Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 4.5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
📱 Ebook
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Love Antidote yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
THE OPENING HOOK
Sixty-two pages. That’s the whole book, and it still managed to fit in a poisoned dessert, a parking garage near-death, a blown-up lab, and a shower scene with flesh-eating poison in the water lines. If you want an assassin romance arc without the 300-page commitment, Love Antidote is exactly that.
THE FULL STORY — SPOILERS INCLUDED
Isla is a chef and an assassin, which is admittedly a fun combo, and she’s spent months working toward one night: poisoning her target with a dessert. Except there’s an accident in the kitchen and the confusion causes the plate to be taken out to the wrong man. She panics, thinking she’s just fed a fatal dessert to a Michelin reviewer, so she does what any sane person would do and ambushes him in the parking garage. As he starts to hemorrhage and wilt she finds out he’s not a food critic at all. He’s Mateo Rocha, another assassin employed by a rival agency to kill the exact same target she was after.
She’s not really sure why, but she gives him the antidote and leaves him for dead (probably).
That choice is the whole hook of the book – why would she save a competing assassin instead of letting the poison do her job for her so she could collect the bounty on him as well? It’s the thing that gets Mateo’s attention, and it’s the thing that moves them into “smitten kittens ” territory pretty fast.
Months later, they cross paths again on another run at the same target (Tomasz Nowak), except this time Mateo gets the jump on her and instead of it going sideways, they decide to team up. The new plan combines their skillsets. Instead of trying to get close enough to poison him directly, they go bigger and decide to create an airborne version. Gas dispersal instead of dessert. This is where Mateo and his guy Rolland come in, since they have access to a lab.
Unfortunately, as they’re getting things wrapped up the lab explodes. Henrik Slange (Tomasz’s henchman and the Mateo’s nemesis) is officially hunting them now, and Isla and Mateo have to escape, half blown-up and in rough shape. They make it out to sea where they can regroup and give into the instalust we’ve been feeling this whole time.
The final assassination attempt is where things get unhinged in a way we all know and love with Brynne Weaver’s writing. Flesh-eating poison delivered into Tomasz’s estate water system right as he’s stepping into the shower, followed by Henrik sprinting across the lawn through the sprinklers, running straight into it. That’s the ending of this wild little book.
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
This all worked for me. It was fun start to finish without enough time to slow down. There was no filler and every scene had to mean something for how short the book is. Rolland’s dynamic with Mateo and Isla adds texture in a book that doesn’t have a lot of pages to spare on side characters, and the antidote-in-the-parking-garage opening was a great way to kick off a romance between two people whose entire job is killing the competition.
Also, Justice for Carl!! Donnelly was a legend.
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
Nothing to report here. It was fun the whole way through with sixty-two pages of exactly what it promised and no dead weight. See what I did there? Dead weight 😉
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN
🔥🔥🔥 — Spicy enough.
- Open door, explicit when it happens, but there aren’t many scenes. This is more assassin-romance than straight thriller.
- Romance is central to the emotional arc, but the plot mechanics (poison, targets, betrayal potential) carry just as much weight.
- Content warning: poison/violence, a lab explosion, general assassin-on-assassin peril.
THE TWIST WE DIDN’T SEE COMING
The dessert going to the wrong man and that the wrong man would turn out to be a rival assassin sent for the same target. It wasn’t much of a twist since it sets the whole book in motion, but it’s a great little one for how early it was placed into such a short book.
THE CHARACTER WE LOVED TO HATE
Henrik Slange. Tomasz’s henchman, the nemesis and guy who ends up sprinting through sprinklers straight toward flesh-eating poison. Loved that final ending for him.
THE ENDING — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
Unhinged and delightful. Completely satisfying.
WOULD WE REREAD IT?
Yes. If I’ve got an hour to kill, this is an easy choice.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Anyone who wants a snack of a read and doesn’t mind a little murder, Isla and Mateo are the perfect fit.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
🎧 Audiobook
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Ready for more reviews from CJ? Find More Here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📱 | Series: Standalone | Genre: Assassins-for-Hire Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
TAGS: Assassins-for-Hire Romance, Novella, Amazon Original, Enemies to Allies, Romantic Suspense, Short Reads, Brynne Weaver, Dark Romance