Circuses, fight clubs, and codeine-addled raccoons. A trio I never knew I wanted but fill some sort of void in my heart - A review of Scythe and Sparrow by Brynne Weaver

You know what it’s like waiting for the final book in a trilogy to finally be released. You’re back to being a child standing before a pile of presents in front of the Christmas tree at 4 a.m. You know you need to wait for your parents to start tearing into those bad boys with wild abandon but you are literally vibrating with excitement, praying for those lazy adults to get the show on the road. That was me, for pretty much all of last year, after reading Leather and Lark, the second book in Brynne Weaver’s “Ruinous Love” series. I make no bones about it. I need instant gratification. I need to binge. It’s why I loathe starting a series until a couple books, at least, have already been released. I know. I have problems. Thus, I withheld from reading Butcher and Blackbird, despite the fact that it was EVERYWHERE until the second book in the series was released. I was so proud of myself for passing this literary marshmallow test, as it were. And I loved - make that love - Brynne Weaver. I’ve revisited her “Shadow in the Reaping” trilogy so many times that I’ve managed to convince myself that maybe someday I’ll meet my (literal) demon better half. 

So, when I got to the cliffhanger ending of Leather and Lark, in which Rose, “banshee” and circus performer extraordinaire is bleeding out, having sacrificed herself for the eponymous Lark, one of her besties, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I mean, sure, I could read the other 428 books in my TBR pile, but I wanted answers. Alas, I had to make do and marked the days on my calendar as any other fangirl would. (Sidenote: I LOVE Butcher and Blackbird. Like really love it. Like tell virtually everyone I know, whether age appropriate or not, that they MUST. READ. THIS. BOOK. I’m clearly not alone in this. But, I also, not equally but adjacently love Leather and Lark, which doesn’t seem to be the consensus. It took me a couple of reads to warm to it, but I just love both, or now, all of the Kane brothers in different ways. Though, let’s be real, I’m ride-or-die for Rowan, obvi.)

Thus, when I got my grubby little paws on Scythe and Sparrow as soon as it was released, I was like a candy-floss covered kid under the big top, living my best life. Speaking of candy floss, Weaver warns us that she’ll be abusing the nostalgic snack in her “trigger warnings” but damn if I wasn’t simultaneously turned on, appalled by, and hungry for some cotton candy when Rose Evans and Fionn Kane finally get it on, with the aid of said treat and some vibrating devices. I’d already decided I would love the book - I’ve loved everything Weaver has written, including “Exterminatrix” (bat-shit crazy monster porn), so why would this be any different.

Biased? Sure. But, dear reader, Scythe and Sparrow does not disappoint. So much so that I’m now wavering in my staunch devotion to Rowan. Yes, he’s a serial killing hottie who can cook, but Fionn is a doctor who can crochet a sex swing (how very Joy of Sex, circa 1971) as well as he can stitch a bitch up to save her life. And that, friends, is what we get here. Rather than picking up where we left off in Leather and Lark, Weaver draws the parallel story of Rose and Fionn’s first meeting, making sure to include all their interludes in which we’ve already met them in Fionn’s older brothers’ stories. Rose, a free spirit vigilante, decides, via her beloved grandmother’s tarot deck, that she needs to, in true circus vein, take a jump. For years, she’s used the circus to track down men who use and abuse women and provide these women, who come to her for readings, with the tools (ahem, poison) to end the lives of these veritable oxygen thieves. Having grown up in an abusive household and narrowly avoiding falling into the same pattern prior to literally running off with the circus at age 15, Rose just knows when she sees a kindred spirit who’s bound to a man who’s killing her slowly if not softly. However, after a failed poisoning, Rose realizes that "jump" means she needs to eliminate the middle-woman and kill these shit-stains herself. Easier said than done, however, as her initial attempt at first-hand vigilante justice goes horribly awry and leaves her bleeding out with her bone protruding from her flesh. Yet, she’s nothing if not a fighter and manages to hobble to her motorcycle (did I mention that her circus gig, aside from tarot reader, is to ride her motorcycle in a ball of steel alongside a pair of twins doing the same? Girl’s got guts for days) and hightail it to the nearest clinic, which she breaks into, but not before sounding the alarm.

