Laces: Boys of Hawthorne Asylum

February 25th, 2025 Rate: ⭐⭐⭐⭐Cry: 😭😭Spice: 🚫🚫🚫🚫🚫

"I wasn't sure if I should get a restraining order, or swoon..."

"Caressing the side of my cheek, as though I was the most fragile object in the world- and whispered, "I don't beg Stray, but you will."

 First of all, I am horrifically pissed off at Ms. Tempi Lark. Now, now readers don't start with me I will always explain. Before she ever starts her book, Lark tells us that this book will end in a cliff hanger. What you don't expect is for the cliff hanger to be where it is, because the book just starts to get good, right when it happens. I didn't want to read this book until the second book came out, but I just couldn't help myself. I wanted to know what kind of love could blossom in an Insane Asylum and I think with this series, I'm going to get more than I bargained for. But I digress...

This book is not meant for the HEA people. It is dark, it does have triggers especially if you have gone through what is talked about in this book. Shall we get started.

The book starts off with a newspaper clip, about a district attorney's stepdaughter being declared mentally unstable and being admitted to Hawthorne Asylum. It states in the newspaper clippings that Gambriella Evans had said she witnessed the murder of her older sister, by the hands of her step-father, district attorney Joe Evans. Gambriella claims that she was a witness to the murder, but because her step-father is a well-connected man, he gets everyone to side against her to make her look crazy. The crazy part is, her mother was the main key to her new extended stay to Hawthorne. Now no one believes her, and to add the worst of it, Gambriella is now locked up with the most notorious and famously unhinged persons in Hawthorne's Asylum.

Enter Lincoln "Laces" Caster, one of the Notorious 3 of Hawthorne. We aren't exactly sure why he is in Hawthorne, or of his background, all that we know is that it may have something to do with his ex-girlfriend Lexie, and Laces as he is affectionately called, likes to sketch. Sketch pictures of dead bodies. Gambriella calls him Hannibal Sketcher. For some reason he is drawn to Gambriella and he isn't sure why.

One of the main reasons Gambriella is sent to Hawthorne is to be broken. A nurse under the name of Kline, I'm pretty sure is in league with Gam's step-father Joe, wants Laces to drive her criminally insane so that way Gam ends up on the 4th floor with all the other suicidal patients in Hawthorne. Laces was on board but suddenly changes his mind, when he witnesses first-hand the trauma that was inflicted on Gam.

But the question remains, do they even like each other? or is Laces playing another game that no one else but him is privy to? Will Joe get away with murdering Gam's sister? What about Gam's mom? What did the cliff hanger mean??