Cruel King by K.M. Scott – Review by Shea Gilkerson 8/12/23

Cruel King by K.M. Scott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The King family is a powerhouse, with a widowed father at the helm of a worldwide business and five sons that could fill in his shoes. While you do get an introduction to them all, our MCs are Theo and Matthias. Theo is best friends with our female MC, Ava, but it is purely platonic and sweet. As the oldest, Matthias is expected to step into his position while his brothers are left to find what it is that interests them. With his college career ended successfully, Matthias is given the signs he is expected to join the company soon, but ekes out what he anticipates to be one last day where he gets away with making an excuse not to go to the city with his father – however his brothers jump at the opportunity to get out of the house and disappear in the city and leave Matthias home with Eleanor, the caretaker of the family.

Meanwhile, Ava Sutton, the daughter of Mr. King’s driver, is given strict instructions by her father to stay home, as there is a major snowstorm predicted. Their home is the carriage house on the King estate. After her father leaves and the snow really does start to fall heavily, Ava hears a loud pop and the power goes out. Keeping an eye on the storm, Ava decides she had better walk up to the King home before it gets any heavier, just to find herself half frozen and sopping wet by the time she gets to the kitchen entry. As Eleanor sees how sopping wet she is, she takes her clothes to dry them and gives Ava a robe and her famous hot chocolate.

When Matthias finds Ava in the house, he is terribly mean to her, implying she isn’t worthy of his home or any of their attention. Ava finally has enough and lets him have it for being so terrible to her over the years, just to find they have an intense passion for one another, and a couple of days of discovering it before everyone descends back on the house. Ava is swept away to her aunts by her father without a chance to say goodbye, and Theo forgets to pass along the message to his brother the way she tells him to. Without understanding what is leading the other to make the decisions they make or how they end up apart, five years pass before the King boys and Ava all end up back at the estate together. Matthias is as mean as ever, Theo is as fun loving and charismatic as ever, Ava is as sweet as ever, but they’ve all lost their childish features and came back together as adults. Theo convinces Ava to give him a chance, which beyond loving him all her life, is even easier after Matthias is meaner than ever after never even setting eyes on each other for 5 whole years. Some relationships are the same, some change for the good, and some change for the bad. Sweet story of true love, heartbreak, loss and a happy ending.

Characters and locations are fully fleshed out and beautifully described, emotions run on high throughout most of the story, and there is a lot of feelings to work through from all points of view. I really enjoyed this and would love to see where the rest of the brothers end up!

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