Of course it’s not just any backwater clinic. It’s Fionn Kane’s clinic. Handsome, single doctor who’s living half a country away from his beloved older brothers because his heart was broken. Or so it would seem. As the story progresses, it’s clear that Fionn never truly loved his almost-fiance back in Boston. His loss was not of an individual woman but of a dream of normalcy, one that he’s been chasing since his father’s death decades ago and was, perhaps unfairly, foisted upon him by his murdery older brothers who saw him as redemption for their own sins. But I digress. 

Upon finding Rose bleeding out on the sterile floor of his clinic, Fionn is gone for her with just one word. A whispered plea of “help”. He goes above and beyond his Hippocratic oath and patches her up, riding with her in the ambulance, scrubbing in to second in her surgery, and ultimately saving her leg if not her life on the whole. The attraction is instantaneous. Though Fionn’s has shut his heart off from any possibility of stitching itself back together, there’s something about the fiery circus performer (not that he knows what she does) that begins to bring him back to life with that simple four letter plea. Of course, things get a little weird, or, if you’re an optimist, a little more meant to be, when he finds the license of the man she tried to kill in her pocket. Fionn’s own family history and dark side that he’s tried to deny his entire adult life allow him to put two and two together. He realizes that Rose is responsible for the blinding of local asshole and wife-abuser, Matt Cranwell. What he doesn’t realize, however, is her motivation for doing so. For a guy whose brothers are both serial killers, of sorts, he doesn’t instantly recognize that the brunette beauty is one as well. Men. They see what they want to see.

And speaking of seeing, Fionn can’t stand to see Rose, who’s been left behind by her circus family while she recuperates, struggle to merely survive the Nebraska heat in her sad little trailer, which is currently taking up real estate in Children of the Corn territory. Thus, he impulsively invites her to live with him. So there’s that.

Despite the clear attraction between the two, Fionn remains determined to be a detached professional, viewing this as a mere doctor / patient relationship, and not of the kinky cosplay variety. The more, however, he attempts to disengage himself from the mayhem that Rose naturally inspires, the deeper he falls for her and more determined he becomes to protect her from Matt Cranwell, who makes it clear he knows who the be-casted stranger staying with the good doctor is. More importantly, Fionn's determined to protect her from herself. This becomes evident when Rose, who, on take two of her murder journey, slashes the throat of and effectively kills another abuser and waste of skin. Eric, who abused Naomi, one of the nurses Rose befriended during her convalescence, is the first man she's (almost) successfully taken down with her own two hands. The problem, aside from the fact that she has the pesky physiological response of puking every time one of her victims bleeds, is that she’s unable to dispose of the body, what with her cast and all. A phone call to Fionn and he comes running. Any confusion he may have had over how Matt Cranwell came to have only one eye is cleared up when he helps her dispose of Eric's body. They’re now linked by their shared darkness. The problem, however, is that Rose embraces it - seeing the brightness and beauty in ridding the world of these dangerous men - and Fionn hides from it, convincing himself that his own caged beast takes away any of his goodness.

The fear of being found out for Eric’s murder doubles when Cranwell makes clear his belief that the less-fortunate abuser has less gone missing and more gone murdered. By Rose. (Was that not clear?) Fionn’s desire to both keep Rose safe and at arm’s length also doubles. He can't quit her, as it were, but he also can’t act on the desires that speak to the darkness and secrets in him that he hasn’t admitted to anyone, even, or perhaps especially, his brothers, who know a little somethin’ somethin’ about darkness and secrets. (Cough. Serial killers.) Of course, being a Brynne Weaver novel, there’s some delicious deviousness and straight-up wackiness - her hallmark - that hits a one-two punch and provide some of the more delightful moments in the novel. Like the Suture Sisters, for instance. Not a pop-punk band or group for lady doctors, but the old biddy crochet club, who are one of Fionn’s only connections to some sort of life outside work. They’re also gossipy kindred spirits who aid Rose, and later Fionn, in their creation of a crocheted sex swing - be still my retro-loving crafty heart. And then there’s the Blood Brothers, more true to their name, the underground fight club that Fionn “volunteers” at once a month to keep his own beast at bay. This works for him until it doesn’t. When Rose, who spends the better part of the novel on crutches, is put in danger while ringside, it doesn’t go so well for the behemoth who's threatening her, one whom Fionn fells without a second thought. 

