These Violent Delights
Author: Chloe Gong
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Rating: 4 / 5 stars
These Violent Delights story is set in 1920 Shanghai following two rival gangster groups forced to cooperate and set aside their differences in order to stop a mysterious monster causing terror to the city. It is action-packed, enemies to lovers, full of betrayals and with an unexpected turn of events.
Juliette Cai, heir of the Scarlet gang, has recently returned back to Shanghai and is willing to go above and beyond in order to prove herself as the rightful future leader of the group. Her reputation precedes her and she is described as rootless, vengeful and full of hatred towards anyone who stands in her way. Although Juliette manages to maintain the ‘cold and brutal’ facade, she is just someone who is deeply hurting after being betrayed by the one she loves most – Roma. a.k.a Romeo.
Roma Montagov, son of their blood rivals – the White Flowers, is just her opposite. He hates violence, he is caring and loving though as the son of the Flowers’ leader, he must always keep a mask on and present a rootless image to their enemies. As the future heir, Roma is forced to prove himself to his father and become what he despises most. Thus, he is left with a very difficult choice which costs him Juliette’s trust and love. And just like that from two very much in love teenagers with no clear future whatsoever, they become strangers and inevitably mortal enemies. Though Juliette does not know the reason behind Roma’s betrayal, he is forced to live with his actions and accept the harsh reality that them being together is an impossible dream.
Until one day, a series of unfortunate events starts occurring with people acting strangely and killing themselves in the most gruesome way possible. The victims seem to primary be from the two rival gangs thus indicating without question that they are the targeted prey. Having no clue about the cause of the killings, Juliette and Roma find themselves in a situation where they have to set aside their hurt feelings and work together in order to protect the people they love most. The story then goes to follow the murder mystery while at the same time Juliette and Roma try to deny their still strong feelings towards each other. As a Romeo and Juliet retelling would imply, there’s angst, yearning and endless tension. The ‘enemies to lovers’ trope was executed perfectly making you want to scream. Needless to say, there were some unexpected turns of events which set perfectly the plot for the next instalment.
Overall great debut by the talented young author Chloe Gong, can’t wait to continue from where things were left.
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