When Love Doesn’t Save You:

A Review of Kingpin by Lili St Germain

There are books that promise darkness and then soften the blow. Kingpin does not do that.

Between the Covers with Danielle | Literature Critic & Writer | Kingpin by Lili St. Germain

This second instalment in Lili St Germain’s Cartel Trilogy makes one thing brutally clear very early on: love is not a shield, and it is certainly not a guarantee of survival. If Cartel flirted with danger through desire, Kingpin commits fully to consequence.

The novel opens not where we might expect, but nine years later—a narrative decision that immediately reframes the story. The romance-forward immediacy of the first book is gone, replaced by something colder, heavier, and far more unsettling. We are not invited to witness the evolution of love in real time; instead, we are confronted with what remains after years of moral compromise, violence, and survival have done their work.

Mariana’s double life sits at the heart of this book. Outwardly, she exists as a respectable professional—an accountant with a carefully curated normalcy. Inwardly, she is trapped within a criminal system she cannot simply walk away from. Her captivity is not defined by chains, but by knowledge, obligation, and fear. It is a far more realistic—and disturbing—portrayal of entrapment than the dramatic escapes often offered by dark romance.

Dornan, meanwhile, is no longer positioned as a romantic counterweight capable of rescuing anyone. His trajectory is one of descent, not redemption. The cartel world does not harden him temporarily; it consumes him. This is not a story about a dangerous man softened by love. It is about what happens when love is exposed to sustained brutality and power, and loses.

One of Kingpin’s most divisive choices is its refusal to centre sexual or romantic gratification as the primary engine of the narrative. Where the first book leaned heavily into erotic intensity, this instalment pivots decisively toward plot, danger, and psychological damage. Sex remains present, but it is stripped of illusion—it becomes transactional, fractured, and emotionally unsatisfying by design.

That choice will alienate some readers, particularly those who come to the genre expecting romantic fulfilment as a form of narrative safety. But it is also what gives Kingpin its unsettling power. This book is not interested in comfort. It is interested in truth.

Several scenes stand out not because they are shocking for shock’s sake, but because they force the reader to sit with aftermath. Violence here is not cinematic; it is messy, intimate, and morally corrosive. Moments of “clean-up,” caretaking, and emotional fallout are where the book is most effective, exposing the cost of survival rather than glamorising the act itself.

Importantly, Kingpin does not pretend to offer a happily-ever-after. Readers familiar with St Germain’s broader universe will recognise that this story functions as a prequel, not a standalone romance arc. The tension lies not in what will happen, but how these characters become the people they are destined to be. There is an almost tragic inevitability woven into the narrative, a sense that every choice—however justified—narrows the future rather than expanding it.

Stylistically, the writing is confident and immersive. The tone is bleak without being indulgent, and the pacing reinforces a sense of encroaching doom. This is a novel best read when you are prepared for emotional weight; it does not offer relief chapters or narrative breathing room. The darkness is sustained, deliberate, and thematically coherent.

Kingpin ultimately asks an uncomfortable question: what if love doesn’t conquer all—and never did? What if devotion is not a moral shield, but another vulnerability to be exploited?

This is not a book for readers seeking romantic reassurance. It is for those willing to confront a darker truth: that systems of power, violence, and control do not bend simply because two people care for each other.

Disturbing, compelling, and unflinching, Kingpin is less a romance than a study in erosion—of innocence, of agency, and of the myths we cling to about love’s ability to save us.

And it will stay with you long after you close the book.