I never wanted to come here.
The scholarship to Hawthorne University is my ticket to a better life,
but I don’t fit in with these rich, privileged students.

I’m the daughter of a drug addict.
A girl with a half-remembered past.
A foster kid who’s seen too much of the wrong side of humanity.
My tattoos are my battle scars, and my heart beats for no one.

Until I meet them.

Gray, Declan, and Elias.

The Sinners.

They run this school, and one day, they’ll run this whole city.
They snap their fingers, and the world falls at their feet.
They breathe a word, and that word becomes law.

I’ve been numb my whole life, but when they touch me, sparks dance across my skin.
For the first time in years, I feel.
I feel so much.

Confusion.
Desire.
Anger.
Need.

Too bad there’s only one thing the Sinners feel for me.

Hate.

Jumping back into the world of Eva Ashwood again. I tried to read two other books on my Kindle, both of which are highly recommended, but I didn’t like either and barely made it through the first chapter, so I returned to an author I like best. I’d actually stayed away from Ashwood’s university series because the enemies-to-lovers narrative, most prevalent in why-choose university books, is something that I often find grates on my nerves.

It has been vastly overdone with varying degrees of success. However, I decided that if I can read a why-choose-enemies-to-lovers supernatural academy book, then I should really give this style a chance.

It’s a Friday, and honestly, it has been such a busy week – a drama-filled week, but luckily, my only involvement has been eating popcorn on the sidelines. I am, by nature, an introvert, which has always sat well with my book-reading desires. However, as luck would have it, September is going to test my social battery to the limits, and I may just end up hibernating in October.

To combat this, I seem to have been reading a lot of books. Primarily, eating my way through my Kindle library as I tend to read during my lunch break at work, and that leads me to obsessively thinking about the book all day before I can get home and read more of it. Needless to say, my TBR physical books have suffered, but I am hoping to make a small dent in them by the time Christmas rolls around.

Anyway, back to the book. Now, I have the box set of this series on my Kindle – there are four books in the series. The series is called ‘Sinners of Hawthorne University’ and this first book is titled ‘When Sinners Play’.

The FMC of this series is Sophie. The premise is that Sophie is a scholarship student in a highly elite, small private school for the richest of the rich. It was never going to be smooth sailing, and while her friend Max can survive the book with an average backstory, that would never have flown for Sophie. Her backstory is one of foster homes, trauma-filled experiences, and memory loss.

Tortured, trauma-filled FMCs are almost a rite of passage in why-choose books nowadays. I’m painfully aware of the dislike I have for them, but it is more than a simple dislike for a stereotype because I have read plenty of stories where the FMC has extreme trauma, but is written beautifully. For me, it comes down to believability, realistic nature, and good writing. I will always be drawn to the resilient, vulnerable, badass character that uses the past to thrive in their future. I will always avoid the character who has no substance, trauma without narration, damsel-in-distress whimper style vibes.

I have to say, I was shocked coming out of the gate of this with some spicy scenes. I’m used to Ashwood building up to things, BUT as a reader, it put me out of sorts and set me up to not anticipate the next few chapters. I knew there would be a level of bullying; it is an inevitable sequence for enemies-to-lovers books. It is something I’m always interested in from an author standpoint because I find you can really tell someone who has experienced bullying from someone who hasn’t when writing is concerned. To achieve a good bullying narrative, you have to understand that bullying has no limits, but also understand how to write it clearly and accurately.

I believed every eye roll, every mantra, every tear of the soul that Sophie dealt with through this book. Her character was believable, and her responses matched the outlook of someone who doesn’t give a fuck. Yes, some moments had me thinking ‘only in a book or movie would this happen, never in real life’ but most books have an element of that.

The three proposed love interests are Gray, Declan, and Ellis. Gray is the dominant party of the group and the one who fuels much of the earlier bullying behaviour towards Sophie. Morally grey would be a good way to describe him; he does things that aren’t pleasant or even comfortable, but he doesn’t stray into the irredeemable category.

I kind of just figured that Declan and Ellis were bodyguard figures at the beginning of the book, but clearly, they are a defined unit that has been through a lot together. After the anger, jealousy, and violence leave their systems, they become less frosty towards Sophie and actively seek her out away from Gray. I wouldn’t class them as enemies-to-lovers because I feel like they were just following the natural hierarchy of their group. Though I have grouped them here, both have their own distinctive personalities which are different from each other. I think the three of them together are a well-rounded trio and the sort of people to see Sophie thrive through life.

Logically, I would like to say that some of the world-building of this university and the situations that take place in this book are completely fictional and would never happen in the real world. As much as I enjoy escaping into the fictional world, I am not so oblivious to how book narratives can mirror real life. We don’t all have the same story, but I bet the majority of us can relate to the themes in this book, whether on a personal level or from an experience of another.

The final chapters in this book left me feeling confused because they all seemed to jumble together in the chaos of a university party. I hardly had time to work out what had happened before the book was over. And then I accidentally read myself to chapter four of the second book before realising the first had finished.

There has always been a divide between the rich and famous and everyone else. That is probably never going to change, but in terms of books, it offers endless possibilities for plots to be written. In this instance, the narrative was well written, and I have many theories as to what plot points are going to manifest in the rest of the series. I do not doubt that the three Sinners haven’t shaken off their cold attitude for long. Because in a four-book series, and knowing Ashwood’s style of writing, there is plenty more up her sleeve. Sophie’s wild ride has only just started, and I’m sure there is a whole lot more shit coming her way.

It’s not a matter of whether she’s ready to deal with it, but more of a matter of whether she is ready to trust another character or not. I already know that Sophie is a tough nut to crack and has survived far more as a character than I would ever wish on someone in real life. I see the lack of trust she holds in others as one of her defining features. I think also, she also needs to overcome her battle scars and learn to value her life as more than something that was forcibly given.

If they can stay as a united unit, those four could probably take on the world, but I have no doubt that taking over the world is a long and twisted route.