Book 1 in the Grimlock Series
Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 3/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 | 📖
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Songbird in the Gallows yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
OPENING HOOK
A reformed hitman with a twirled mustache, a jazz singer with victory rolls in her hair, and a town full of people who dress like mystical mythical beings one night a year so the fey don’t steal them away. The Gothic jazz vibe alone almost carried this one all the way to a 4-star for me. Almost.
THE FULL STORY — SPOILERS INCLUDED
Saylor Mitchell (born Sarah Mitchell) has spent five years running from The Crow, the organization that murdered her father Peter and has been hunting her ever since. She’s built a new identity as a blues/jazz lounge singer, and one night she shares a moment with an older man from the audience in her dressing room — a rare thing for both of them. So imagine his surprise when he comes back the next night to meet with an informant and learns she’s Sarah, Peter’s daughter — the very woman he’s been searching for these past five years. Because that man is Blue, a former hired killer who went straight three years ago after Peter (yes, that Peter) helped him find his way off that path. He’s been looking for her all along to keep the promise he made to keep Peter’s daughter safe. And now the realization hits him: he just had an intimate moment with his dead friend’s daughter. It hits him so hard that he has to step outside just to process it.
While he’s out there having his crisis, Saylor goes home to find her apartment cleared out. The Crow gets to her first, drugs her, takes her. Blue and his protégé/driver Hans track her to a Crow safe house where Hans kills the three guys holding her (because Blue is three years murder-sober, don’t forget), and they bring her back to Blue’s isolated mansion just outside Grimlock, the kind of town people go to disappear.
She wakes up furious and tries to escape. Blue plays her a voicemail proving Peter asked him to look after her, which softens her panic to leave, but not by much. He talks her into staying one night just to think things over, promising she’s safe from The Crow there. Let’s just say it’s a tense dinner. But that’s where Saylor drops the idea that changes the tone of the whole book: since Blue won’t kill with her, she wants him to train her to kill The Crow herself. Revenge for her father, at her own hands. Blue doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no either. He wants the night to sit with it, and maybe a chance to talk it over with his therapist, which sounds fair honestly. That’s a big ask for a guy three years sober from murder.
They land on a mentor/mentee arrangement with Hans having already procured a couple of Crow members for her to practice on. Grimlock throws Saylor a welcome party, and it becomes very clear, very fast, that the whole town thinks there’s more going on between her and Blue than she realizes because apparently she’s the first “lady friend” he’s ever brought around. It’s a little hard to get the full vibe of what’s going on in this town – is he their benfactor? Something like a Lord they all look up to? Just the cool beloved uncle figure up the road? Either way, the residents seem very invested in Saylor and who she is to Blue. Wren, the housekeeper, is an absolute delight despite the fact that we still don’t know where she sources her meal ingredients, and we’re a little scared to find out.
Saylor tries her hand at actual killing and discovers she cannot handle blood or gore; she throws up, passes out, the works. She pivots to poison instead, still rocky at first but improving. Blue’s proud of her for recognizing her limitations and finding her stride. So, she’s settling in, making friends, feeling like Grimlock is home. There’s a welcome dinner, then a forest festival with glowing luminescent mushrooms and everyone dressed up as mythical and fairy-tale characters so the fey won’t recognize them as “real” humans to lure away. Very cute local folklore. Right up until The Crow attacks the festival and kills Hans.
And up until this point, it’s a bit weird and you have to suspend belief a fair bit, but otherwise I’ve been having fun. Now that this seige is underway and the highly trained professional killers are closing in, Saylor loses her mind over not being allowed to stay and fight. She’s furious, insisting that she stay with them. A girl who cannot handle a weapon or the sight of blood, with zero combat training, wanting in on a to-the-death brawl against a large team of deadly men. What in the actual fuck, Batman. I could not get behind this, because I don’t think anyone could possibly be this stupid. She storms back to the manor to trash the place, gets sidetracked by Blue’s locked third-floor rooms, stomps right on up there despite being forbidden, and finds it full of skulls. Obviously she gets spooked despite wanting to take on a bunch of hit men a few minutes ago. Blue comes home and they have a massive fight about him not letting her stay in the forest with him.
Blue pulls away into his grief over Hans, and quietly starts planning to send her away for her own safety… without telling her directly. She finds out from a random townsperson, which, understandably, pisses her off even more than the (completely legitimate and warranted) overprotectiveness did. Then, they come up with a brilliant plan to make use of her brand new, only tested once skillset: she goes full rogue and dressed up as a British widow looking to expand her criminal enterprise, to infiltrates a sit-down with a bunch of the highest level Crow leadership. She, a complete stranger, convinces these hardened, seasoned professional hit men to drink a “mood-lifting” substance she’s laced with poison, and watches all of them die at the table. Revenge complete. The Crow is basically gutted. And the book ends with her and Blue still mid-argument over whether she’s leaving Grimlock. Obviously there’s more to come in a follow-up book, but I’m not yet sure I want to follow on that adventure. I’m going to think on that while we wait for the next one to come out.
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
That’s easy, it’s the mood. Gothic jazz aesthetic, the mustache, the victory rolls, the whole vibe of the town. And Blue’s arc being three years murder-sober with the therapy scenes where you get to watch him actually work through the urge to kill versus the need to stay clean, even while circumstances keep pulling him back toward violence. That part is genuinely well done and I loved it.
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
Two things dropped this from a 4-star to a 3-star:
- Saylor’s fury over not being allowed to stay at the brawl. She has zero training and can’t handle gore so her wanting in reads as insane and reckless, not at all brave, and I was especially mad that there’s no acknowledgment of the position she’d put everyone else in having to protect her while they fend for themselves.
- The Crow leadership all unquestioningly drinking a poisoned substance from a total stranger. These are hardened criminals in the murder business. It’s a hard sell that not one of them hesitates.
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN
🔥🔥🔥🔥 — Spicy. Multiple explicit scenes. Romance is fairly central to the plot, tangled up with the mentor/mentee dynamic and the found-family vibe of Grimlock.
THE ENDING — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
Mixed. The revenge plotline feels good emotionally, but the ease of it undercuts the tension The Crow was supposed to represent. And the book ends a little unresolved, leaving things feeling incomplete rather than intentionally open.
WOULD I REREAD IT?
Probably not, but I might stick around for the vibe in book two.
THE MOMENT I LOST MY MIND
Saylor strolled into that Crow meeting solo in disguise with almost zero experience, and poisoning the whole table. Bold. Reckless. Effective.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Readers who love a reformed, morally gray hero. Blue’s murder-sober character arc and the therapy scenes are worth the read on their own.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
📖 Physical Book
|
🎧 Audiobook
|
📱 Ebook
🎁 New to Audible?
🎁 New to Libro.fm?
📚 More from the Grimlock Series
- Book 1 — Songbird in the Gallows | Reviewed by CJ | ⭐ 3/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 — [This review]
- Book 2 — Coming Soon
Ready for more reviews from CJ? Find More Here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📖 | Series: Grimlock Book 1 | Genre: Dark Romance / Gothic | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