“Born A Queen” by Nikita Slater

Born a Queen by Nikita Slater

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Hey, let me just start by saying that I usually love Ms Slater’s books. But this one didn’t work out with me, unfortunately…

The story follows Raina (the female MC) as she’s valiantly trying to live her life and explore the world without her mafia family hindering her freedom. She’s been ‘running’ for the past two years, knowing that Mateo (the male MC) would find her if she stayed still in one place for too long. Little did she knew that he had been aware of every little step she took…


This book was portrayed as a dark romance. I was so, so excited to read it, since I’m a right sucker for the genre.

It all started great. The book opens smack dab in the middle of some action which kept me engrossed. The dark shit that I love showed from the very first chapter:

He bent over and pressed his lit cigar into Garza’s now empty eye socket, putting it out. God forbid he start a fire and be forced to leave before his job was completely done.

I read that, and I was cackling like a disney villain (which may or may have not disturbed family members in the vicinity…). I was so happy to find this book.


And then it all goes to shits.

Raina has the amazing idea (hope you read the sarcasm there) to go to Giovanni, an ENEMY mafia boss, for protection. Enemy – Protection. Those two words do not match, girl!

But what is even more surprising (and unrealistic) is that Giovanni likes her on sight (of course he does, God forbid characters in books don’t like the female MC). He takes her to his home – the actual home where his family grew up and that contains his office and other important, private matters.

We are told Giovanni is cold and ruthless. By being the boss of the Italian Mafia, you can easily guess this man is hella experienced in all kinds of matters, and he’s alive to prove it. So why in the heck, may I ask, he allowed Raina (the daughter of a rival Mafia boss) into his home without reservations? Didn’t Giovanni think for even one second that she could have been a trap? A spy to infiltrate his mansion? An assassin?

No, of course not. We are given some bullshit excuse that her personality and vitality reminds Giovanni of his late wife, so that automatically makes her an innocent angel. Of course. How stupid of me. Next time I should just follow Sensei Giovanni without questions, since he’s the experienced Mafia boss here.

So Raina and Giovanni strike a ‘friendship’ of sorts within 2.5 seconds. He even asks for her opinion for his (and his men’s) safety:

Giovanni thought about it for a couple of seconds, turning the problem over in his mind. He turned to Raina. “What do you think, my dear? Do you believe that Gutierrez and his people will shoot up my club?”

Raina blew out a breath and thought about it. This question, her answer, it was a big responsibility.

A big responsibility?? I was laughing so much at the idiocy of that sentence. She’s a stranger. He’s a stranger. They’re enemies, for God’s sake! They’ve talked with each other for barely a couple of hours, and now they’re all chummy and sharing opinions?? How is that scene even happening?


Then the action ends, Mateo manages to retrieve Raina, and it goes even more downhill from then. I swear the middle of the book was just filler. I must admit to skimming some chapters because nothing happens. I was expecting some hot and dirty romance, but Mateo acts like a monk, so the best we got was some lukewarm kisses every now and then. Very disappointing stuff.

Then, it goes from 0 to 100. Randomly, in a random chapter, in a random scene, after a random conversation, he rapes her. It took my mind some time to catch up because, again, it was just random.

Raina huffs and puffs and is angry for (maybe) one chapter. She promises to kill him. She screeches about how she will never stop trying to escape. She cries, but doesn’t cry (yeah, that was confusing for me too).

Then, a random fight happens where the antagonist tries to kill her.

Then, Raina suddenly becomes all huggy and smoochy, spouting ‘I-love-you’s and looking forward to the rest of her life with Mateo. The rape is not mentioned at all. Kinda forgotten.

I was scratching my head. I honestly flicked pages back, trying to see if I missed a chapter or two.

Nope. That really happened. Ok then.


I wish the situation had been resolved better and more realistically. What a shame.



P.S.: what was that scene with Raina barking about animal rights?? She was so adamantly spouting how humans shouldn’t use animals for their pleasure, how she’s not an hypocrite, blah blah blah… Then literally the next day she’s happily wearing leather cowboy boots and liking how they’re sparkling? Or were they fake leather? I don’t remember reading that, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt…



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