became like a jewelry heister. You're a mafia princess ballerina. And all of a sudden, now you're going to go steal the family jewels. She did what she had to do. It's survival mode. I mean, she did step up. She did step up.

There were some gaps for sure. Okay, so let's do star ratings. I gave it a three. I did like some of the scenes. Some of them I did laugh out loud because I was like, yeah, that's not possible. Especially the gym scene, which is not really a gym scene. But for me, it was. Yeah, flashbacks.

With the rope and the fire. Yeah. I don't know who came up with the rope test for all of us. And that was going to determine whether we left middle school or not. But overall story was good. Hated that there was an epilogue. I enjoyed it. It was a good read.

Yeah. Bash was kind of an asshole, but in a good way. But like endearing. So I didn't hate it. This was a four-star read for me. This is my kind of romance book. I love a good mafia romance that isn't too heavy on the dark. and he was so obsessed with her, would do anything. Any alpha that will, you touch her and you die

storyline, I'm just a sucker for. Big fan. You're big on that. I loved it. I thought it was really fun. And it was campy enough. It wasn't stressful. That's the word I was looking for. Campy. Campy. Yeah. I used Scooby-Doo, but same. Pink Panther vibes. Yeah. So I thought it was just adorable. I really, really enjoyed it. I would read all of the ones in this series because I just thought it was fun. I'm a three and a half, so I'm like coming right in between you guys. Har-ish. But for all the same reasons, like there were a lot of plot holes here. I really struggled with how she just randomly found the door and then like totally made it into the secret society room and no one caught her two or three times.

I don't know. It was not hard enough for her. But then Bash wanted to do everything for her, but not fast enough because he wanted her to fall in love with him. And if he was afraid she was go, which I guess makes sense, but still frustrating. So yeah, yeah, so there were some plot holes for me for sure and some things that they enjoyed. that then just weren't followed up on. And then I think if you had read the other books, which I have not, I think some of the holes maybe would have been filled just because they probably covered it in another book. And I read this one in the middle, which I hate. So I'm a three and a half. I don't think so I don't either. This was a standalone. Well, an interconnected standalone. So they would have talked about the saints and that stuff in other books. Do you think they would have talked about the secret room that she basically tripped into? I don't know. Like maybe there is another poker scene. I don't know. That's the question. and that's why you don't start in the middle. That's fair. It's fair. I think you should read the other ones and let us know.

Okay, well, I'm not probably going to do that. Oh, really? You didn't like it enough that you'd read the other ones? I probably would, but it's not on my next read list. Yeah, we've got a pretty long TBR. It's tough to squeeze an extras. If I got in a rut, it's definitely something I might pick up again. But yeah, I didn't say, like, I've got to go read them all right now. Yeah. Like I have other books.

All right. Chili Peppers? I think I went just a little over three, so three and a half on this one. The spice was good when it was there. And if you could get past, would you call it, Jen, the campiness of it? It was good. He was hot. He was cute. He was just duchy enough that you're like, it's kind of hot.

Three and a half for me. Same. I went three and a half on the spice. There was enough of it. It was really written very hot. It wasn't overly spicy. Gratuitous. Yeah, exactly.

So this was a good mix for me. Same three and a half. We're all kind of evening out our rating list. Yeah, three and a half for the same reason. I thought some of the sex scenes were really hot. Like the car scene was hot. Like there's a shower scene that was really hot. Anything that's a lot of foreplay I like that ends in something really hot. So I liked it. But there wasn't a ton of it. But where it was there, it was really good. All right. All right. Well, that concludes Devious Arrangement by Jay Wilder. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Be sure to check out boozy bookgasms.com. We're also on all the social. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. Obviously are Boozy BookGasms.com for reading list, cocktail recipes. We use the form there to send us any suggestions or tell us what you like and dislike. And of course, you can email Jen. Jen, what's your email address? Jen at BoosyBookasms.com. Tell us what you want to read.

We still have one open spot for a guest host. So I would love to have you. Yay. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. And until next time, happy reading. Thanks for tuning in. We hope today's episode was the climax of your day,

leaving you breathless and wanting more. Until next time, remember to indulge in the pleasures of life and to keep the passion alive. You can find more tantalizing episodes at boosybookasms.com. Enjoy the ride, and we'll see you soon.