Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Forgive Me Father
SERIES: Rebel Kings MC, Book 3
AUTHOR: Garrett Leigh
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 10 hours and 25 minutes
RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2023
BLURB:
“I gave my darkest secrets to a man who doesn’t exist.”
Embry: ” . . . you don’t understand.”
Mateo lowered himself to sit, still vibrating with the need to fix me, the way he always did. “Then tell me. Explain it like I’m the simplest idiot you’ve ever met.”
I can’t. I’d never told anyone. Not the judge, the jury, or the legal aid barrister who’d written me off before she’d ever met me. But as I drowned in Mateo’s affection, in a love I’d done nothing to deserve, the words came tumbling out.
Bad words. Dark words. Darker than sin. Darker, even, than Mateo’s battered soul and the secrets I didn’t know about yet. I thought those words would shatter me. Shatter us. But when the devil came for us, it wasn’t mine.
It was Mateo’s, and the man I’d trusted with my fragile heart was a stranger more broken than his scars could ever show.
Contains mature themes.
REVIEW:
In Devil’s Dance and Saint’s Song, the first two mesmerizing books in Garrett Leigh’s Rebel Kings series, I fell in love with Cam, Alexei, and Saint and their deep, complex, sexy AF MMM dynamic. These men hit me soul deep and it’s not often that I experience characters that way. Leigh now gives us the third Rebel Kings book, Forgive Me Father, and despite shifting focus and points of view from Cam, Alexei and Saint to Embry and Mateo, she doesn’t falter in weaving her spellbinding witchcraft.
Forgive Me Father is distinct and definitely has a different feel to it, yet at the same time, it embraces everything we love about the earlier books, predominantly the found family of the Rebel Kings. The true meaning of “brothers” takes center stage as Mateo and Embry fight their demons. They want to be together, but don’t think they ever can be in the way they want to be because of the scars on their bodies and in their souls. While both of these men appear extensively in the earlier books, I really never got a handle on them, especially Embry. I read him as much older in the earlier books, and this book gave me the context to correct that misimpression. Embry has lived lives, horrific ones, in his short time on earth. He’s an old soul, battered, beaten and scarred by past abuse that now haunts him both because of the acts themselves and for the action he took to avenge it. He’s also still reeling and healing after being gutted and left for dead in Devil’s Dance.
Mateo is a man burdened by Embry’s past trauma, battered by his own physical and emotional scars, and in a constant state of barely contained rage. Yet he holds himself in check, too much in check, to protect Embry. He’ll take Embry in any way he can, and it will always be enough for him.
This book has a slower start to it, mainly because we need the background on Mateo and Embry and their relationship. They are already in love but holding themselves back. They also both have secrets. But where Embry inadvertently and regretfully gives his secret up to Mateo, Mateo guards his secret at all costs, even from Embry. Like breadcrumbs, Leigh drops clues as to what that secret might be.
The book shifts in all aspects about halfway through when the secret is revealed. More of the action and suspense, like what we got in the earlier books, enter the picture. The pace picks up, and your heartbeat will too, racing alongside our beloved Kings as they embrace and protect their “brothers”.
Rubi gets a lot of airtime in this story, as set up to the next book Love Thy Brother which will feature his complex relationship with Cam’s estranged brother River. Leigh also builds up the presence of two new club members, Locke and Folk, and gives us some interesting tidbits about them that hint at mysterious histories and baggage that may either prove to be an asset to the Kings or come back to bite them. They’re getting their own stories, and I’m eager to learn more about them.
As noted in my reviews of the audiobooks of Devil’s Dance and Saint’s Song, Leigh achieves a delicate balance of darkness, grit, and violence tempered by sarcastic, deadpan humor and heartwarming, amusing, found family interactions between the MC brothers. Dan Calley takes this nuanced story with its competing elements and vivid characters and hits all of the myriad tones of the story, intuitively understanding what is meant to be funny without losing the underlying potent emotions of the characters and the scenes.
Calley’s technical precision and attention to the details of Leigh’s story are what stand out. Three books in, Calley knows these characters well, so even though Embry and Mateo’s viewpoints are new, Calley brings them to life the way Leigh intends. His portrayals are consistently and convincingly delivered with timbre and tone that is spot-on perfection and layered with accents that sound authentic.
Once you’ve heard these books through Calley’s vocal performance, there’s no going back. His portrayals of each character are unique and indelible. You won’t be able to read them without hearing them. This is what an audiobook should be. The pairing of sublime writing with transcendent narration creates a subsuming, unforgettable experience that you won’t want to end.
RATING: 
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