And don’t get me started on Barbara, the unsung hero of the novel. I never knew that my heart had a raccoon-sized hole that only this darling codeine-addicted (she’s been known to break into Fionn’s clinic) rodent could fill. Don’t worry, once Rose takes a shine to her she’s off the crack and on to other vices, like churros. 

After realizing, on the very night that the good doctor patches upon Sloane, Rowan’s lady love and serial killing sidekick, that they can’t fight their fiery chemistry, Rose and Fionn decide to engage in a friends-with-benefits situation (‘cause those always end well). But not before laying down some ground rules. You know, the usual. No kissing. No falling in love. No sleeping in the same bed. Very Pretty Woman. Who cares about these silly little rules that we know will fall by the wayside in a few mere chapters. When they’re getting to know each other Biblically and engaging in some pretty feral and carnal desires, I sure don’t.

Of course, shit has to hit the fan. As they fall deeper in love, or whatever they’re telling themselves this is, it’s clear that Rose’s acceptance of her murdery side doesn’t gel with Fionn’s determination to force himself back into the box of normalcy that he clearly was never meant to inhabit. Just as Rose, who’s relocated to Boston and thinking of putting down roots for the first time ever, and Fionn look like they’re going to admit what they haven’t been able to, even to themselves, their past catches up to them. In a scene that’s equally terrifying and hot as fuck, they finally make moves that ultimately tear them apart just as they’ve found their way to one another. And this, dear reader, is essentially where we left off in Leather and Lark. Rose bleeding out, unaware of Fionn’s own confession of love that comes just a bit too late.

What transpires makes for some heart ache but also unexpectedly beautiful admission of those feelings that Fionn’s kept locked alongside that darkness and secrets that have kept him from living all these many years. Though he’s an ocean apart from Rose and can’t tell her how or where to find him (Leander Mayes. That’s all I’m saying. IYKYK and I’m here for him and all his manic mobster murder vibes), Fionn does what he’s never been able to - open and then speak from his heart. Sending Rose letters, each with a tarot card that corresponds with his missive, Fionn signs each with a promise that he will never stop loving his murdering, mayhem-inducing “little sparrow”. Tears, y’all. Genuine tears. It made me long for the analog days of pouring your heart out on college-ruled paper. Of course, the letters work on Rose as much as they do on the reader and the two get their hard-earned HEA.

The real HEA, however, and maybe the best of the three love stories in the series, is the one among the Kane brothers themselves. By unburdening himself of the secrets he’s kept from his older brothers for essentially his whole life, Fionn’s able to be the man he was always meant to be. Upon hearing these confessions, Lachlan realizes that his determination and dedication to looking out for his little brother might have shackled him more than it supported him. And Rowan . . . well that dude’s still nuts, but lovably so. In not one but two epilogues (bless you, Brynne!), Weaver rounds out her trilogy with a loving embrace shared by the brothers, their spouses, and, so it seems, us. The love she has for the killer Kane boys is one I share, so much so that I just didn’t want to say goodbye. (Hopefully, if the appearance of a ghost from books past in the epilogue is any indication, I’ll get to see one or more of them in some way in the future.) Given my predilection for rereading (and rereading and rereading) my favorite books, I see these homicidal hotties in my future (that’s a fortune-telling joke, folks) either way. In fact, I think I hear Butcher and Blackbird calling my name . . .

Rating: 5 / 5 Rides on Crocheted Sex Swings